Today was my first day guiding for fall fest this year! I was so glad my friend Emily invited me to co-lead the kayak trip with her.

What a perfect way to celebrate our workshop well received: a hike along Medicine Bow trail in the alpine zone of Rocky Mountain National Park! We didn’t see ptarmigan but we were able to pickup radio signal from our tags on a local flock. They seriously seemed to be keeping ahead of us, just over each hillside we traversed…eventually, we let them win.

It is a reflection of how house/yard busy I’ve been the last few years that it has taken me this long to start logging more walks on the beach…! So far, I’ve walked from the beach by the house north of Norbury’s landing to Bay Ave, and all of the beach crossings in between. From there, I’ve walked down to the end at David Douglass park, but not all the crossings. I’ll be working on logging more miles on foot this fall, with a goal of traversing the peninsula and covering the beach crossings too!

• steeplebush (Spirea tomentosa)
• horse mint
• hyssop skullcap (Scutellaria integrifolia)
• Maryland golden aster
• pussytoes (Antennaria plantaginifolia)
• woodland sunflower
• switch grass (Panicum vergatum)
• wild bergamot

After checking out the Ohiopyle state park visitor’s center, my parents and I walked from where this trail intersects the great Allegheny passage to cucumber falls! Then, we walked along the road inside the guard rail to look at the natural water slides. From there, we walked the foot trail across the bridge along the road back to the parking lot for the falls.

Indulge me here as we veer into some summer landscaping updates! My neighbor gave me some overflow from his yard, including mint that has started to take hold. Then, thanks to some help from my parents, I was finally able to accomplish a few things in the yard that have helped me be able to start the native conversion step-by-step. First, though, I continue with some pretty ornamental annuals. We planted a Chinese hibiscus to add some curb appeal (looks like the orange? peach? double-flowered kind) which will die back with the frost, but it is a stunner for now!

I also started a railing box with an assortment of “Superbena” colors and Salvia. They will probably all die back in the winter, but as you can see I had some fun with my first trip to a garden center; my thought was to have a red railing box to bring in the hummingbirds.

Then, my bosses gave me some of their backyard overflow! I put a deck planter down to hold black-and-blue and tropical Salvia (more hummingbird magnets, hopefully). They can be prolific perennials, so I’m hoping they’ll continue to flesh out the box. I have temporarily moved the anise hyssop into the swan planter you can see below!

They also gave me mountain mint and Spigelia marilandica (which I’m actually hoping to take home to plant along my parents’ stream bed). On the porch planter side of things, though, I found a handy tip and some perfect fit rods and wood pieces to shore up the railing planters.

My first real natives that were planted in ground went where the elephant grass was torn out. I now have a pair of summer sweet bushes in their place.

I also got a showy varietal of black-eyed Susan, both a native and a nod to my MD roots, for the porch.

Between all of these, I have been thrilled to watch the skippers (and other pollinators) parade in. It is pretty rewarding to watch them find the native flowers, and there will be much more to come…likely shovel by shovel!

Well, good thing I went out to take pics of the grass panicles in my yard because the guy came to cut it today. Ultimately want to be lawn free, and the good news is, I didn’t find any Bermuda grass! I used iNaturalist and some lawn grass ID web pages to zero in on that it appears I have Kentucky bluegrass, tall fescue and sweet vernal grass (broadly considered cool weather lawn grasses). However and unfortunately, the only place I’ve found Bermuda grass is in my potted plants. This is likely due to that I supplemented my potting mix with the fill dirt that contractors brought in after my water line installation. Still positive news is that it is very clay-heavy and outside, not much is growing in that stretch (including Bermuda grass). I bet there’s a seed bank in there sadly. Yet, it hasn’t made much of a move this year, and let’s hope it stays that way.

It appears that the last MD pelagic to have a great skua this month was Mar 1 1992 and there were 2 birds seen then! Notes variably place the records at Elephant’s Trunk and near Baltimore canyon, but all records appear to be during a 12 hr trip. Similarly, there were several birds per trip in the 70s. On Mar 15 1996, there’s a record from a Montauk pelagic, and the Mar 4 1995 notes are one of my favorites:

Life bird. Adult; 63 miles out, at north end of Block Canyon. Most-wanted species by most on this trip. We approached a trawler and started chumming. The bird appeared out of nowhere, circled the chum slick, dove on a few gulls, then began picking up its own fish in the slick. From JA’s notes: The Great Skua was found amongst hundreds of GBBGs, lesser numbers of HERGs, and about 15 NOFUs that were loitering around a commercial trawler. After “stealing” the birds from the trawler, we watched the beast for about one half hour and then finally left it.” Much jubilation ensued.

Patricia Lindsay