Join certified arborist Mike Rolli for a walk through the autumn woods in Glen Providence Park! Those who attended Mike’s previous walks know the remarkable depth and breadth of his knowledge of our local trees and plants, and the fascinating details he shares. He has worked on an extensive botanical survey of the species to be found in the glen. This time he’ll be focusing on fungi, and other Fall finds!  

Falling for Fungi

Saturday, October 13
10:00-12:00am
Main entrance, 550 West State Street, Media
UPDATE: the walk will be on Saturday, rain or shine!*

Logistics:

• • Free!
  • Meet at main entrance on West State Street, Media
  • As always, kids are welcome!
  • Estimated time: 2 hours
  • Be prepared for steep hills, and uneven (possibly wet) terrain: wear your hiking shoes, and bring a hiking pole if you use one.
  • Binoculars and nature guides encouraged.

 
* Updated on Friday, October 12: The forecast calls for some rain overnight, but it should stop by 10:00am, and Mike will lead the walk on Saturday – rain or shine! 

On this first day of fall, a look back to last year’s autumn beauty in Glen Providence Park! I spent some lovely and serene fall mornings along the trails and at the pond, encountering wildlife and interesting plants. Foliage seems to be starting slightly later each year – it had barely begun changing in early October, and did not peak until the end of the month. Early dustings of snow hinted at the upcoming snowy winter – on November 13, and again on Thanksgiving day!

Some wildlife encounters are more eventful than others… One early November hike took an exciting turn when we came across two White-tailed bucks scuffling over a doe! A few times it seemed they might charge at us. We were startled one morning during our weekly Invasives Removal to come face-to-face with an Eastern Garter Snake in a tree we were liberating from invasive vines. I saw my first Black Squirrel, which I had heard about living in Media, but had never seen. As a melanistic variety of the Eastern Gray Squirrel, individual Black Squirrels can exist wherever Gray Squirrels live.

I always watch for birds, which we continue to document on eBird for our Park Bird List. The park was frequented for a few weeks by a flock of up to 100 Common Grackles – they can be noisy, making odd sounds like rusty gates and like clucking – and they are entertaining to watch! Mallards returned to the pond with their occasional antics, with Winter Wren and Cooper’s Hawk being other birds I managed to photograph… you can view park sightings on eBird for the fall migration months of August through November to see what to expect in the fall!

With all the beautiful foliage, it can be hard to remember to look down, but don’t miss what is on the forest floor! In the past several years I have seen some amazingly varied fungi in the park – I would like to learn much more about them. Clubmosses, Lycopodiopsida, are primitive plants that reproduce through spores. According to wikipedia, the spores were used in Victorian theater to produce flame-effects(!), burning rapidly and brightly, with little heat.

Our monthly events last fall were our fun and rewarding annual planting day for National Public Lands Day in September, an engaging Scavenger Hunt for Kids in October, and a wonderful Geology Walk in November.

You can click on any photo below for a closer look, or scroll through them all! There are more pictures in our facebook albums. You can compare our 2014 autumn to other years in my photojournals for September, October and November 2011, and from Fall 2012 and Fall 2013.

Photos by author.

Fall is such a beautiful season in Glen Providence Park, and after record rainfall in summer 2013, last autumn was relatively free of extreme weather. I had less time than usual for photo walks in the park, ironically due to taking a 10-week Pennsylvania Master Naturalist course. But we continued to document the park’s plants and animals to create a record that we can refer back to for future comparison, and the walks I did take were usually rewarded with interesting sightings.

There were flurries of fall migration in late September and early October, including some additions to our Park Bird List – bringing us to 103 species by the end of November! Sightings included Magnolia Warbler, Philadelphia Vireo ( species #102), Northern Parula, and Chestnut-sided Warbler (#103!) – as always, thank you to Al Guarente of the Birding Club of Delaware County for confirming our new ID’s.

Some of the smallest discoveries are the most enchanting, including what we called a “star-bellied” fungi, an elegantly fuzzy caterpillar on a native blackberry leaf, and adorable baby Wood Frogs. These aptly named forest-dwelling frogs breed in vernal pools (ephemeral wetlands) – we saw several baby Wood Frogs last October.

