Summer arrives

On my calendar, summer arrives when I hear the first nighthawk buzzing overhead in the dusk.  It happened late on Saturday evening, as I prowled a mosaic of outcrops, forest and beaverponds for the Carp Hills Bio-blitz.  I'd sweated through a cool, but strangely humid day:  first at a City Streamwatch training session with Thomas, and then hunting under stones across the rock barrens for snakes.  Hearing the unmistakable buzz above me, I looked up -- not far enough, at first (nighthawks always seem to fly higher than I expect) -- but then I spotted the angular shape of the bird, with its peculiar, erratic flight.

To me, nighthawks and chimney swifts seem irrevocably associated with the pleasures of summer.  Perhaps because they appear most active in the evening -- the long, cooling evenings of June and July, when the soft light of the low sun still shines, but the heat of day has reluctantly given way to more gentle temperatures.  The neighborhood becomes more quiet and the streets more intimate.  Voices carry a little further from the porches under frontyard maples.  People visit across the street.  Laughter comes more frequently and more melodious.  And all the while, the chimney swifts chitter and dart about the rooftops, while the nighthawks buzz and dip above the swifts.  Later, much later, when the birds have roosted for the evening, the long sunset has deepened to turquoise and then to indigo, and the streetlights pool silver on the pavement, perhaps a bat appears to flitter in and out of darkness, chasing moths.  Cares drop away, and a lazy saunter down an empty, darkened street becomes a meditation.

As for the results of the Carp Hills Bio-blitz, I believe that the organizer, Linda McCormick, felt well-pleased.  I look forward to the summary, although I think that the cool weather probably reduced the number of sightings -- especially for the reptiles.  In the afternoon, I concentrated on snakes, turning over rock after rock across the barrens and beside the beaverponds, hoping for milksnakes and ribbon snakes.  Alas, disappointment again.  In the evening, I visited the west edge of the South March Highlands, hoping to hear whip-poor-wills along the ridge and to find Blanding's turtles venturing in search of nesting sites.  Again, disappointment, although I enjoyed the distant call of a barred owl and the serenade of hermit thrushes and veerys.

Once again, I didn't bother to keep a running list of species, preferring to concentrate on my search for a few species at risk.  However, from memory, here's a partial list of what I saw and heard.

• White-tailed deer (one sighting, abundant scat) 
• Ruffed grouse (Carp Hills)
• Turkey vulture (Carp Hills)
• Barred owl (SMH, on the west ridge)
• Common nighthawk (Carp Hills and SMH)
• Common flicker (Carp Hills)
• Eastern kingbird (Carp Hills)
• Great crested flycatcher (Carp Hills)
• Yellow-bellied flycatcher (Carp Hills... identified by sight and song)
• Gray catbird (Carp Hills)
• Veery (SMH, north of Shirley's Brook)
• Hermit thrush (SMH, north of Shirley's Brook)
• Red-eyed vireo (everywhere)
• Gold finch (Carp Hills, residential back yards)
• Yellow warbler (Carp Hills)
• Common yellowthroat (Carp Hills)
• Ovenbird (Carp Hills)
• Scarlet tanager (Carp Hills) 
• Garter snake (Carp Hills)
• Ring-necked snake (Carp Hills)
• Pink lady's slipper (Carp Hills, abundant)
• False solomon's seal (Carp Hills)
• Canada mayflower (Carp Hills)
• Hairy solomon's seal (Carp Hills)
• Dry pussytoes (Carp Hills and SMH)
• Bunchberry (Carp Hills)
• Pale corydalis (Carp Hills and SMH)
• Indian cucumber root (Carp Hills)
• Foamflower (Carp Hills)
• Wild columbine (Carp Hills and SMH)
• Wild strawberry (Carp Hills and SMH)

 On my next visit to the rock barrens in either the Carp Hills or the South March Highlands, I intend to devote much of my time to mosses and lichens.  The abundance and diversity of mosses and lichens astonishes me.  But where, I wonder, have I put my hand lense?