yellow flowers and a black-and-yellow turtle

We have a mini-grove of Evening Primrose with a couple of dozen plants coming up. Instead of cutting them back with the grass, I let them grow, expecting a bonanza in the form of primrose flower garden but these plants sprouted up to five and six feet in height without producing a single flower -- at least until last night when two or three flowers appeared. Now, hopefully, they are starting to bloom.

Also starting to bloom are the local goldenrod -- Rough-stemmped Goldenrod or Solidago rugosa. The Pokeweed at the trailhead for the Sam and Frances Salzman Preserve (the far half of our property) has now formed a huge thicket of flowering and purple-berried plants, some of the well over six feet tall. It's quite an experience to push through this thicket which, along with the surrounding Pileweed, creates an exotic look to the landscape.

A giant Common Mullein, also rather odd-looking, has a bent main stalk and several new stalks coming out of the curve -- all with flowers. Yellow is the color of the season.

A young Yellowthroat (perhaps the same one as the other day) was trying to sing the Yellowthroat song and not quite getting it right. Northern Waterthrushes are still in residence and a small flycatcher was almost certainly a Willow (perhaps the same one seen the other day).

This morning's rain cut short my walk but brought out a very handsome black-and-yellow Box Turtle of considerable size. I also found another young specimen -- not quite as small as the one seen a week or so ago but just a couple of inches across.

Eric Salzman