Bass River Recreation Area, Connor Bayou

June 24 2013
This adventure was to Bass River Recreation Area to look for a Twayblade orchid.  Marie and I have several special places in Bass River Rec Area.  One area we have found Nodding Ladies' Tresses and Loesel's Twayblade, both of the orchid family.  This is a low wet area tucked away from the trails. 

We saw many wildflowers, here are just a few...

Prunella vulgaris, one of our favorites

We did find Loesel's Twayblade, it is very small and I didn't get a great picture.  It is in the orchid family and it is difficult to find.  So seeing it again this year among all the green was fun.

The name honors Johann Loesel, a seventeenth century Prussian botanist.
The distribution range in the United States is the northeastern states to Alabama and the midwest, Washington. The distribution range in Canada is British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Saskatchewan. This orchid can also be found in Europe.

On to another super secret place at Bass River Rec. Area, where in September we find Closed Gentian blooming.

Here we found Moneywort (Lysimachia nummularia) Primrose family.
Moneywort was introduced from Europe (long ago), this perennial plant is a non-climbing vine up to 3' long that freely branches at the base.

 Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnate) The color was perfect on these flowers.

 



This is another area down a long two-track, this pond was completely dry last year.

We saw a large patch of  Foxglove (also Tall or White) Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis).

We saw tons of frogs and tadpoles here, really probably thousands!

Lots of dragonflies too.



We saw a colorful Tall Meadow Rue, We also saw Deptford Pink, Indian Hemp, Common Mullien, Moth Mullein, Thimbleweed, Whorled Loosestrife, Birdsfoot Trifoil, St. Johnswort, Soapwort, Black-Eyed Susan, hawkweed, Rabbit-foot Clover, Sleepy Catchfly, Everlasting Pea, and more.

After Bass we went to Conner Bayou Park (Ottawa County) to check out the new trail.    Connor Bayou    Bladdernut - large shrub sometimes a small tree.

 

 

 

 

 Yes another fun day.  I'm trying to get up to date on this blog but it isn't easy.  This is the reason I don't identify every photo but if you have questions just ask and I will try to answer them.

Saugatuck Dunes State Park

2013 January 11  
Our destination for this rainy day was Saugatuck Dunes State Park, a Michigan State Park.  Located on Lake Michigan in Allegan County.  This is a day use park with 1,120 acres, 14 miles of hiking trails through woods and sand dunes.  It has two miles of Lake Michigan beachfront.

We have visited this park several times before. This visit we struck off in a different direction, mostly following a waterway which looked like it had been dug long ago.  We are always attracted to water-  creeks, streams, swamps, ponds, rivers - we note the direction of flow, and research where the water flows to and where it came from.

So we started at the parking area and went north along the trail until the trail veered left, we headed right to be near the swampy area.  Soon we were on the back side of the dunes following this ditch.  Just in case you want to know, the water was flowing northwest.  After turning a 90 degree corner along this ditch the water was suddenly flowing west.  So the water was flowing in two directions, it met at the corner and disappeared under the ground!

We decided to continue north to see what was over the next rise.  More woods and then, a ditch appeared with water flowing north!  

This ditch had deep sides and had been dug more recently.  Why, and who dug it?  We assumed we were still in the park since we hadn't seen any boundary signs.

Somewhere along here in the woods, and these were very wet woods, with standing water to walk through, we came across an old travel trailer painted in a camouflage pattern.  It was in rough shape, with windows broken.  We wondered how anyone got it back in here.

After a bit we could see the roof of a house so we turned back. We had been at the base of a sand dune for most of our walk.  We went through the woods, up the hill and found we were on the ridge of a big dune. 

We had been down there.

                                 Now we are up here.

We could not see Lake Michigan from here.  We were on a trail, and went south to the parking area.

On the way home I felt something crawling on my neck, it was a TICK!  Well, we were following deer trails but a tick in January.

So even though it was a dark, rainy day, we found a new-to-us place to explore.