This Sunday afternoon was a beautiful day to spend nearly 2 hours making my way around the park. I took close to 100 photos today of everything from insects and fish and birds and even to plants! There are a LOT of neat plants and flowers out this time of year and I thought it would be good to document some things photographically and then try to figure them out later. I'll get to those here in a bit but I wanted to first share a couple other interesting photos –of which I have more than usual to post today! First on the south side of the park, I again spotted a Raccoon curled up inside the Wood Duck house.
This time his head was about half out of the box and I could tell that he was trying to take a nap. As I stepped in just a bit closer for a photo, one eyed opened and seemed to express his annoyance at me for waking him up! Critters have obviously chewed up the entry hole in this particular box, making it large enough for them to get inside. Though I saw a host of beautiful birds today including Common Yellowthroat, Indigo Bunting, Cedar Waxwing, Downy Woodpecker, House Finch and Robin, the one bird I wanted to post was this Chipping Sparrow. I rarely get close to this bird but today this one walked right up to me on the paved trail.
At this distance I could really see the features distinguishing it from other sparrows; a smooth gray breast (without the dark spot of an American Tree Sparrow), and a bright rusty brown crown. Harder to see in this photo but both the upper and lower bill are the same dark color, also unlike the American Tree Sparrow. OK, so now for some plants! Plants are definitely NOT my specialty, but I am slowly learning things here and there. From posting to this blog for close to 5 years now, I've learned that I can take a few photos of something and then learn what it is later on my own time. This method of "shoot first and ask questions later" has become my mantra and is the same way I've come to learn my birds and mammals. So I have 3 plants here that at the time of photographing, I did not know the species. And now that I do I can share here and hopefully remember in the future! This first is actually one I should've guessed myself as I'm familiar with it's "spikey watermelon" fruit seen later in the year.
It is indeed Wild Cucumber which is kind of a creeping vine. In parts of the park I've seen it grow up the sides of other trees to nearly 30 feet tall! This plant was just beginning to flower and thus I did not recognize it yet. This next plant I found interesting because of it's many miniature white flowers with 5 petal. In between each petal is a stamen –I think. Even the stalk of this plant is unique and reminds me of a fireworks bursting in the sky.
I had to have a friend identify this one for me and it is called Water Parsnip. There are a number of other plants that look very similar and can be differentiated by the number of leaves that grow at the base of where it branches off near the top. This one here with yellow flowers took me a LOT longer to identify. I actually posted it to the
Minnesota Wildflowers facebook page to ask for their help and they wrote me back within only hours! As far as they can tell (without good photos of the leaves) it appears to be something called Tall Hedge Mustard. Near the bottom of the photo where it is blurry you can barely make out what look like "flower-less" stems which would be the seed pod and a way to identify the plant.
Something I've learned now about plant ID is that it's hard to do solely by just one part of the plant. To conclusively ID it you would want to look at the flowers, the stems and especially the leaves as they can vary greatly even between two seemingly identical plants! OK I have just one more plant photo to share today and it is one that I actually know and can identify easily on my own. It is called Bittersweet Nightshade and is mostly known for it's bright, tiny purple flowers. This is a very common plant and can even be found in your yard or garden. It is also a creeping vine and will produce small brightly colored red berries. I've seen these berries stay bright red into mid-winter season even. In this photo it is in the early stages of producing the berries and most are green or in some stage of turning red. In this sense they remind me of tiny little Tomatoes, though you would NOT want to eat them.
Bittersweet Nightshade is known for being toxic to some degree. Though you would not likely die from eating, it could make you sick. I have heard of young children and pets becoming ill after ingesting them. P.S. if you are more experienced with these particular plants I more than welcome any corrections or clarification on my facts here. Again I am still learning but having lots of fun doing so!
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