Every year on the 30th of March, National Take a Walk in a Park Day is celebrated to acknowledge the importance of taking a walk through a park, understanding the health benefits of doing so, and appreciating a reconnection with others as well as nature.
Taking a walk at a local park is an excellent way to clear one’s mind from the stresses of the day, re-energize, socialize with people, and, at the same time, improve your health. Walking has amazing health benefits, from increasing heart activity (which, in turn, helps to lower blood pressure and decrease the chances of cardiac arrest), to lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and even certain types of cancer. Read more about the benefits of “green exercise” in my recent post, International Day of Forests.
Today is a great opportunity to discover a new park near you and explore it.
If the Hayes Nature Park in the Town of Clifton Park is new to you, I encourage you to make time to visit it today or this weekend.
This park is located along Moe Road near Thoroughbred Way and Liberty Way in the Town of Clifton Park, approximately one mile north of Crescent Road. The park is former farmland once owned and farmed by Ralph and Luella Mae Hayes (pictured below) for which this destination is named.
SOURCE: Saratogian
This park features more than a mile of relatively flat, ADA-accessible, stone dust trail with interconnected loops, throughout about 48 acres of public lands located on the east side of Moe Road, in the immediate vicinity of the residential neighborhoods of Crescent Estates, Countryman Estates, and Woodcrest Pointe.
The trails are family-friendly and ideal for walking, hiking, nature enjoyment, and cross-country skiing. While strolling these trails, you’ll cross several wooden boardwalks over tributaries to Stony Creek that flow into the nearby Stony Creek Reservoir.
Looking southerly at bridge along south segment of Red Fox Trail
In 2022, Eagle Scout Christian Blood updated the Hayes Nature Park Trails Map by adding a new trail segment, inserting distances of trail segments, and creating a QR code on the trailhead sign to enable visitors to download the map onto their mobile devices.
Before your visit, I encourage you to read my post Reading the Landscape: Revealing a Mystery Shared Among the Pines. Then, during your visit, look for a cluster of multi-trunked Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) trees as you walk along the NE quarter section of the Red Fox Trail in the NE portion of this park.
Click on the image for a closer look.
Places like Hayes Nature Park offers each of us a chance to “read the landscape” for a better understanding and deeper appreciation of nature and its beauty around us.
A definition: a plant that is not desired where it is growing.
A perspective: “A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
For a little insight on the secret origin of weeds, view this.
Read this helpful article that provides some clarifying distinctions between “weed,” “native,” “wildflower,” and “invasive.”
As to ‘appreciation,’ I am referring to the “a full understanding of a situation” definition of that word.
To that end, each of the following plants has ‘weed’ in its common name. As we reflect upon such plants on this day, read some curious factoids about these particular “weeds.”
Where Found: Successional fields, roadsides, and disturbed areas (much less common than the similar Brown Knapweed (Centaurea jacea), but growing in similar habitats)
Folklore: Young women once wore knapweed flower buds underneath their bodice, believing one would open should they chance meet their future spouses.
Edible and Medicinal Use: Add fresh flower petals to salads. The roots and seeds are diaphoretic, diuretic, tonic and vulnerary. The plant once had a very high reputation as a healer of wounds. In 17th century, it was used for many purposes including wound healing as noted in this excerpt from page 103 of Nicolas Culpeper’s The Complete Herbal:
“This Knapweed helps to stay fluxes, both of blood at the mouth or nose, or other outward parts, and those veins that are inwardly broken, or inward wounds, as also the fluxes of the belly; it stays distillation of thin and sharp humours from the head upon the stomach and lungs; it is good for those that are bruised by any fall, blows or otherwise, and is profitable for those that are bursten, and have ruptures, by drinking the decoction of the herb and roots in wine, and applying the same outwardly to the place. It is singularly good in all running sores, cancerous and fistulous, drying up of the moisture, and healing them up so gently, without sharpness; it doth the like to running sores or scabs of the head or other parts. It is of special use for the soreness of the throat, swelling of the uvula and jaws, and excellently good to stay bleeding, and heal up all green wounds.”