That Pennsylvania Master Naturalist course helped me ID species in the park, such as the native and enigmatically-named Hog Peanut vine, Amphicarpaea bracteata. At one of the classes, Rose Tree Park Hawkwatch’s Holly Merker taught us that the Red-tailed Hawk’s “scream” is often used with video footage of Bald Eagles, because its scream is more intimidating than the eagle’s. You can frequently hear the Red-tailed Hawk in the park, as it is our most common hawk species!

Fall brings school classes that use Glen Providence Park as an outdoor classroom. In October, we encountered Penncrest High School 9th grade Environmental Science students conducting their annual pond studies in the park. In November, we helped Media Providence Friends School 5th graders install educational plant tags they had created for our National Public Lands Day plantings. The students were enthusiastic and had fun – what a wonderful service learning project!

In November we had a treat walking through the park with Clifford Butler Lewis, the grandson of park founders George and Eleanor Butler!  It was wonderful to hear his recollections from growing up here. We photographed Cliff by the (now dry) Eleanor Reed Butler waterfall, which was one of the park’s original structures, and was later renovated in 1949 in honor of Cliff’s grandmother. It was Eleanor Butler who specified that Glen Providence Park was to be preserved as a Bird Sanctuary and Arboretum!

You can click on any photo below for a closer look, and scroll through them all – and you can also view them on our flickr page! There are more pictures in our facebook albums, and in our Fall 1.1 Acre Project photos. You can compare our 2013 autumn to other years in my photojournals for September, October and November 2011, and from Fall 2012.

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Summer is fast approaching, it’s time to catch up with last summer’s photojournal of Glen Providence Park! It’s interesting to look back at what plants and wildlife are prevalent through the seasons and years. Here’s a sampling of what can be seen as the thermostat rises…

Last summer we had record rainfall, with the wettest July on record! It was second in total rainfall only to August 2011, which had brought us Hurricane Irene. Torrential rain in July both dislodged the pond intake, eliminating flow to the pond, and moved the boardwalk in the wetlands on the Shingle Mill Trail over several feet. We and County Parks were able to stabilize the pond intake (with repeated rock-moving!), but the boardwalk is still displaced.

All that rain had the plants growing fast – making the park especially lush, and keeping our Invasive Plant Removal crew busy! Blooms were a little late after a cool Spring – the Mountain Laurel along its eponymous trail was in bloom in the first week of June, while the native Rhododendron along the Ice House Trail bloomed later than usual, in the last week of June.

In summer, the pond is abuzz with life including damselflies, dragonflies, butterflies, and bees. Children (and adults!) love watching turtles and frogs at the pond, and fishing is a common activity. For those who look closely, there is much more to discover in the park – including fungi, which are amazingly varied and can be surprisingly elegant.

You can click on any photo below for a closer look, and scroll through them all – and you can also view them on our flickr page!  There are more pictures in our facebook albums, and in our Summer 1.1 Acre Project photos. You can compare our 2013 Summer to other years in my photojournals for June and July 2012, and my first photojournal from August 2011.  

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We continued to visit Glen Providence Park’s 1.1 Acre construction area for Broomall’s Dam during the hot and unusually(!) wet summer- it broke the 2011 record for Philadelphia’s rainiest summer on record! All that rain made the plants in the park particularly lush, as you can see in the 1.1 Acre Vista photos below.

The native plants transformed, as many started producing berries. And we will have to track down some more experts to help us identify the park’s interesting array of insects and fungi! From fallen Tuliptree flowers and Wild Ginger to golden spiders and iridescent blue damselflies, there was always something to discover in the 1.1 Acre.

We were initially relieved to see the PA Department of Environmental Protection lower the water level at Broomall’s Lake, reducing the risk to the 1.1 Acre if Broomall’s Lake Dam (immediately upstream of the park) were to suddenly fail. However, by mid-July, the lake level had again risen to full capacity.

For an explanation of the 1.1 Acre and its boundary, see our introduction to the 1.1 Acre Project.

You can scroll through our chronological pictures below, and you can also view them on our flickr page! You can see more pictures of Glen Providence Park in our facebook albums and in our photojournal.

December 2020 update: We will be updating our website to enable our Flickr galleries to again display here. Until then, you can view our Summer 1.1 Acre photos on Flickr. 

