Inchworms Reign

It’s caterpillar season, and as you bike on the rail trail, inchworms of all kinds hang from silk, dangling just at head level; make sure to keep your mouth closed! When you get back in the car, check for little inches all over you. Later, when walking in the woods, you stop and listen: the ground is alive with crunches and crackles, you realize it must be thousands of caterpillars slowly munching the leaf litter.

I neglected to take any photos of the caterpillar brigade, as I was too busy brushing them off of me. I can’t tell you how many I pulled off my neck! It was slightly unnerving. This morning I went out to see if I could find some inchworms, but there were none. Just strands of silk hanging from the trees, some with little scraps of leaves at the end like a light pull. Walking through the forest was a bit uncomfortable, as there were sticky strands everywhere. That was it; a few days of touch down, and it’s over.

What else I saw this week:

1. Watershield – I love these tray-like waterlilies, and how they form a cellular pattern on the water surface.
2. Cumulonimbus clouds – to me a real sign of summer. This picture does it no justice!
3. Canada anemone – has been called aggressive, vigorous, robust, also: a native invasive.
4. Male fern – how did ferns get such great names?
5. Black cherry
6. Wild sarsparilla
7. Germander speedwell
8. Ganoderma tsugae or reishi with a carrion beetle (or is it a burying beetle?)
9. Another good fern: interrupted fern. Its fertile fronds are “interrupted” by spore-bearing leaflets.

P.S. As I was thinking about inchworms this week, I couldn’t help but to think of the Inchworm song. Did you know it was written by Danny Kaye? (Do you know who Danny Kaye was?) I think I learned about it from the Muppet Show when I was a kid. Here is the original, if you want to listen. I feel very nostalgic when I hear it.