Mysterious gall

ORRINGTON – When Mrs. Balentine’s fourth-grade class from Hampden visited the Nature Center they made several interesting discoveries. Searching around a brush pile for animal activity, one student pointed out a strange lumpy growth on a dried stem. This two-inch long, bumpy growth had approximately 40 small pinholes in it and appeared to be part of a raspberry stalk.

The students puzzled over it and made guesses about its origin. Nature Center staff puzzled over it and looked in reference books. The best match that we could find was a blackberry knot gall.

Insects, commonly small flies or wasps, deposit eggs into a host plant. This causes the plant to grow around the eggs, creating a gall that becomes the home for young insects. Once the fly or wasp matures, the insect escapes through an exit hole such as the ones seen on this gall. With 40 exit holes, this gall was an apartment house for multiple residents! What a unique find!

Drilling for water

On the frog pond behind the Nature Center building several students were responsible for drilling a hole in the ice to see how thick the ice had grown. With a hand auger, two students at a time worked to drill through the ice.

Several mentioned that their families used power augers to do this! With a little muscle and determination however, they were successful in breaking through to water.

How much ice did they have to drill through? Eleven inches! In many lakes and ponds in the state there is much less ice. In fact, on nearby Fields Pond the fishermen report only having to drill through five to six inches.

Why the difference? In general, small ponds have less water to cool to the freezing point than do larger ponds or lakes and can freeze sooner and deeper. Ice is always thinner where water is moving such as at outlets or inlets.

Surreal skating

Speaking of ice on Fields Pond – before the snowstorm last weekend, the skating was fabulous! Smooth ice covered the pond from the boat landing all the way to the island. Skaters took advantage and cruised up and down, poked hockey pucks around and skated till dark.

As the sun was setting in the west, the nearly full moon was rising in the east. It was surreal to skate one direction in the orange light of the setting sun. When you turned around you were skating in blue twilight with the moon reflecting off of the glassy lake surface. It was a magical experience!

With this crazy winter weather, take advantage of what is out there today. Tomorrow is sure to be different!

Send sightings, comments, or questions to fieldspond@maineaudubon.org