Wildlife Impacts: Knapweeds displace native vegetation, which can negatively impact and threaten populations of Bobolinks (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) and other meadow birds.
Where Found: Roadsides, lawns, pastures, successional fields, disturbed areas, gravel bars and thickets of streams, and less frequently in rocky woodlands (as with most other Pilosella spp., this species stays mainly on roadsides and fields)
Folklore: In his Naturalis Historia, Pliny the Elderwrote: “Among these plants there is one with round, short leaves, known to some persons as “hieracion;” from the circumstance that the hawk tears it open and sprinkles its eyes with the juice, and so dispels any dimness of sight of which it is apprehensive.” (NOTE: His comment about a hawk’s use of this plant is preposterous; thus, I have listed it here as ‘folklore.’)
Edible and Medicinal Use: In the 17th century, used for healing eyesight (see above).
Where Found: Wet successional fields, stream banks, and wet forests (fairly limited in distribution in NY)
Folklore: It is believed that the person carrying a portion of this plant inside of a purple flannel bag will gain control over others.
Edible and Medicinal Use: No known edible uses. American Indians used ironweed for medicinal purposes, making teas from leaves to provide relief from childbirth pain and as a blood tonic. Root teas were used to treat loose teeth, stomach ulcers, menstrual cramps, and hemorrhaging.
Where Found: Marshes, swamps, edges of ponds, wet depressions or drainages in fields, and stream banks (does best in non-forested wetlands)
Folklore: It is believed that adding milkweed fluff to dream pillows will make one dream of fairies. It is also believed that for each milkweed seed floating in the air that one catches and releases, a wish is granted.
Edible and Medicinal Use: Although milkweeds are poisonous raw, the young shoots, leaves and seed pods are all edible cooked. In the past, the roots of Swamp Milkweed were simmered to make a tea taken in small quantities both as a general purge and to destroy and expel parasitic worms.
Today’s sunshine (despite the sustained winds) beckoned me to take a stroll in search of some of our earliest local wildflowers in bloom. I chose the 1825 Erie Canal Towpath at Vischer Ferry Nature and Historic Preserve because I was principally interested in finding some hazelnuts in bloom.
American Hazelnut (Corylus americana) @ 8x magnification
Good choice! I stopped counting when I reached 50 of these vibrantly colored and minute female flowers! Many, many more to come!
On my way back to the parking lot, I spotted these tiny white flowers –
Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta)
There were several areas on the banks of Clute’s Dry Dock that were blanketed by this plant. No doubt, many, many more of these to come as well!
Hope you find an opportunity this week to go exploring here or somewhere else near you to see what is emerging or blooming in these early days of spring.
This week, I’m featuring Beaked Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta) as one of our local wildflowers that begins to bloom at this time.
The common name of hazelnut is derived from ‘hazel’, the old English name for filbert. The genus, Corylus, is derived from the Greek word ‘korus’, meaning ‘helmet’ and refers to the shape and hardness of the nut shells.
Identification Tips:
Beaked Hazelnut is a small but dense, mound-shaped, thicket-forming, deciduous native shrub that grows 4-8’ tall and as wide.
New twigs are greenish to yellowish tan to light brown and hairless or variously covered in minute hairs and becoming smooth the second year. Older bark is light to dark brown with scattered white lenticels (pores), initially smooth but eventually developing a criss-cross pattern. Stems are multiple from the base, up to ¾ inch in diameter, and erect with ascending branches.
Leaves are simple and alternate, 2½ to 4½ inches long, 1¼ to 3 inches wide, oval or widest above the middle, with a long or short taper to a sharply pointed tip and a rounded to somewhat heart-shaped base. Edges are coarsely double-toothed and may have a few very shallow lobes. The upper surface is dark green and hairless to sparsely hairy, the lower is paler than the upper surface and hairy along major veins. Leaf stalks are ¼ to ¾ inch long and variously hairy to hairless and lack glandular hairs.
Hazelnuts are among the first plants to flower each spring.
