urbpan | Urban Nature Walk at Forest Park, Springfield Mass! (Reply)

This is my favorite picture from today's Urban Nature Walk in Forest Park, a huge city park in the third largest city in Massachusetts, Springfield. I grew up two towns away from here, but had never explored it quite like this. Here's my favorite picture from the walk, from about halfway through. But let's see how we got there!

We met up pretty close to the entrance of the park, and set off between a row of white pines away from the manicured part into the forest.

This is the beginning of an old carriage road. At the beginning of the 20th century, when Springfield was a rich and bustling metropolis (the heart of the Industrial Revolution in the US) people would take the trolley to this place to ride through the park by horse-drawn carriages.

We were shown an area where most of the hemlocks had been removed several years ago, since the hemlock woolly adelgid had weakened them, and a park steward worried that the trees were a safety concern. One hemlock still standing was loaded with the invasive insect--which hides below a coating of waxy filaments that it exudes--so I scraped some off to test the macro on my camera. One person has already remarked that the adelgid at top looks like the world's tiniest zombie head.

I can't prove it, but I believe that the excrescence on this tree is a the highly sought after fungus called Chaga.

This tree is studded with hoof-shaped polypores. (Fomes sp.?)

The carriage road has a green shoulder of moss.

Past the skunk cabbage and through the tangle of multiflora rose is a beautiful old fountain for watering the horses.

A cut American beech stump has transformed into a crown of sprouts.

One of the walkers noticed that this row of raspberry cane had developed these misshapen red galls!

I cut one open and found a number of tiny wasp grubs! This is a new gall type for me! I think the wasp species is Diastrophus nebulosus.

I took a few shots under water, but they looked like greenish nothing. This is right at the water's surface. Not bad, but I have to remember to wipe the lens off after immersing the camera, since all the rest of my shots include water droplets.

Here's the water-control gate where the first picture was taken.

Charlie usually isn't allowed on Urban Nature Walks, but I figured if I was going to western Mass to spend several hours outdoors I couldn't not take him. He kind of wanted to swim, but kind of didn't.

This father and son were fishing with bare lines (no rods). One of them caught a sunfish while we were there.

I should have probably learned what this was, but somehow I didn't.

We saw some beaver sign: chewed trees, cut saplings, and this pile. A lodge?

The park is composed of former private estates of donors. One of these included a number of aquatic gardens, which you can see down this long stairway. The aquatic plants hadn't come back yet.

This is behind a locked gate: without foot traffic to beat it down the moss has grown into cushions following the lines of the paving stones.

The park reaches almost to the Connecticut River, but Rt. 91 cuts it off. I'd like to see an overpass built to connect the park to the river.

One of the donor's family has an elaborate tomb in the park, where we took our group photo.

Back at the cars I took one last bit of wildlife off of Charlie.

A great walk! If you'd like to get in on the action go here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/68443835849/