Time: 1017
Location:
Hayes, Va
Machicomoco State Park
37.298290824843896, -76.53727378638041
Weather:
8°C (46°F)
Cloudy w/ Light Rain
0.66 cm (0.26in) Rain [Looked up]
Light N air
Nature walk trip w/ Holly and Reba at Machicomoco State Park. Starting hike at the interprative area and hiking down the forestry trail then back to the interprative area via the loop trail.
Observations
Down the trail where it nears the watter we spotted our first animal trail. This was only maybe 100m down the trail. From that point another 5-10m down the trail was an open area in the tree growth where approximately 1m talk wildflower stalks who had already gone to seed and died back peppered the undergrowth.
Another 10 m from the wild flowers we spotted two seperate sets of mushorooms . One was a unidentified LBM (Little Brown Mushroom) that were growing in the pine needle litter at the base of a large Pinus taeda L. (Loblolly Pine). Just next to that growth maybe only 0.5m was a colony of what appeared to be Trametes versicolor (Turkey Tail Mushroom) growing on the bark of a small (~15cm in diameter) broken tree trunk. I took several photos of each mushroom and grabbed a sample of the T. versicolor to properly identify at home.
While I was photographing the mushrooms Holly snapped a photo of a small spiderweb covered in rain droplets.
Another 20m down the trail we heard the calls of American Crows and spotted a weird bushlike tree that we had originally identified on a previous trip but have sense forgot what it was. We took several pictures each to come home and identify. The berries on them are initially blakc or purple in small clusters. Parts of the stem/trunk are woody with new growth being pinkish or red in color and herbacious in growth.
About another 100m from this location we spotted yarrow growing on the ground at the trail edge. We attempted to spott a bird that was calling with a little peeping cheep in the trees but were unable to spot it.
At this point it was roughly 1200 and the rain had started to pick up. We opted to pick up our walking pace and reduce our stops so that we could finish the trail and make our way back to the car. We made it a bit further down the trail where we heard, and then spotted several Poecile carolinensis (Carolina Chickadee) and Sayornis phoebe (Eastern Phoebe). We heard the call of a song birdat one point and I recorded my mimic of it so I could attempt to identify it, but we are not sure what it could be as we only heard and did not spot it while we were at this location.
We completed the Forrestry trail and began our return hike. Rain had picked up quite a bit more and so we were almost soley focused on getting back to the car as we walked down the Loop Trail. We did however spot a Sialia sialis (Eastern Bluebird) and a male Cardinalis cardinalis (Northern Cardinal) about half way down the trail from the turn around. We also spotted many more smaller birds which fluttered from the ground into the thicker vegitation off the trail but we did not attempt to identify them.
All along the trail, from start until we reached the paved Loop Trail we spotted many burrows where an animal had tunneld under the trail, as well as lots of animal trails through the undergrowth. Some were very porbably the trails of White Tail Deer but this was speculation. We also spotted several types of ferns and many diffrent mosses, but again due to rain and cold we opted to return another time to make further observations and attempt to identify them.
Personal Thoughts
What are the short, fat loblly like pines?
What are the thick vines growing up some of the trees? [UPDATE: It is either Parthenocissus quinquefolia (Virginia Creeper) or Toxicodendron radicans (Poison Ivy). Will need to return to identify]
Collections Notes
Only a single sample of the possile T. versicolor (picture above) was taken.
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