Beaked Hazelnut is monoecious with male (staminate) and female (pistillate) flowers developing on the same shrub. Slender, pale clusters up to 3 inches long of male pollen-bearing anthers (called catkins) hang from buds on 1-year-old branches. Female flowers extend their tiny, reddish, thread-like stigma into the air in several directions so that they easily collect pollen blown free of the catkins by the wind. These female flowers are some of the most dazzling flowers this time of year, but they are easily overlooked due to their tiny size.
Female and male flowers of Beaked Hazelnut
After blooming, the male catkins turn brown and wither away, while fertile female flowers develop into a small cluster of nuts on short branches. Each fruit is a round nut with a hard shell, 1/3 to ½ inch in diameter, enveloped in a stiff, green husk with up to 6 nuts in a cluster. The husk has a long tubular beak at least twice as long as the nut, is ruffled at the tip, and covered in bristly hairs.
Beaked Hazelnut fruit
Fall color is usually unexceptional shades of yellow.
Beaked Hazelnut fall color
Culinary and Medicinal Uses:
The closely related American Hazelnut (Corylus americana) is usually found on drier sites than the Beaked Hazelnut, but both species will often be found in close proximity to one another. That makes for convenient foraging for their ripened nuts in late August. For helpful tips on foraging for hazelnuts, view my Foraging for Wild Edibles: Hazelnuts. The nuts of both species were eaten and commonly used as a trade good among American Indian groups.
The nuts provide dietary fiber and are low in saturated fat and cholesterol. View some recipes for suggestions of how to enjoy these tasty nuts.
An infusion of the branches and leaves has been used in the treatment of heart complaints and intestinal disorders. A decoction of the bark has been given to children to alleviate teething pain. It was used medicinally as emetic, for deworming, as an astringent, and for teething.
The medicinal oil is rendered much like it is for food. Because of its high vitamin E content, hazelnut oil is slow to go rancid. The oil has astringent qualities and is used to reduce face blemishes and over-active oil glands; it also contains anti-bacterial components that can fight skin bacteria. Some American Indians mix hazelnut oil with bear grease for hair and skin treatments.
Wildlife Value:
The Beaked Hazelnut is a host plant to the caterpillar of the Early Hairstreak (Erora laeta).
The nuts are rich in protein and fat and are a favorite of Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) and Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus). The nuts are a preferred food of Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus), Hairy Woodpecker (Dryobates villosus) and Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata). The winter buds and spring catkins are a valuable protein source for Ruffed Grouse and American Woodcock (Scolopax minor).
A variety of birds and mammals disperse the nuts, but Blue Jays and rodents are most important in doing so. Red Squirrels and Eastern Chipmunks typically store caches of collected nuts, and, while they consume a high percentage of them, those that aren’t eaten are critical to the seedling establishment of Beaked Hazelnut.
The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 21 March the International Day of Forests in 2012 to celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all types of forests. On each International Day of Forests, countries are encouraged to undertake local, national and international efforts to organize activities involving forests and trees, such as tree planting campaigns.
Forests contribute to our wellbeing in a variety of ways.
Cleaning the air: Trees absorb pollutant gases from traffic and industry and also filter fine particulates (up to 10 microns in diameter) such as dust, dirt and smoke; doing so helps shield urban populations from respiratory diseases.
In addition, let’s not forget the important by-product of photosynthesis that all green plants in our world provide to us: oxygen. However, because of their sheer size, an individual tree contributes proportionately more oxygen than other plants. Scientists suggest that one large tree can provide a day’s supply of oxygen for up to four people.
Mitigating climate change: Forests take up carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and store it as forest biomass through a process called carbon sequestration. Approximately one-third of the CO2 released from burning fossil fuels is absorbed by forests every year. These become carbon stores or carbon sinks. Forests are second only to oceans as the largest global stores of carbon. The removal of CO2 from the atmosphere by forests on a global scale helps mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Purifying water: Forests naturally filter rainwater. Tree leaves – both those alive on its branches as well as those dead lying on the forest floor – help to slow down rain drops and their resulting runoff by increasing the amount of rainfall that will be absorbed into the ground. In doing so, this reduces the likelihood of runoff carrying soil and nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, into nearby streams and lakes. In addition, tree roots are an important mechanism for absorbing those nutrients from the water that has been absorbed into the soil, thereby preventing excess nutrients from leaching into groundwater. More than half of the drinking water in the U.S. originates from forests.
