We are tackling a number of hikes outlines in J.R. Greene's book Historic Quabbin Hikes.
The hike today started at Gate 30 and proceeded down the peninsula and looped back up to our starting point just west of the area shown on the map.
We stumbled across the numerous cellar holes listed and some other interesting finds:
We did a little sleuthing and determined Mr or Miss Bear was rooting around for a spring snack. The bee's nest appears to have come from this tree.
We wandered along stopping at various scenic viewpoints. Our lunch stop featured several bald eagles circling, diving for fish, and just being eagles having fun. The day was glorious.
During our travels we came across and interesting tree. The Hawthorn tree.
We will have to return to check out the fruit of this tree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crataegus
You can see where the torn part of the name comes from.
Those would hurt. Survivalists use the thorns to fashion fish hooks.
Our friend the Coyote is wandering the area. The scat left behind carries all kind of interesting clues. Here we see undigested bone fragments and hair. Hair and small bone pieces are pretty common finds. This piece was quite large.
Of course everyone was not having the best of days. This Shrew was not napping.
Larger mammals were evidenced as well. Mr or Miss Moose is wandering the quabbin.
The mosses were announcing spring with tiny blooms.
This is an interesting forest forensics exercise.
Trees often fall and the fallen tree supports new vertical growth. The crazy thing about this tree is that two different species of trees sprouted from the same fallen trunk.
This was a very large scat. Wolves were hunted to extinction in this area. This is a big coyote for sure.
All in all a great day of adventuring and discovery.
We ended back at Gate 30 with it's keystone bridge.
On to the next adventure.
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