Sedges (and Much More) at the Edge!

Last weekend, May 20th-22nd, I participated in a sedge workshop at the Edge of Appalachia. This was one of a series of Advanced Naturalist Workshops offered at the Edge through the Cincinnati Museum Center. Chris Bedel and crew put on some great workshops with top notch instructors and I suggest you check them out! I learned a ton and got some great photos, but mostly of things other than sedges. My sedge photos were pretty blurry. I haven't quite got all the bells and whistles figured out on this camera, yet. Anyway, lots of cool stuff, so here are some highlights...

This sedge is Carex cryptolepis. We found this uncommon sedge in a seep at Lynx Prairie. Its distribution is fairly limited in Ohio, with it being found in Adams County and a few counties in the northeast region of the state.  

Another sedge we found along the path in the woods was Carex willdenowii. This sedge is named after the botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow.

This is a huge wolf spider that we found outside our quarters for the workshop. I believe this is Hogna helluo. She was probably as big as my palm, fingers not included. 

Here she is dragging her egg case behind her. It is attached with silk to her spinnerets. She can still travel quite quickly even though she is dragging the egg case behind her. A side note, hellou means "devourer". I am sure she has devoured more than her share of prey.

Each morning we were greeted with a wall full of moths. This interesting pink and yellow moth is called a Pink-bordered Yellow, Phytometra rhodarialis. There were, also, a couple of Luna Moths and scads of various tiger moths that I haven't completely ID'd yet. Hopefully, I can cover those in a later post.

This photo is of a Broad-winged Hawk nest in a Black Cherry tree. While I was snapping some photos, the mother hawk suddenly burst out of the nest and flew out of view. It almost scared the poop out of me! It is probably no accident that she has built her nest in a cherry tree. Cherry bark has cyanide and it probably helps keep pests like lice away from the young ones. 

This is a cool flower I was really wanting to see and Rick Gardner found this plant blooming for me. This is Spider Milkweed, Asclepias viridis. So beautiful!

Here is a close-up of the green flowers, tinged with pink. So happy to have finally seen it in bloom. Thanks, Rick! More "Edge" to come in my next post.