Providing food: Worldwide, nearly one billion people depend on forests from which to harvest wild food such as herbs, fruits, nuts, meat and insects. Wild fruits are a particularly rich source of nutrients, often offering healthier sugars, higher protein levels and more vitamins than cultivated fruits. Human-designed food forests emulate the ecosystem of a young forest, but with a crucial difference: most of the plants are edible. A forest ecosystem typically has seven layers: canopy trees, smaller trees, bushes and shrubs, herbaceous layers, ground cover, root crops, and climbers. In a food forest, large fruit and nut trees form the canopy, followed by smaller fruit trees, shrubs of berries and currants, herbs, strawberries, and other ground cover plants, root vegetables, and vines such as grapes. Each layer of a food forest is put to use in the production of edible plants.
Providing medicines: Nearly 50,000 plant species – many of which grow in forests – have medicinal value. Many common pharmaceutical medicines are derived from forest plants, including cancer-treating drugs. Forests represent rich natural pharmacies by virtue of being enormous sources of plant and microbial material with known or potential medicinal value. Tree and plant extracts contain a variety of bioactive compounds such as polyphenols (including flavonoids, phenolic acids, tannins), phytoestrogens (including lignans), stilbenes, carotenoids, and sterols, which possess biological activities such as anticancer activity, antiatherogenic (helps prevent abnormal fatty deposits in arteries), and antioxidant potential. In the past few decades, scientists have realized that plants are also a reservoir of an untold number of microbial fungi and bacteria (commonly associated with forest trees) that may also prove to be a vast source of potential medicinal compounds.
Providing building materials and other products derived from wood: All Americans benefit from forest products derived from wood in some way every day. Examples of these products include:
Paper and packaging materials
Lumber for homes and buildings
Composite materials for construction
Stronger, lighter laminated building materials
High value wood for furniture and flooring
Structural materials for bridges and transportation safety
Offering a destination for physical activity: Green exercise, which is considered any physical activity that takes place outside, has been shown to improve both physical and mental health. It includes a variety of activities such as gardening, cycling, walking, horse riding, flying kites, walking the dog or participating in a neighborhood project like planting flowers. Moving around a forest requires us to walk, run, climb, bike, or otherwise propel ourselves. Forests offer endless opportunities to stretch, move, and train our muscles and other bodily systems, all of which help us fight disease, prevent injuries, and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Larger green spaces with well-maintained paths are likely to lead to adults engaging in outdoor recreation and physical activity than smaller pocket parks, which tend to be used for more sedentary forms of recreation.
Mitigating many of the drawbacks of living in urban areas: They buffer noise, reduce the urban heat island effect, and provide green space for recovery from stress.
Leaves, twigs, and branches on trees, shrubs, and herbaceous growth buffer noise three ways. They absorb and deflect sound energy. Simultaneously, as sound waves pass over and around vegetation, they also bend because the speed of the front edge of a given wave will vary; this is known as refraction. All three help to mitigate the noise we humans create in urban places. In addition, vegetation generates masking sounds, as leaves rustle, branches sway, and stems creak. Sounds of wildlife attracted to urban vegetation, such as birds and insects, also mask noise pollution.
As trees transpire, they release water into the atmosphere through their leaves. As the water changes state from liquid to vapor, the surrounding air is cooled, similar to how we sweat. This effect is especially beneficial in urban areas where heat is trapped by concrete and asphalt surfaces and can make summer days unbearably hot. Therefore, an urban forest can offset increased temperatures on a local scale. However, trees properly placed around individual buildings can cut air conditioning needs by up to 30 percent.
