Back to Great Meadows and Gowings!

August 30, 2015
I went back to Gowing's Swamp to get better photos of the "animal house".  So you will see a closer shot and a shot giving the setting near the first kettle hole you come to as you go up the hill from the edge trail.  Then there are a few from Great Meadows...

The "door" is about 12" high and 6 - 8" across.  There was no skunk smell, (indicating a fox) but I may not have been close enough.

Here is the setting of the "house" as you go up the trail.

Cclose up of milk parsley seeds.  Click on photo to see detail - then click X to return to blog.

This bee (or wasp?) was going up and down, around the primroses. 

Anyone know what plant this is

Someone sprayed silver paint on several plants on the dike trail - from the entrance to the observation platform.  Strange.

August Beautiful

On August 22, 2015 I walked at Great Meadows and Gowings Swamp in Concord, early in the day.  I was hoping a bit of morning sun might peek through the grey cloud cover, but it did not cooperate.  Beauty abounds no matter the weather though.  Here are some of the photos I took. (Any information about the plants in the photos is thanks to what I have learned from Cherrie Corey, botanist, naturalist who runs environmental education programs and nature walks in the area.) 

The bench is overgrown with August's growth, looks like it's being eaten :)
The vine is climbing false buckwheat. 

Berries turning from white to green to dark blue against turning leaves.

Bumble bee on evening primrose.

Beautiful lotus with small white flowers.

Lotus and huge lily pads. 

Tiny pink flower - maybe showy tick trefoil.  This is 1/2 inch across at the most. 

Milk parsley.

 I have no idea what this tiny flower is. 

Some type of buckwheat - Ladies' thumbs maybe?

One of my favorite photos of the day due to the artistry of nature!  Buttonbush and bur cucumber.  The cucumber grows like an ivy wrapping around growth, and then sprouts spiked "cucumbers" that hold its seeds.

This may not look like much, but it is the start of an oxbow in the Concord River, the river turning left under the fallen tree.  Cherrie had mentioned that Thoreau had studied this very place.

A gloomy day, but then you run into cardinal flowers!  It grows on one stalk.  The ones I saw were from 2 ft to maybe 4 feet tall.  They grow in small clumps, mostly along the river.  I'm not an expert, but had never seen so many in my years of going there.  There are more photos of them below.

A "patch" of cardinal flowers in different phases and heights along the Concord at this beautiful wildlife refuge.

Touch-me-not, also known as jewelweed.  Supposedly if touched, the seed pods explode out, thus the name of the flower.

A cardinal flower with more petals, with water reflections in the background.

Not many folks this morning on the primrose-lined trail!

Swamp rose mallow

Thank you for visiting!