Last Group from Wednesday Hike

There's hope for catching up.  I've been quite busy preparing for my fall classes at FRC.  In fact, I've toted my camera only once since this hike taken last Wednesday.  So, these are the last imges I'll post from that hike.
I love finding the cones of White Fir on the ground, especially when it looks like they were placed by squirrels.  The stump shown above is obviously a popular dining spot.  It is surrounded by loose scales of already eaten cones (the seeds, that is), and punctuated by this newly deposited cone.  For all I know, the diner might have been watching from a nearby hiding place and waiting for us to move on.  When these cones reach a certain degree of dryness, but haven't yet been eaten or broken open, it is fun to throw them against a tree trunk.  They literally explode and sound like falling shards of glass.

A particularly satisfying experience for any naturalist who visits a place from year to year, is to seek out a specific plant or animal that it is not particularly common, but which you have reason to believe will be found in that place.  So, after not seeing Baneberry since last summer - wait, one exception was a small patch by a spring on Meadow Valley Road - I sought it out on one of the side trails going up Boyle Ravine, the place where I first discovered and identified the plant several years ago.  Almost gave up when I saw some glowing red spots about 20 feet off the trail amongst a dense patch of Lemmon's Wild Ginger.  Voila!  It was a single plant bearing ripe Baneberries.  I was stunned.  All I could remember at the moment was the word "bane" and I had Fleabane and Dogbane racing around in my mind.  Couldn't remember Baneberry until I looked it up at home.  The thing I did remember is that it's in the Buttercup family and I find that family incredibly fascinating because the the wide diversity of flower types in it.

Lichens never cease to amaze.  Here are a couple round white patches on the trunk of a Big-leaf Maple...

...and two more shots on different lichens on a rock at the trail side.

Finally, as usual when I get home there are surprises on the lawn.  This time a dead bird, undoubtedly a victim of a neighborhood cat, maybe even one of our own.