kemper's Favorites

As we know, Acorn Woodpeckers - (Melanerpes formicivorus), can be very loud with their vocalizations, which caused me to look up. In the first photo, a territorial dispute is in progress between two Acorn Woodpeckers, while another watches from below. In the second photo, I believe one Acorn Woodpecker dived bombed another while being upside-down, and to the side of the other, as one bird is back side up, and the other is belly side up. At first I didn't know what I was looking at in the second photo. What do you see?

Decided to collect seeds from the Solomon’s plume this year. They require double stratification but what the heck, I’m very comfortable with failure.

What I like about this plant is that I found it in much smaller numbers, limping along 15 years ago when I first started clearing invasives like honeysuckle. The seed bank under invasives has never gotten better in southwest Ohio, only worse. This means that the natives that have managed to persist amidst this flood are particularly important. The reason for their persistence must be either geography or genetics.

If the reason is genetics, it might be more important to propagate natives from the exact places where invasives are the worst.

4th pic - what the seeds looked like after being removed from the pulp and just before the first stratification.

@stevejones This is the first time I've seen this beauty. It matches this sighting so I went with it:

Zeltnera nudicaulis
https://swbiodiversity.org/seinet/taxa/index.php?taxauthid=1&taxon=3635&clid=1

I couldn't find it in the Preserve checklist and wondered if it's new to the list?

Hope to get a sharper photo some day

My friends, this isn't something you see everyday...I think I slipped into flower nirvana when I saw this.

Fasciated Canada lily, over 50 flowers on a single stalk; single plant in weedy moist thicket along railroad.

On newly planted White Oak/Q. alba sapling. I saw this gall, one of serval, on the leaves when this tree was still balled and burlaped. According to Green-Wood's Curator of Living Collections, this sapling came from a nursery in Millstone, NJ, about 45 miles to the SSW from here.

This is one way gall wasps are introduced into the green heart of Brooklyn.