I love waterfalls, and take pictures of them when I find them on my rides. Northeast of Bloomington, Bean Blossom creek flows north to northwest until it flows into the West Fork of the White River. One Sunday, Jojo and rode along Bottom Road. Its about five miles of “flat” riding up to the intersection of Woodall Road. Woodland Road heads west off of Woodall, and rises out of the valley, and which intersects Barr Road. We took that back east, and it dropped into the valley, where to our suprise we found a dry waterfall with a large pool. It was quite interesting how the water was totally contained by large rocks, even though it was dry uphill and downhill from the site. My camera had a finger smudge, so my pictures aren’t that great, but I posted them anyhow.
We rode on Delap Road, which runs west and north along the ridge for a while, offering some great views of the Bean Blossom valley. We passed a farm with peacocks and llamas, very scenic in the early evening sunlight. Where Delap drops into the valley we found a cascade/waterfall, probably spring fed, as it was running strong, and had good growth of stream moss. We stopped to explore, and found that there were two parts, dropping about 15 feet total. This video should give you an idea of what if was like:
On Sunday Eileen and I took a walk at the Griffy Nature Preserve, and even though it had been dry for the past week, we found a plethora of mushrooms along the trail. First up were several varieties of Boletes, most with a yellow pore surface (they have pores rather than gills.) None were the desirable Boletus edulis, which has a white pore surface.
Next we came upon a log covered with oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus), and although I’ve seen them cultivated, but this is the first time I’d found them wild. They on several logs along the path, it was amazing to see so many.
The best find of the day was the lactarius indigo, afaik, the only blue mushroom in the midwest. I’ve not seen one for a decade, and here there were several specimens along the path. They are edible, but we did not take any. They had been knocked over by a previous hikers, so I got some good pictures of the otherworldly color of their gills.
The other morning I came out of our house (half a block from Atwater), and found this guy munching on our bird food, and just snacking on anything he could find. What, me worry? He walked forward and sniffed in my direction, so I did the same, it was a standoff. I went my way, and he did the same.
Jojo and I have been out yakking and canoeing on Lake Monroe this August, and reecently we got to watch a full grown (big) bald eagle circle above us. The wings were significantly larger that a buzzard, and we could clearly see the white head and tail. I grabbed the camera and got this low-res, fuzzy view, but you can make out the white, and the silhouette is all eagle.
The next week, we saw one in a dead tree overlooking the water. We paddled past and stopped to go swimming. After a while we saw one, then another eagle fly over head. First we heard a very unusual calls from the trees where we saw the first eagle, a descending series of resonant tones. The the other full grown and a juvenile were on the shore opposite us, and they called back. We were just out of the water when one of them circled above us, and then flew to the other side of the bay, and dived at the water. We didn’t see anything in the claws, but we were not sure.
Shirley Springs is a great place to visit in the summer. I stopped by on the way back to the Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard ride headquarters at Karst Farm Park on Saturday. The Leonard Springs Nature Park is a couple of miles southwest of the square on Leonard Spring Road. It has 95 acres of woodland ridge and valley, and several springs. There is an iron walkway from the top of the ridge to the emergence of the Shirley Springs about half way down.
Stairs to Shirley Springs
The water was cold and refreshing on a 90 degree day, and with the recent rains, running at full force. This spring I found the small white Trillium grandiflorum all along the hillside. The valley used to be a lake (which supplied city water for a few years), and as a wide variety of vegetation.
Chicken of the Woods, Polyporus sulphureus is a parasite of oak trees, but we found this specimen along Maple Grove road northwest of Bloomington. It was growing on the north side of a single oak tree, and had such great color, it was easy to spot.
This specimen ended up cooked with homegrown beet greens and garlic, a great orange, red, yellow and green meal. I didn’t feel bad about picking most of it, the mushroom cause brown rot in the heartwood, leading to the eventual collapse of the tree. A variation or subspecies of the chicken musrhoom, Laetiporus cincinnatus was described in 1998 by Tom Volk at Univ. of Wisconsin. It’s main distinguishing feature is a white pore surface underneath, rather than the typical bright yellow of Polyporus sulphureus.
I began the relaxing hobby of bee petting couple of years ago, after reading about the idea in one of Tom Brown, Jr.’s books. (This is not for you who allergic to bees, you know who you are.)
