Crow's Nest Natural Area Preserve
an ordinary Saturday with bugs
Crow’s Nest Natural Area Preserve is one of my favorite local places for a weekend hike. Last Saturday I went out a little later than usual and spent most of the afternoon wandering around. We had a pretty heavy rain on Friday night, so everything was delightfully fragrant on Saturday.
I saw lots of frogs, mostly ones like these:
There were a few tiny ones that were so fast I couldn’t catch pictures of them. Also some skinks, and some lizards (?) that I couldn’t identify.
As usual, the varieties of fungus captured my attention repeatedly. After a few days of rain during the week, there was a lot to see.
If you look closely at these, you’ll see the stunning purple around the edges. There were a few clusters like these, but not many.
All these were growing on trees. Most of the ones I saw like this were striated in shades of green, like the ones in the upper left. The dark colored ones in the bottom right were a striking shade of purplish-black. They were mixed all in with a bunch of green ones, and more of the ones with the violet-purple edges. What causes the color variations? Are they different types entirely? Does anything eat these?
Have a look at these things! I have no idea what they are, but the texture and shapes are pretty amazing.
I also got to see some live snails! This was pretty exciting, because usually I only see the empty shells. This is the first time I’ve seen the live snails at this park.
They’re a little smaller than a quarter, maybe. Chunky little things.
Later in the day, one of the trails took me out near the edge of the Potomac Creek, and the shore line was absolutely covered with tiny black bugs.
A type of weevil, certainly, and the DCR officer that I reached out to suggested it might be a Yellow Poplar Weevil. It’s their breeding season, evidently. I’ve spent some time over the last few days reading about poplar weevils (and other weevils as well) but nothing I saw explains why there were such mind-boggling numbers of them in the water and at the water’s edge. It was absolutely incredible, and completely eerie. Regrettably, I did not take photos of the huge masses of weevils.
That’s all for now! Thanks for sharing my adventures! See ya next time!