The Thousand Acre Swamp

In Penfield, one of the suburbs of Rochester, the Nature Conservancy owns a parcel that has been known for generations as "The Thousand Acre Swamp."  I had been there once or twice, years ago.  I decided it was time I went again.  After all, who knew what different things I might find?  It was a beautiful day, and I had remembered my bug repellent.

I hadn't gone very far into the preserve when I noticed one thing that was different from my trips into the meadows and woods.  There were frogs everywhere.  Can you see this little leopard frog, blending in with all of the greenery? 

The path leading into the swamp was beautiful, straight and dappled with sun.

But, I didn't have to go very far to find the first sign that I was, indeed, in a swamp.

It didn't take me too long to get to the main part of the swamp, and the boardwalk going through it.











The cattails along the sides, were maturing, sending up their familiar cigar shaped fruit.  This is one from this year.

And, this is one from last year, that has gone to seed.

Along the boardwalk, I also saw this muskrat house.













Literally dozens of these pretty red dragonflies.

And this beautiful little flower.  I know that it's a Skullcap, and, I'm pretty sure that it is the variety known as "Mad Dog."  What an odd name for such a pretty flower.

The boardwalk wound it's way through the swamp for quite a distance.  At one spot, they had even widened it and put in a benched area for people to just sit and admire.  It's very lovely, but it is too bad that so much of the swamp is choked with cattails, because you really can't see too much else.  But, there are places along the way where you see some lovely scenes.

After I left the boardwalk, the way lead through some lovely woods.  It's fairly dry now, but there are still soggy spots in these low woods.  Many of these spots are traversed with boardwalks like this.

There were plenty of orange jewelweeds there, none of them with seedpods ready to pop.

Oops, didn't even see the bee in this one, until I downloaded the pictures.  Good thing he was so intent on getting nectar.

This lovely white flower was growing in the woods.  It's Wild Snakeroot, and it's deadly poison.  One interesting thing that I found out when I was trying to figure out what it was is that Abraham Lincoln's Mother died from what is called Milk Sickness.  Cows eat the Snakeroot, and the poison gets into the milk.  Better management of milk, and the fact that the milk that we drink is consists of milk from many cows, diluting any poison that might be there, has lead, thankfully, to a great decline in this disease.

The woods are lovely.  I don't know whether they are so light and airy because they are second growth woods, or if the swampy conditions at other times of the year keep the trees from attaining any great size.

 From the woods, you go out into a small meadow.  It is full of lovely goldenrod, and birdhouses.  There is a bench there, dedicated to a man they call "Mr. Bluebird."  I think that I would have liked to have known that man.

 On the path that goes around this meadow I found this beautiful flower.  You can tell by the distinctive shape of the flower that it's a Lobelia.  I'm pretty sure it's a "Great Blue Lobelia."

These pretty little flowers had me fooled for a minute into thinking that they were Deptford Pinks.  But, when I got home and looked at the picture more closely, I decided that they were a close relative -- Rose Pink.

And, in a wet corner of the meadow, I found a lovely stand of Joe Pye Weed.  These aren't the somewhat disappointing ones that I found on Whiting Road, but are full headed and bright colored.

 I had let myself be lead further and further, always wanting to know what was around the next corner.  And, I found plenty of lovely things around that next corner.  But, I had been poking around for a few hours and I was faced with quite a hike back, so, I decided that it was time to turn around and leave.  I'll be back.

By the way, please excuse the rather random appearance of this post.  I've been trying to get used to the new Blogger for the past week or so, since they say that the old one is going away soon.  Today, it was a monster, sometimes not letting me put my descriptions anywhere near where I wanted them unless I moved the picture to one side or the other, and, sometimes, leaving these huge empty spaces, that I couldn't get corrected, no matter how hard I tried.  I am NOT impressed.