It helps to have love in your heart for the bees, they are very cute, and important in the web of life. They act a bit like cats, standoffish and cool, obviously they have better things to do than mess with humans. But they will allow you to pet them, if they have time!
I’ve been petting bumble bees at Sprouts Garden in the hyssop and mint patch. These are big ones with lots of fuzzy hair, black bodies with a yellow spot on the back that is widely variable in size, shape and intensity of color. They flit from flower to flower, grasping the plant with with there four back legs. Once settled, they extend their probiscus into the tiny flowers. Then they use their smaller front legs to pull the flower up over their heads so they can reach the nectar at the bottom, it is quite amusing to watch.
Most of them are predominantly black, but there are some like this one below, who are mostly yellow. Some have all black thoraxes, others are striped as below. Some are big, some little, and all are busy (as a bee).
Yellow head bumble bee on anise hyssop
These are such focused little creatures! I sometimes accidentally push them off route while trying to pet them. They make an extra buzzing sound, then rush off to the next flower. They are not easily diverted from their tasks, even by a giant trying to stroke their fuzzy little backs. Stinging me is the last thing on their tiny minds, of this I am sure.
While visiting Pine Grove at Lake Monroe, I walked up a ravine about 50 feet, and was surprised by a rather large bird on the ground. It was mostly white, with some black trimming the wings. It was the size of a chicken, maybe a bit larger, with fuzzy fledgling feathers. When it saw me, it retreated under a stone ledge. It made an incredible hissing sound with two distinct tones, I at first thought there were 2 animals there, the other hiding deeper under the ledge.
I ran down to my bike and grabbed by camera, and came back. I turned off the flash so I would not scare it, so these pictures are not very clear. I could see that it had three claws in front and one is back. It’s beak was not long like a heron, which was my first guess, but rather curved like a raptor’s. But who knows I could not make out the legs well enough to tell if it was a wading bird. We had seen an adult blue heron fly away from this area ealier, which made me think this was the important clue.
We were afraid that critters would get the fledgling that night, so we biked up to the Paynetown ranger office, and told them about it, they said Rex Watters would look into it, I hope he did. After talking to several folks there, we thought perhaps it was a baby osprey! But again, I just don’t know, so anyone has a clue, please leave a comment.
It was the longest day of the year Sunday, and Jojo and I took a ride to Lake Monroe to cool off. As we were walking along the shore line, Jojo spotted several colonies of Bryzoans (Pectinatella magnifica) in the water. We had found them two years ago, but last year the water was high all summer, and we found just one small colony.
These animals filter water for bacteria and clay, and although they look very strange, but they actually help water quality. Pectinatella magnifica is the fresh water version of the bryozoan family, which has been on earth since the Ordovician period, nearly 486 million years ago. This means they are one of the oldest animal familys, along with their cousins the corals. The colonies are gelatinous, with the creatures living along outside. They have retractable tentacles that grab tiny particles in the water. We lifted one out of the water, and it seemed to be filled with water. They are reputed to have and oder that repels fish, but we did not smell them.
Here are a couple of videos of them bobbing in the water, and here are some photos.
On Sunday morning, Jojo and took one of our bike loops to Lake Monroe, and it was the single biggest bird day I’ve ever had. By late May most of our migraters are back and nesting. We stopped for a moment on the trail that overlooks Jackson Creek, and watched while a pair of Mallard ducks waddled into the water and started floating down stream.
Once back on the road, and close to the lake, the birds started showing themselves. First bluebird flew right in front of me, then we saw some goldfinches. Riding through the woods I heard the unmistakable sound of a red-breasted grosbeak (chick-burr) and then a vireo in the upper story of the trees. I often hear woodpeckers, even in town we have flickers and downy woodpeckers at our feeder, but in the woods we get lucky and see the large pileated woodpecker.
So early the next day, I was outside our house moving the recycle bins, and to my surprise, a Cooper’s Hawk swooped over my head and landed in a low branch. The birds in the surrounding trees were twittering up a storm, and I could see why, the hawk had an adult starling in its claws, and was just waiting around to see if he was going to be hassled. He then flew to another tree, and from there I suppose to Dunn’s Woods, were I know a pair is nesting. (I am not being grammatically sexist, the males are noticeably smaller that that females.)
My other amazing encounters this month were a great blue heron flying up from one of the ponds in Miller-Showers park, a catbird in our neighborhood, a cedar waxwing near the Von Lee, and a broad winged hawk over the Hoosier Forest.