Since the mid-1980s, studies have demonstrated the psychological restorative effects of natural environments, such as forests, compared with the built environment in urban areas. These effects include increased well-being, decreased negative affect and decreased physiological stress responses. Spending time in forests increases positive emotions and decreases stress, blood pressure, depression, fatigue, anxiety and tension. A study in the United Kingdom found that woodland sounds such as birdsong, rustling trees and snapping twigs had a soothing effect on adults, reducing their stress and anxiety. (SOURCE: National Trust, UK. 2019. Woodland sounds boost wellbeing, according to new study [online]. Press release, 12 September 2019. [Cited 10 June 2020]. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/press-release/woodland-sounds-boost-wellbeing-according-to-new-study)
The physiological benefits of forest visits for city dwellers have been less well demonstrated than the psychological benefits. However, studies in Asia have shown that a visit to a forest environment will –
suppress activity of the sympathetic nervous system (which controls the “fight, flight or freeze” response during potential danger), and
enhance activity of the parasympathetic nervous system (which inhibits the body from overworking and restores it to a calm and composed state).
Scientific studies and field experiments conducted across Japan have demonstrated and verified the benefits of shinrin-yoku or “forest bathing”, as the practice of peaceful walks in forests is called there. While Japan is highly urbanized, it is also highly forested country (with forests covering 68% of the land area), and its population has traditionally used forests for common recreational activities. The practice of forest bathing for well-being is now gaining popularity in the U.S.
Notice the arc of the sun across the sky each day. You’ll find that it’s shifting toward the north. Responding to the change in daylight, birds and butterflies are migrating back northward, too, along with the path of the sun.
If you will be visiting some of our local nature preserves, parks, and trails, I hope you will consider downloading my wildflower field guides for those destinations. I have recently compiled two new wildflower field guides: (1) Mohawk Hudson Bike-Hike Trail and (2) Swatling Falls Nature Trails; you can view or download them here. I hope they help you learn about wildflowers that you may encounter during your visits.
Red Maple (Acer rubrum) – typically begins blooming in MarchEmerging leaves of False Hellebore (Veratrum viride)Sharp-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba) – typically begins blooming in early April.Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) – typically begins blooming in mid-April
Consider these activities as part of your adventures this spring –
Lance-leaved Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata) viewed along the Zim Smith Trail
I routinely schedule wildflower walks every year and the selection of each date is based on my past observations of viewing specific native blooming beauties at that particular location at that time. However, the timing of blooming sequences doesn’t always work out as planned. Moreover, during my own personal hikes, whether at a location new to me or at one I’ve frequently visited, I occasionally come across a species that is either new to me or the first time I’ve observed it at a particular location.
For these reasons, I wanted to extend an invitation to anyone interested who may wish to join me for an impromptu wildflower walk whenever the opportunity may present itself. As examples, I foresee the possibility of any of these as opportunities:
first bloom(s) of the season
ephemeral spring wildflowers in April/May
Early Azalea (Rhododendron prinophyllum) and its alluring fragrance in late May
Canada Lily (Lilium canadense) in its variety of floral arrangements (i.e., single/double bloom, candelabra, and chandelier) in July
upland orchids (e.g., Pink Lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium acaule) in May, Late Coralroot (Corallorhiza odontorhiza) in late summer or early autumn)
Here is how it will work. Simply send me an email message (david.behm.curiousbynature@gmail.com) to acknowledge your interest in becoming a Lickety-split Botanizer. Then, whenever I discover a worthy wildflower blooming opportunity, I’ll send you an email alert indicating the time and place where I’ll be to lead a wildflower walk to view the targeted species. I have no idea how many of these opportunities will occur in any given growing season. These walks will be offered exclusively to members of Lickety-split Botanizers. I anticipate that such alerts may be same-day and likely never more than 24 hours in advance of an impromptu walk; any particular impromptu walk could occur on any day of the week. Membership and participation are FREE. From time to time, I may post related information on the Lickety-split Botanizers page of this blog.
Think of it as a flash mob to view wildflowers in bloom. Only without the dancing. (However, should you be so inclined to bust a move while we’re out and about, please feel free!)
If interested, please let me know that you’d like to join me as a Lickety-split Botanizer.