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It was drizzling last Saturday morning for our Naturalist Walk & Talk in Glen Providence Park, but that didn’t scare us off- and the soft lighting and the rain just seemed to add to the beauty of the woods!  Raindrops glistened on branches, and there was moss so verdant it was almost luminous.

PA Master Naturalist Chris McNichol led the intrepid crew of 11 adults and 7 children on an engaging walk through the woods.  The Sledding Hill’s majestic White Oak tree prompted Chris to tell us about the PA Big Tree register of Champion Trees of Pennsylvania.    We will certainly look into whether any of the park’s trees qualify!

We started on the ever-lovely Mountain Laurel Trail, where our discoveries included native Spicebush and American Witch hazel, fungi, and signs of signs of last season’s comical Beech Blight Aphids.  We admired the eponymous Mountain Laurel, which is elegant in any season!  Chris pointed out the damage that White-tailed deer had caused to American Beech trees, and showed us the different shapes of oak leaves, comparing the pointed lobes of leaves in the Red Oak group to the rounded lobes of leaves in White Oak group. 

We talked about the number of natural springs in Glen Providence Park, and the challenges in maintaining the man-made pond.  We looked for the Common Muskrat that had been spotted just the day before swimming in the pod under the ice.  While we did not see it, we may have found its tracks on the Shingle Mill Trail!   There we also found the intriguing Skunk Cabbage in bloom.

Woodpecker holes, bark beetles, leaf pack studies, Smooth Alder, Osage Orange… there was so much to see and learn- we hope you’ll join us on our next walk!

Thank you to Chris McNichol for our wonderful morning, and to everyone who attended!

You can scroll through pictures from our walk below- hosted on our brand-new flickr page! 

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Every season is beautiful in Glen Providence Park– but Fall is just magical!  After our first year of monthly photojournals, we will continue with quarterly ones- following meteorological seasons, so our Fall photojournal is September through November.  We continue to work on identifying species of all kinds, with generous help from experts and from our knowledgeable facebook fans and nature walk guides!

At our August Nature Walk, Tom Reeves taught us about two intriguing species that are dependent on the American Beech (which is so abundant along the eastern hill), both of which we saw a lot of in the Fall!  The parasitic but harmless Beech-drop, Epifagus americana, grows in the roots of beeches and it blooms in the fall- and it is Tom’s favorite plant!  Beech blight aphids are fluffy little insects that remind us of Seuss’ truffula trees– they feed on the sap of the beech, and they are hysterical to watch.  There are even videos on YouTube– the Beech blight aphids look like they are dancing!   If you noticed gray spots on the ground that looked like ash, that is mold that grows under colonies of the aphids.

9/28 Sawfly larvae on River Birch

Amphibians and reptiles could still be found in October- we were excited to spot our first Wood Frog in the park!  It breeds in vernal pools- you can hear its call here.   Of course we frequently see the Common Garter Snake, but it was interesting to get a good look at how deeply their tongues were forked!  According to wikipedia, a forked tongue allows reptiles to sense the direction of a smell.

Insect indentifications included Sawfly larvae on one of the River Birches we planted- as identified by BAMONA, Butterflies and Moths of North America.  They looked like a buffet for birds!  Facebook fans identified a very fuzzy caterpillar we spotted by the pond as a Lined Ruby Tiger Moth, Phragmatobia lineata.

10/5 Ephemeral mushroom “flowers”

Another facebook fan identified both the black mushroom “Earth tongue”, and some delicate, ephemeral white mushrooms that look like flowers– likely a species of marasmius.

For several weeks you could find the fruit of the intriguing native Osage orange, Maclura pomifera, on the ground along the Sledding Hill- this odd-looking fruit measures about 5″ across, and can weigh over 1 pound! According to wikipedia, the fruit was once used to repel spiders by placing one under the bed, and one study found its extract elemol to be as effective a mosquito repellant as DEET!

10/25 White-tailed doe & fawn

Like last year, we began to see more White-tailed deer in the fall. I spotted this doe and fawn the day that several deer in the park were being oddly tame- I came across one napping on the Shingle Mill Trail, and after initially bounding off, each deer stood watching me from afar- and eventually they actually ignored me as I hiked around the park.

