Dad and I took turns washing the house as the machine is pretty powerful and your arm gets tired after a while holding the gun up and aiming it around. While it was dad's turn I usually sat down on the lawn and watched. One time while I was doing this I lay down and propped myself up on my elbows and happened to notice that there were a large number of small ephemeroptera (mayflies) flying a few feet off of the lawn; my parents' house is just across the street from a river. The flies were about 1cm long (about size 10-12 hooks if you tied imitations) and had dusky-gray wings. I told my dad, who is an avid fly-fisherman and expert fly-tier, and he told me they were most likely what fisherman call a Quill Gordon (Epeorus pleuralis). This fly is named after the famous fisherman Theodore Gordon and the quill part of the name comes from the fact that the body of the fly is composed of a stripped feather quill. These are usually some of the first mayflies to hatch in our area and it was nice to see that even though the river was high, nature was still carrying on her usual course.
When we finished washing the house we took mom out for dinner with some friends to a nice place over in Cobleskill. We returned home around 8pm or so and I decided I'd go for a walk out in the fields behind the house. I had planned when I left home this morning to bring my boots, camera, and headlamp so this time I was a bit more prepared. About a 15 minute walk out from the house is a little slough that never freezes and represents an old channel of the creek. I was always fascinated by this spot while I was growing up and I would imagine that the indians who lived here would camp around this spot as it always had clear water. Anyway, the peepers were amazing out here and I got to see some other neat things as well.
First thing that happened was I flushed some ducks. There have always been ducks here as long as I can remember. Now, the REALLY COOL thing that I SWEAR happened tonight was this: When the ducks took off I looked where the sound was, saw a black spot against the sky and there were little static-electric sparks. I'm guessing this was because the feathers of the duck were rubbing past one another, but, WOW this was really neat to see sparking ducks flying away!
Next I blundered my way through some of the brush and squatted next to the water. After a bit I decided it didn't look that deep and, having my boots, I figured I was all set to wade around a bit and see what I could find. Needless to say the bottom was quite mucky and I sank nearly to the top of my boot. While this was happening I spotted something moving in the water and it turned out to be a big spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum). It was about 6" long with a black body and two rows of yellow spots running down the back. These are relatively common in forested areas and need ponds to reproduce. I got some pretty good pictures of the salamander.
I made my way across the slough and followed the sound of some peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) and was able to spot the little fellows. I nabbed some ok pics and then found a biggish toad (Bufo americanus) crawling through some brush and what I think was a Green Frog (Rana clamitans melanota) sitting in the water. Eventually I went in over my boot for a second and my left foot was squishy the rest of the night. I wandered around a bit more and eventually came upon some peepers out in the open, i.e.: not hiding under grass, and was able to get some more pictures and even a short video. These little guys are SO cute when the inflate their 'necks' and go peep peep peep! It was nice to go back over my old haunts and I was psyched to see the salamander and the sparking ducks. Two nice night-hikes down, many more good ones to follow I hope.
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