Good evening, friends,
It’s been dry out there, historically dry. Barring unforeseen showers, October 2024 will go down as the driest month in Hudson Valley history. Further, Central Park hasn’t recorded a measurable rain fall this month - the first month with no rain since they started taking measurements back in 1869.
Of course, as I started to type this (Tuesday, 6PM) it started to rain. The situation is fluid (😉), I don’t know how much precipitation we’ll get, but any and all is much, much needed. That’s what’s great about the natural world. We think we have it all figured out, the phone weather application says there’s no chance of rain today, and then next thing you know it’s raining.
I was planning on writing about the most shriveled up, desiccated mushroom you’ve never heard of (Hymenochaete rubiginosa) which I found on a log last week. However, they’re so old I’m not even sure if they are the species I think they are, so instead I want to talk about some other fascinating ecological encounters I’ve had while looking for mushrooms. This is an idea I’ve kicked around for a presentation so we’ll consider this the dress rehearsal, but I’m eager to talk about what else you can find when you’re out in the woods.
Invasive species
Alright, maybe not the best lead off but right now is a particularly good time to find invasive plant species in your local woods or park. In late fall, these non-native plants tend to hold their leaves longer than natives and subsequently continue to photosynthesize while the natives are dormant. Below, basically all the green and yellow leaves you see are from the invasive Norway maple (Acer platanoides), while all the native sugar maples have bare branches at this time.
Channel Catfish
While ripping out a different invasive species, Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica), I stumbled upon a swarm of flies. Upon closer examination, I noticed the mud was moving and I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking at. After a few seconds I realized there was a fish caked in the mud, still attempting to breathe.
I was relatively close to water - a small, shallow stream that doesn’t carry fish (to my knowledge) - but I picked up the fish and moved them into the water so they could at least breathe.
The fish was too far gone and was floating there the next day. I was still curious as to where it came from and how it got there. My best guess is that it was caught by a bird, perhaps a bald eagle fishing the Hudson River, and then dropped by the bird when flying over. There was also a large tree nearby from where the bird could’ve dropped the fish. An alternative possibility is that the fish was washed down from a deeper pool upstream. We’ll never know.
Otters
This summer I saw a couple river otters in the tidal marsh on the preserve.
Lanternfly ecology
We’re just starting to get spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) up at the preserve. We have some mature tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima) on which the insects congregate and suck the sap from the trees. Throughout mid-summer up through now, I’ll walk by an area where the forest floor, and even understory, surrounding some of these larger tree of heaven is black. This curious discoloration is from the honeydew (sugary excrement) excreted by the lanternflies landing on the ground and surrounding foliage, and a dark-colored mold (a fungus) consuming the honeydew. The mold can impact photosynthesis on smaller plants since it covers their leaves.
Bees, flies, and other insects are also attracted to the abundance of free, abundant sugar. In addition to the mold, the sugary circumference surrounding the trees is typically a lively, diverse area of insects. A beekeeper in Pennsylvania even noticed that his honey started to look darker and researchers determined it was lanternfly honeydew honey.
Sapsucker holes in sugar maples
A similar occurrence happens when a yellow bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) feeds on living trees. The sapsucker will drill holes in the wood, wait for sap to ooze out, and then return to the holes to feed on the sugary liquid. Many insects will also find their way to these holes to feed on the sap. This picture was from January and ants were crawling in and around the fresh holes (hard to see from the photo).
Ichneumonid wasp
Formally known as Greene’s Giant Ichneumonid wasp (Megarhyssa greenei), this charismatic female wasp uses her large ovipositor (the black, tail-like appendage inserted into the wood) to lay eggs in the larva of a sawfly (Tremex columba). The wasp eggs hatch and the wasp larva consumes the sawfly larva. The wasp larva tucks into the bark of the tree and pupates (turns from a larva into a wasp). There’s also an interesting relationship with ichneumonids and the mossy mazegill polypore (Cerrena unicolor) which I wrote about here.
Ants eating mushrooms
These ants, and one slug, were found eating a Pluteus mushroom. Paul Stamets notes that bees will eat fungal mycelium potentially for health benefits so I wondered if these ants were interested in some of the antimicrobial compounds in the mushroom, or if they were just hungry and the compounds were a positive externality.
Fawn
During the first week of a fawn’s life, the mother doe will bring the newborn to a tucked away spot and have them bed down there for the day. The infant deer is too young to run away from predators so it’s safer for them to hide quietly in one spot. The mother will only return briefly to feed them and/or move them to a new spot. When I saw this little doe I just turned around and walked the other way - no need to interfere. The fawn was gone the next day.
Well gang, that’s just a handful of what else is out there. It’s fun to look around and hypothesize about all that is going on. I think it’s comforting to realize there’s more life in just the bark of a tree than we can even fathom, let alone a whole forest.
It’s now Wednesday evening and while it rained for an hour on Tuesday, I didn’t see too much fungal activity today. We’ll see if we can’t manifest some more rain, and hopefully mushrooms, for next week.
Have a happy halloween and we’ll hopefully be back to a regular MM or TT next week,
Aubrey
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