We were incredibly lucky that there was not more damage to Glen Providence Park from Hurricane Sandy just before Halloween- several trees fell and the pond level was very high, but the erosion and damage was nothing like that from Hurricane Irene in 2011.

As the leaves fell, the beauty of the park’s topography  was revealed.  Now it just needs a covering of snow….

Click on any photo for a closer look, and you can scroll through the photos for a virtual tour.   And remember we’re always adding  to the photo albums on facebook!

For one year, we kept a monthly photojournal of Glen Providence Park– walking through the park a few times a week looking for wildlife and changing plantlife.  We regularly posted photographs on facebook, and compiled them here in our photojournal.  We wanted to document what is in Glen Providence Park, and share all these discoveries with others!

It was a wonderful way to observe and learn about the park’s array of plants, fungi and wildlife. Having completed a year, we will transition to a more manageable seasonal photojournal. Here’s an overview of what we observed, with links to each month’s photojournal!

A Year in Pictures: August 2011 – July 2012

August – Turtles on fallen Oak after Hurricane Irene

Our photo-exploration started out in August with an abundance of wildlife- with frogs, snakes, and so many turtles!  A Green Heron was frequently seen fishing at the pond.  Hurricane Irene’s damage changed the landscape, including felling a large oak, which was enjoyed by the resident turtle colony until the tree was removed!

In September we discovered the Common Muskrat living in the pond, and so many fungi throughout the park! We spotted the lovely Wood Thrush before it left for the winter, and a pair of Great Blue Heron visited the pond.

Of course the foliage in October was spectacular, and there were so many bird species, it prompted us to document all of our sightings (and historical sightings) on eBird… creating a Park Bird List!

I discovered that November is possibly my favorite month in the park, with the more muted beauty of late fall foliage, and the structure of the trees and landscape visible.  I was startled by a Sharp-shinned Hawk, and snapped my first White-tailed Deer photograph in the park.  The blooming American Witch Hazel and a positively luminous dragonfly added to the enchantment!

With all the leaves down in December, we discovered more old structures in the park, including an original drinking well with a hand pump.  Variations of fog and ice gave the park a new look with every visit.

Red Fox & Ostrich Fern

January was magical with an encounter with a Red Fox, and I learned to pay attention to American Crows: their raucous calls led me to a magnificent Great Horned Owl they were pestering, and I watched them chase a Red-tailed Hawk. We learned how remarkable the park’s abundant Skunk Cabbage is as it melted its way through the frozen ground.

February brought a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers, the tiny flowers of the Skunk Cabbage, and early buds on trees including the Silver Maple.

In March, the pond exploded with sound on first day of spring, as the comical American Toads started their startlingly loud mating call.  And with the warming weather the snakes and turtles emerged, along with the lovely ephemeral Bloodroot!

April was magnificent with so many flowering trees, and the ever-entertaining Common Muskrat re-emerged at the pond.  And there were oodles of American Toad tadpoles!

Right on cue on the first of May we heard the ethereal song of the Wood Thrush, returned from wintering in Central America- and later that month we saw it on its nest! Glen Providence Park was in bloom with elegant Waterlilies in the pond, Mountain Laurel on the eastern hill, and Jack in the Pulpit in the woods.

June brought gorgeous iridescent damselflies, dragonflies, and more muskrat antics.  The abundance of birds included a striking Scarlet Tanager, an especially blue Great Blue Heron, an endearing juvenile Eastern Phoebe, and a Canada Goose family.

In July we wound up our monthly photojournals with butterflies, fungi, a pair of White-tailed Deer, a Green Frog by the pond’s island, and a Skipper on the Echinacea in bloom from our Earth Day Plantings!

There is a photo for each month below, and you can click on any month above to see all of its photographs.  Enjoy the park- you just never know what you will see!

We just passed the first anniversary of Friends of Glen Providence Park, and now we have one year of monthly photojournals!  It was fun to track the plants and wildlife in Glen Providence Park this past year, starting last August.  In July, we were happy to see the Echinacea we planted as part of our Earth Day Plantings in bloom, and hosting wildlife!

