4 1/2 hours on 133rd Ave and More!

2011 05 16 Yes I know I'm behind on the blog and I might just stop it because there is so much going on outside! 


Marie wanted to see what was blooming along 133rd Avenue in Allegan County.  Remember we have been here many times and there is a railroad bridge that you drive under (built in 1908).


As soon as we went under the railroad bridge we could hear the Amtrak train coming! We have wanted to see the train travel over this bridge for years, and today we saw it!

Marie and I spent 4 1/2 hours on an 8/10 of a mile stretch of 133rd Avenue.  We found many wildflowers just off the road on State property. 

                               Golden Ragwort

                                      Wild Geranium                  

                                       Marsh Marigolds

                                     Wild Columbine

        Horsetail, Scouring Rush, Take apart Plant

One-flowered Cancer Root (One-flowered Broomrape) Latin name Orobanche uniflora.
Wow I have only seen this plant one other time at Jubb's Bayou, these were growing right along the graded gravel road!

Cancer root is parasitic on other plants, so it has no need for green leaves.

Off we went to the place we now call Happy Boots,  M-40 and M-89.  Very wet woods where lots of wildflowers like to grow.  Again, remember we were here earlier this spring and I circled the Skunk Cabbage plants on one of my pictures? 

April 25 2011 Skunk Cabbage

Well this is that same area with the Skunk Cabbage done blooming but growing huge green leaves.

                                 Spring Beauty still hanging on.

 Purple Dead Nettle filling the fields, well this is just one.

   As we were on our way along some dirt road we came across these  lovely Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis ).  We also saw blooming Large-flowered Trillium, Dwarf Ginseng, Prickly Gooseberry, Aniseroot, Solomon's Seal, Cow Parsnip, violets, Miterwort.

Oh we also saw a Bittacomorpha clavipes!  See picture below.

      Common name is phantom crane fly

I hope you enjoy this post, it was fun thinking back to that day.

Deep in Gun Lake Tract

May 7 2012  Sometimes we have a destination pegged and researched before we leave for our weekly adventure, sometimes we decide as we pull out of the driveway. 
This week it was up in the air, Marie suggested Ebersol Environmental Center near Wayland Michigan.  Okay, sounds organized and maybe a bit fussy to me. 
Anyway we found Ebersol and were greeted with a big sign saying,
SCHOOL PROPERTY - NO TRESPASSING. 
So we left.

 We had read online about  Gun Lake Tract, a 360 acre area, with a loop trail, a peat bog, an emergent wetland, ooh sounds fun, just south of Gun Lake, so that's where we go.  I had done some research on this place but you never know what you will find.


We drove south of Gun Lake, parked, and nearby was a sign and a map. 

We couldn't take the map along so I took a picture of it and Marie quickly drew a rough sketch of the trail.  There was a peat bog marked on the map but as we soon found out most of the trails were obliterated. 


In we went and immediately we dove through a little woods to get to a wet area.  It's a beautiful woods, with ferns, Mayapples, frogs, trees, moss, and birds singing.  I like this place. 

We turned south (I think) and came to a small overgrown clearing.  I saw something low on a branch.  Was it bark?  A group of dried leaves? 

I pointed it out to Marie, who usually leads (and knocks down any spider webs).  She is a birder and recognized it as some sort of bird right off.  I finally saw some tail feathers. 

 The bird was sitting lengthwise on a low branch in an area crowded with young trees.  I didn't want to scare it off but I wanted a picture to help identify it.  I didn't get a very good shot but I thought maybe it was a Whip-poor-will, Marie thought a nighthawk.  What do you think it is?

We saw some pretty wildflowers.

We moved on in some unnoted direction, when we came to a post with an identification label on it for White Oak.  It also gave a few facts about the tree and what it is harvested for.  So at this point we must be on some sort of trail.


While Marie was studying some tree, she likes trees, I got ahead and a butterfly briefly landed on me.  It looked like a dried leaf then took off doing a rather wild fluttering.  It landed on a nearby tree.  I got a quick couple of snaps with the camera.  Later we did ID it as the largest of the Anglewings, a Question Mark butterfly! 

Somehow we ended up back near the car, so we savored a couple of chocolate chip cookies. 
We read the signs and studied the map anxious to get back out there.


We walked north under some power lines, we were following quad tracks.  It was a trail too though, so far.  This way took us out to the north crossroad, Wildwood Road.  Well we certainly didn't want to walk along some road!  Back in we go.  This time we turned south still trying to run into the peat bog.  We came to a point that we had been to earlier, sort of a trail then went west(ish). 


We continued to  follow a long, sort of road which was more of a creek. 

We heard the call of the Barred Owl, "Who cooks for you, all"!  We kept going and it was not easy but at that point, it was inconceivable to think about going back the way we came.   We plodded on.  We came to another tree with a label so at one time this was a trail, not a stream. 


Next we came to a big tree that had blown down and then we were more in the woods.  We were seeing plants blooming that kept us going and just the beauty of the woods, it was still fun.  So much green! 

 The trail turned southwest, I kept checking the compass and at this point I was sure we were on the trail loop marked on the map.  Pretty sure...   We were at this spot as far from the van as we could get, but Marie thought we were getting closer to the van. 

We were in an area that had more water than ground.  We stepped from hummock to  hummock, circling around the deeper wet areas.

Then the faint trail gave out, no obvious place to go.  We could see open sky and we sort of aimed for that, I felt we needed to turn north then east.  We were crossing over places with flowing water, as deep as our knee high boots.  The going got to be quite difficult, impenetrable almost.  We did use the compass.

Finally we got to firmer ground, but the bushes  didn't want to let us pass.  We actually found an east/west trail, perfect, head east to the car about one mile. We walked a long way then the trail dumped us out on Wildwood Road again.  This time we stuck to the road, then around the corner onto Marsh Road and back to the car.

                                        Caterpillar?

    Toad

I carry a compass (good thing today), I probably should carry the GPS in places like this.  We were OK and most of the time you could hear traffic noise, most of the time.  I have a fairly good sense of direction, usually. 
This was a fun adventure!

Dolan Trail, Maher Sanctuary, Barry County Fen

2013 05 13 Last week we drove about 60 miles from Grand Haven to the Dolan Trail in southeast Kent County.  Dolan Trail,  a 1.1 mile loop trail, property of Trout Unlimited, is along the Coldwater River.  We have been here before and, as last time, we were careful not to go too far on the North Country Trail, which is also here along the Coldwater River.

 Coldwater River in Kent County, Michigan

     Dolan Trail

This is the back side of a Wild Geranium...

There were signs of severe flooding, we did see wildflowers and the weather was cool (32 degrees) and sunny.

We enjoyed the Dolan Trail but I got in a bit of a hurry to move on.  Usually our day out together seems to go by fast.  We do try to savor the moment.  The weather was very nice and we walked more than a mile but then we moved on down the road into Barry County to Maher Audubon Sanctuary.

We saw trillium,

 

Two-leaved Miterwort ( Mitella diphylla),

   Cain Creek,

Marsh Marigold.

 

 After Maher we went west to a small fen.  Along the way we saw beautiful spring green trees and grasses.

Since it was a cold day we saved the fen for last, but still didn't find much blooming...

We did see that someone had cut down bunches of shrubs along the path and throughout the fen, including Nine Bark, which they left in piles everywhere.

 

                Golden Alexander (Zizia aurea) Carrot Family

                Swamp Valerian  (Valeriana uliginosa) Just buds...

 

Still some Marsh Marigold...

 



A beautiful day at the fen.