New Germany, PA

Despite the gloomy weather and occasional rain, Carl, Judy and I had a good time in Cambria County, PA. On Thursday, we took our time driving along the Lilly Mountain Road through Game Land 198, a whopping 7,000 acre game land. The amount of striped maple trees was astounding. We saw quite a few warblers, no dragons! The forest was thick and lush. We passed several open meadow areas that would be great for bugging on a sunny day.

From there we headed towards SGL 26, through Blue Knob State Park. It was a pretty drive, we stopped to see the Lost Children of the Alleghenies Memorial along the way. Along the road to the memorial, we checked out Bob's Creek. It was stocked with brookies. We saw a couple hummingbirds on the jewelweed and a spicebush swallowtail. The Memorial was freaky. Apparently in 1856, two boys wandered from home and were lost in the woods for 2 weeks. A man in town had the same dream three times showing the location of the boys under a birch tree. He lead a group to the spot in his dreams and the boys were found, dead, at the base of the tree. Seems shady to me. They never mentioned cause of death. I wonder if the dreamer didn't have something to do with it?

SGL 26 didn't have much to offer. We stopped again at the Beaverdam Reservoir. Judy and I watched as a newly hatched damsel fly weakly above the water. A cedar waxwing made a swooping attempt to eat it and missed. Knocking the poor damsel on top of the lake. Moments later, the damsel met its demise when a fish gobbled it up. The day wasn't a complete bust for dragons, we did see ONE white faced meadowhawk.

From here we jumped on the highway and head to Off the Rak for spirits and dinner!

On Friday, we visited the Wilmore Dam Reservoir - Willow Beach area (Conemaugh River). We weren't seeing much and then Carl and I heard Judy screaming, "Carl, Renee, Carl, Renee". We headed over to see what she had. Judy had found a long-tailed salamander! I had never seen one and it was way cool looking. The tail was at least 4-5 inches long. At the same time, we spotted a rather large dragon along the stream, either a shadow darner or Boyeria sp. It was flying low and close to the bank, near the roots of the bank. We never captured it. From here we hiked along the edge of the reservoir. Found many cavelike openings, a chrysalis of an eastern comma, a cool orange fly w/a monster-sized ovipositor and rain. It began to rain and we had to head out. We grabbed a late lunch and called it a day. Ernesto had finally reached us, it rained for the rest of the night and all day Saturday.