Advanced Naturalist Disorder

So, you have probably heard of Nature-Deficit Disorder, coined by Richard Louv in The Last Child in the Woods.  How about Advanced Naturalist Disorder?

I believe that is what happens when you know just enough to be dangerous and you look at everything- plants, birds, dragonflies...

Clouded Sulphur, Colias philodice on an aster

and butterflies- even when you are attending an outdoor wedding.  Its not my fault, if they wanted me to pay attention they would have held it inside!

One of Ohio's rarest habitats, a lakeside alvar.

  With a lakefront view like this to compete, is it any real surprise I was using my camera for a few botany pictures?  These tiny asters were growing out the the water scoured rock ledges along Lake Erie.  This is one of Ohio's rarest habitats, called an alvar.  This aster is the very rare Pringle's Aster, Symphotrichum pilosum var. pringlei one of the alvar species.

The Weedpicker at a wedding.

We arrived about an hour early and I entertained myself bird watching and butterflying. I did put my binoculars away when the other guests arrived.

This was one of the simplest, yet most beautiful weddings I have ever seen. The sun was shining in a cloudless blue sky  as the waves splashed the rocks just beyond our seating area. Lake Erie was picture perfect and as beautiful as any Caribbean wedding ad.  

Mr. and Mrs. Michael Comings

Congratulations to the couple, Christina and Michael!   I am wishing you a lifetime of happiness- and butterflies.

Swimming off the Alvar

One of my favorite places to visit on the Marblehead peninsula is the alvar in front of my friend's home. An alvar is an extremely hostile environment for plant growth, being subjected to wind, storms, ice and relentless waves. These "limestone pavements" were named for their counterparts in Scandinavia, and they tend to host very unusual plant communities. This one is on the waterfront (like the preserve on Kelleys Island), while the Lakeside Daisy, Hyemonoxys herbacea is found on another alvar-like environment where the quarry operates inland Marblehead.



While swimming here, I noticed some of the pockets carved in the rocks were filled with decaying matter, like rotting sea-weed, or more correctly, lake-weed? This must become the foothold plants need to germinate on this otherwise impregnable limestone. Even the sides of these rock formations have dwarfed flowers, mosses and grasses hanging on for dear life. Plants here become Mother Nature's personal bonsai garden.

A dwarfed Erigeron clings tenaciously near the rock's edge.

It is a lovely place to drink in the beauty of the Erie islands, and if you don't mind sharing space with a few Northern Watersnakes- you can go for a swim. Just watch where you step, because the snakes were here first!