I’m happy to announce the availability of two new wildflower field guides; one is for an 8-mile segment of the Mohawk Hudson Bike-Hike Trail (City of Cohoes and Town of Colonie) and the other is for Swatling Falls Nature Trails (Town of Halfmoon).
Each guide is available as a FREE download (in Microsoft PowerPoint Slide Show format) from the Wildflower Field Guides page of this blog. You’ll also find a Quick Read bar code if you wish to easily download each field guide onto a mobile device of your choice – that will enable you to use each as you walk along that specific trail.
As are all of my field guides, each is arranged according to the chronological order of when the selected species begin blooming. Starting in March and continuing into October, these guides feature full color photographs of the noted species, including –
From the Mohawk Hudson Bike-Hike Trail guide:
From the Swatling Falls Nature Trails guide:
Each guide also includes trail maps as well as other information about each plant’s key characteristics to help you identify it. For those species deemed culturally significant, there are links to other online resources with additional information.
For those of you who live near either of these public open spaces or who frequent them, I hope each respective wildflower field guide adds to the enjoyment of your future visits.
I decided to return today for another hike at Dwaas Kill Nature Preserve following our recent snowstorm overnight on Friday. Much like Friday’s pre-storm weather, today also featured filtered sunshine and balmy 40 degrees.
I walked along the identical path that I enjoyed on Friday and, first up on this visit, I once again flushed an owl in the same location as where I had observed the Great Horned Owl on Friday. This time, however, I was able to get a photo (but not a very good one – see for yourself below) of this inquisitive bird – it was as curious about me as I was of it.
Barred Owl (Strix varia) on large limb right of tree trunk just above center of photo
As I continued along, I also noticed that the “snow fleas” were again out today, but in far fewer numbers than on Friday.
Snow fleas @ 8x magnification
Near the end of this trail and not far off of it, the adjoining lowland is part of an extensive floodplain along the Dwaas Kill. I had noticed a few muddy spots and gave them a closer look in hopes of finding the season’s first wildflowers in bloom. Success!
Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) – first bloom of the season!
As I began my return trek to the parking lot, I noticed a recognizable lump on a large limb about 2/3 of the way up in an Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) tree, which appeared to be about 150 feet tall. (Again, not the best photos, but I hope you can “see” who I came upon.)
Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) is large dark spot in upper center of photo; lighter brown color are its quills, head is facing to the left.Another view of this Porcupine; its rump is against the tree trunk and its quills are visible along its back – head is facing to the right.
Since I had not seen any of its tracks on Friday or today, I suspect this visitor has taken up residency here for the foreseeable future – likely at least several weeks. Based on the little amount of scat at the base of this tree, this Porcupine has not been here very long.
I’ll be making nearly weekly visits to this trail segment starting at the end of the month and continuing throughout this growing season as I am inventorying the wildflowers along this new trail. When I’ve completed the inventory, I’ll update my wildflower field guide for this location. As I make my return visits, I’ll be watching to see how long this critter maintains its residency here high above us human trespassers passing through its new neighborhood.
The full Worm Moon rises on Tuesday, March 7, with peak illumination at 7:40am EST. Look for the moon to rise from the northeastern horizon around sunset that evening. It is the last full moon of winter.
In the 1760s, Captain Jonathan Carver visited the Naudowessie (Dakota) and other American Indian tribes in what became Iowa, Minnesota, and Wsconsin and wrote that the name Worm Moon is in reference to a different sort of “worm”—beetle larvae—which begin to emerge from the thawing bark of trees and other winter hideouts at this time. Another name for March’s full moon is the Sugar Moon (Ojibwe), which coincides with the time of year when the sap of sugar maples starts to flow.
An alternative name for March’s full Moon is the Sugar Moon. Sugar maples are tapped in late winter; sap buckets gather the sap, which is later turned into maple syrup! SOURCE: https://www.almanac.com/content/full-moon-march
FYI: Mars will be perfectly visible during the three nights that the Worm Moon will appear to be full: Monday through Wednesday. On Monday night, March 6, at approximately 6:20pm, you’ll find Mars as shown here:
Curious By Nature 
