Eco-Diary: Day 27

Here's what the creek looked like on September 26:

The water level is holding steady:

The first thing I noticed today is that the fall colours are starting to appear:

The asters are still blooming, but the leaves around them are starting to turn. It makes for some striking contrasts:

The turtlehead (Chelone glabra) is still blooming. This is a member of the snapdragon family and is said to have been used as a laxative, purgative and even birth control by Native peoples.

Turtlehead is apparently a popular plant for deer (along with asters and jewelweed), and measuring damage to these plants can be a way of finding out the level of deer browsing in the area. I've noticed that the area on the north side of the creek, next to the cattails, has been looking pretty tamped down  — like something's been lying in it. This area contains turtlehead, jewelweed and asters within a coupe of square metres, so could be an ideal spot for deer to browse. I haven't seen any hoofprints in the area (I haven't exactly been looking), but this could explain why the area has starting looking so rough lately.

This was the first time I'd gone down to creek-level in a while, so I came across far more fauna than usual, and spent several minutes photographing this snail. If you think of the tentacles or antennae as eyes, it looks like a strange, ghostly gnome face:

(According to my Pond Life Golden Guide, snails actually do have eyes at the base of each tentacle.)

Once I started noticing the small stuff, I came across this spider. At first I thought it was a crab spider, but it's clearly spinning itself a (sort of pathetic looking) orb web: 

It's a lot thinner than the bridge spider I saw a few days ago, but the markings on its back are quite similar. Since male spiders tend to be considerably slimmer than females, my guess is that it's a male bridge spider.

While I was taking photos of the snails and spiders, a couple of women came along and asked me what I was doing. (I'm surprised, actually, that I haven't had more conversations with trail users until now.) We had a friendly chat, and they proceeded to tell me that the cattails haven't always been there — it's only in the last two or three years that they've moved in. Interesting.

They also pointed out that this plant is watercress (Nasturtium officinale or its virtually indistinguishable and equally edible cousin, Nasturtium microphyllum):  

Turns out it's the same watercress that's cultivated and shipped to supermarkets.

I also got up close and personal with the pond grass that left me with those cuts on my leg at the beginning of the month. Turns out it's Leersia lenticularis, or rice cut grass. Aptly named: all those little barbs cling to clothes and are surprisingly efficient at tearing human flesh.