This week in the woods, we’ve been enjoying the company of little wood satyrs. These early summer forest butterflies will be gone by mid-July, so now is the time to look for them in forest openings. According to their species profile in the Vermont Center for Ecostudies’ Vermont Atlas of Life, the butterflies are often associated with areas that have limey soil – which explains why we often see them near maidenhair ferns. Like many other forest butterflies, they feed on tree sap and rotting things.
Common yellow wood sorrel contains oxalic acid, which gives its leaves a sharp, lemony taste. While we don’t recommend making a salad of it (oxalic acid is a concern for people with kidney disease, for example), a nibble along the trail can be a reward for a bored child. Another fun fact about this species – the heart-shaped leaves fold at night. Note: these plants are taller, more spindly stalked and smaller leaved than northern wood sorrel, a related species.
It’s always exciting to see common milkweeds cropping up in the fields, with all the promise of mid-summer monarchs and other pollinators. If you inspect the young plants, you may see early signs of insects arriving for the party, including fuzzy white splotches under the leaves, such as this one. This is an egg case of a milkweed tussock moth, a.k.a. milkweed tiger moth which, if all goes well, will produce a batch of tiny caterpillars. As they develop into later instars, these caterpillars become cute, furry, orange, black and white critters that one reader memorably described as “striped shih tzus.” Another fun fact: Adult milkweed tussock moths – which like their caterpillars are steeped in milkweed cardiac glycosides – give off ultrasonic signals that warn away bats.
Here come the spittle bugs! And here comes yet another reference to one of our favorite Outside Story essays, A Jumping Champ in a Bubble Bath, by Li Shen. Spittlebugs, a.k.a. froghopper nymphs, exude bubbly foam out of their backsides, which they use as a hideout from predators and insulation.
One of our remote woods cameras captured this bobcat on the move. Just as your cat enjoys a stroll along the kitchen counter, bobcats often use elevated pathways such as logs and stone walls, to move across the landscape. No doubt this gives them a wider view, and helps them move more quietly.
Finally, if you’re out in an unmowed field or other weedy place, chances are you’ll find common yarrow in bloom. This member of the aster family isn’t much celebrated as a pollinator plant, but we see native bees and moths on it, and it has the virtue of being exceptionally tough – able to grow in poor, dry soils that would doom many other wildflowers.
What have you noticed in the woods this week? Submit a recent photo for possible inclusion in our monthly online Reader Photo Gallery.