Scarlet Elf Cup

By: Frankie

What: Scarlet Elf Cup (Sarcoscypha coccine)

Ecological notes: Yet another gloomy day with temperatures in the mid 40s. It rained on and off through out the day and the soil was soft with fresh rain. I stumbled off the trail and noticed these bright red cups underneath a layer of maple leaves. I had never seen this species before. The small fruit bodies have brilliant red insides with a lighter beige color on the outside. The texture is rough and the cup waves in and out small enough to fit a pigeons egg.

Where: The forest behind Shelburne Pond

Other notes: The edibility of the Scarlet Elf Cup is unknown but it was used as a medicinal plant throughout history by the Oneida Indians. The fungus was dried, ground up and used as a styptic. It was also used for the navels of newborns after the umbilical cord was cut in order to heal it properly. Fruit bodies were used under bandages made of tanned deer skin. The fruit bodies have also been a noted food source for rodents in the winter and slugs in the summer.

Sugar Maple

By:Frankie

What: Red Maple (Acer Saccharum)

Ecological notes: I took the above photographs this afternoon around 1 pm in the woods at Shelburne Pond. Although I am not 100% positive I believe the buds to be a Sugar Maple (although I had previously thought Red Maple). The branching is opposite and I found a decent amount of maple leaves blanketing the ground. It was a gloomy day today and I found my eyes shifting to the tiny pops of color in the woods, a reminder that bloom is just around the corner. This particular tree was very young and I studied the buds carefully noticing the beautiful red and green hues. I am amazed how long I have gone in and out forests without really noticing the amazing beauty of one single bud. It really captures all of the feelings of shifting seasons from winter to spring.

Where: Forest at Shelburne Pond

Other notes: Sugar maple is a native species to hardwood forests of North America. It is beautiful during fall foliage and may be best known for . It is common among most types of soils (besides sand) and is the most shade tolerant of large deciduous trees. On young trees, the twigs like the one I have photographed above, are a reddish brown color. As the tree gets older its bark becomes darker and more rough in texture. The fruit of this tree is called a samara, which is an important food source for birds, squirrels, and other rodents. The Sugar Maple is well known for its maple sugar sap which provides us with delicious maple syrup. The earliest written accounts of maple sugaring were made in early 1600s by European explorers who observed Native Americans gathering maple sap. Its bark is often used for furniture and musical instruments like the guitar and violin.

Full Moon

What: A beautiful full moon arcing over the sky at Shelburne Farms. The first two shots show moon rise (around 10pm). The thin layering of altocumulus clouds produced the perfect setting for a beautiful irridescent corona. Coronas form around the sun as well, but the sun's bright light often obscures the optical light show. They are formed when light reflected off the moon is diffracted - when light bends around an object, which is different from refraction where light actually changes direction and speed - by individual water droplets. Thus the size of the aureole (the brighter inner white part) depends on the size of particles the light is bending around; the smaller the particles the larger the radius. The third image shows the moonset (around 6:15am).

Ecological notes: It was a beautiful night. We've had weather consistently around 40-50 during the day and 30 at night. The clouds have been light and beautiful the past couple of nights with brief glimpses of moonlight dancing between them.

Other notes: On Thursday, a friend's dad, Fred Homer, showed me the shells of a box turtle and a wood turtle. I read in a Joseph Bruchac book that turtles have 13 plates (called scutes) in the middle of the top of their shell (called a carapace, the bottom half is called a plastron). The central and coastal scutes are bordered by the marginal scutes. From another source, I remember reading that there are 28 marginal scutes. I only counted 25 around the edge and found that this number is far more plastic than the 13 central scutes. Bruchac, and many others, connect the 13 scutes to the 13 moons in a year. It would have been convenient to have 28 marginal scutes to connect to the 28 days in a lunar cycle. But alas, most of our turtles have 25 marginal scutes (only mud and musk turtles have 23).

Jefferson Salamander

By: Frankie

What: Jefferson Salamander (Ambystoma Jeffersonianum)

Ecological notes: The Jefferson Salamander is one of Vermont's three mole salamanders. This particular species has a solid gray brown body with tiny flecks of white on the underside of its body. Full grown, the Jefferson Salamander can reach up to 7 inches long. Salamanders are nocturnal but can be spotted during the day when it is mating season. This species is one of the first signs of Spring. The salamander pictured above was seen late March just as the snow melt was beginning to end.

Where: The Jefferson Salamander prefers a habitat of upland forest with well drained deciduous or mixed forest close to a pond or small stream. They hide under logs, loose soil and leaf litter, using the near by pond for reproduction during the early spring months.

Other notes: This particular species is listed as a threatened species in Canada because of loss of habitat. It can also be hard to identify because it hybridizes with the Blue-Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma Laterale).

Wood frog eggs (revisited)

What: Wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) eggs in a small side pond along Wool Pullery Brook. 

Ecological notes: Our cold weather the other night left a thin sheet of ice. The eggs above the water line froze and collapsed the next day when the weather warmed up. You can see this on the photo on the right. The other eggs seem to still be fine, though haven't shown much sign of development since I first spotted them (March 23rd).

Where: This little pond exists because the beavers dammed up the brook downstream raising the water table and flooding this little depression. If the beavers raise their dam just a couple of inches the pond will be connected to the brook and the fish might make quick work of the tadpoles.

Other notes: Wood frog eggs usually hatch between 10 and 30 days after deposition so we're still on schedule. The eggs are white below and black above. No algae has developed on the eggs yet (again probably because it's been so cold).