A hemlock varnish shelf mushroom.
Pawtuckaway State Park is located in Nottingham New Hampshire. There are several trails to take in this 5000 acre preserve, one being Boulder Trail. If one takes a look at the satellite image of Pawtuckaway’ s Mountain range, you can see a circular formation called a ring dyke made by an ancient volcano about 130 million years ago. During the Ice Age, approximately 18,000 years ago, a mile high ice sheet sat on top of this area and moved these gigantic rocks as it melted, known as glacial erratics. Now we have boulders resting amongst trees in a beautiful forest for people to climb and admire.
There were some of these beauties flying about, but I didn’t get my camera out until they left. Unusually more monarch butterflies this summer than the last three years. I saw them all over the place, which is great. This the first time though, that as caterpillars, they were in my garden feasting on the milkweed. I counted at least twelve of them.
They are in their pupae stage now, which I have not been able to spot, but I hope they come around again as third generation ones. The picture below was taken in the summer of 2012.
The image below was taken in the summer of 2013 of the bumble bee partaking in the hydrangea bush, their favorite this time of year.
