Queen Annes County, MD (10/4)

[Pierre A Plauzoles]

Mark Walker wrote:

> What a delightful day in the Capitol region.  High in the mid-80's F.  I
> couldn't get out until after 2:00 p.m., but there were plenty of
> butterflies.  I walked an old abandoned train track - tripped and fell when
> my feet got tangled in vine and bramble.  I'm sure it looked pretty stupid -
> but fortunately there were no humans to witness it.  When I got back up, I
> was covered in these needle-like seed pods.  That made me look even more
> stupid.  Took me an hour to pull them all out (terribly stuck in all the
> nooks and crannies).
>
> It's a good thing I didn't fall minutes before, while walking across the
> dilapidated trestle.  Every fourth railroad tie was missing, and every other
> tie was badly rotted.  The trestle was about 30 feet above very shallow
> water - seeping with ooze and other nasties.  Plenty of vine and brambles
> here, too.  And wasps!  Talk about stupid.

It is nice that you did not.  It is also nice that you stayed out of that stuff
because streambeds often contain poison oak and/or posion sumac and nettles as
well.  Neither is any fun to deal with, to say nothing of the rattlers and
copperheads.

> If you want to enjoy nature, you've gotta take your knocks.  It's certainly
> not for the faint-hearted.  Apparently, not for the supremely-intelligent,
> either.
>
> It looks like the good weather is on it's way out.  Hail and thunderstorms
> tonight, and 30 degree cooler temperatures slated for the weekend.  Anyway,
> it was good to get out.
>
> Here's the rather short list:
>
> Papilio glaucus (Eastern Tiger Swallowtail)
> Papilio troilus (Spicebush Swallowtail)

[....]

Thanks for the report.  It is nice to know that there are still some leps out
there.