By early in the month, the Duckweed had overtaken the pond- much more so than last summer.  This did not seem to deter the pond’s Common muskrat– it would be nice to think the muskrat would eat some of the duckweed!  Frogs at the pond are always entertaining to watch, and when startled, the Green frog makes a sound like “eek!” before leaping!

7/29 Female Ebony Jewelwing

The birds were much quieter in July– as naturalist Tom Reeves explains, they are no longer defending their territory or seeking mates, so sadly there is no need for all that singing! By mid-month, their sound was replaced by the “singing” of Cicadas– last year the Cicadas ended in the first few days of September, so they should remain through August.

With things in the park getting quieter, our focus got smaller- with plenty of interesting insects and fungi to observe!  There were jumping spiders, butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies– we learned that damselflies use their hind legs, covered with hairs, to capture prey as they fly!  And something about the little mushrooms is enchanting- it’s like there’s a separate miniature world in the park!

7/19 White mushroom

We were able to observe a pair of White-tailed deer as they munched on vegetation, which made me glad for the deer fencing protecting our Earth Day Plantings! Now if only we could train the deer to eat all of the invasive Multi-flora rose…

As this summer may be the hottest summer on record, I especially appreciated that the park usually feels several degrees cooler than it does in town (just a few blocks away!).  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “the net cooling effect of a young, healthy tree is equivalent to ten room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.”  Glen Providence Park has an awful lot of natural air conditioners!

After last year’s lack of acorns, it was nice to see the park’s oaks full of acorns this year.  That should give the wildlife that dines on them plenty to eat this fall!

Click on any photo for a closer look, or scroll through the photos below for a virtual tour.  You can view more photos in our past photojournals, and in our Facebook Albums: including Wildlife, Plant Life, Scenery, and History.

It was such a hot and humid morning for our Nature Walk led by naturalist Tom Reeves on August 4, even the wildlife seemed to protest by staying hidden.  So after spotting a baby Common Garter snake at the main entrance, Tom used his seemingly encyclopedic knowledge to teach 15 of us about plants and other interesting organisms in Glen Providence Park!  We learned that lichen is actually a dual organism made of fungus and algae– and as it is sensitive to pollution, the lichen in the park indicates clean air!

Glen Providence Park is full of plants with interesting features, including the wintergreen smell of the Cherry birch and the turpentine smell of the White pine. The park’s abundant Spicebush has a spicy aroma and can be used for tea, and our native Witch hazel can be used to make… witch hazel!

Tom taught us that trees are named for their flower parts, not their leaf shapes, leading to some counterintuitive classifications.  Trees we discussed include Basswood, White ash, Black oak, White mulberry, Hemlock, and Box elder.  How do you tell a spruce from a fir?  If you roll a “sharp” spruce needle between your fingers, you will find that it is square, with sharp tips.  The “friendly” fir needle is flat, without sharp tips.

Our abundant American beech tree has a couple of interesting features, including that vines cannot grow up its smooth bark.  And it hosts Tom’s favorite plant, the hard to spot Beech-drop, Epifagus americana– a parasitic plant that grows in the roots of beeches.   The Beech-drop blooms from August to October, so we will look out for that!

Alas, pesky Poison ivy has grown stronger (and itchier!) in the past 20 years due to increasing carbon dioxide levels!  So we weren’t just imagining it… Fortunately, 34 bird species like to dine on poison ivy berries- rich with oil and called “chocolate cake for birds”.  Another park nuisance, the invasive Multiflora rose was once encouraged by PennDOT as desirable ground cover!

Tom pointed out that predator mammals have eyes in front of the head, whereas prey mammals have eyes on the side of the head- just compare deer to wolves!  Predators look forward to stalk their prey, and the prey needs a wide field of vision to spot predators.  He also taught us the handy trick of using binoculars in reverse as a magnifying glass!  It was hard to take notes fast enough- this is just a sampling of what we learned.

Tom ended by telling us about becoming a birder on his fourth grade field trip to Glen Providence Park.  He said the donation from his church, Reformation Lutheran Church, for our Earth Day Plantings was like coming full circle.  We were honored to share a walk in Glen Providence Park with him!

Thank you to Tom Reeves for an illuminating walk, and to those who attended on such a hot August morning!

Scroll through the event photos below for a virtual tour of a few things we spotted…