On a summer walk like this one takes one’s time. It is a stroll, or, better, a saunter, rather than a hike. At this pace we can spot and appreciate small things the hiker passes by without noticing, like an ornately formed (unidentified) black bug on a grass stem with long antennae whose ends seem to have been dipped in orange paint. Or a great spangled fritillary feeding on milkweed flowers, its wings’ undersides silver-spotted. And then there were the nursery web spiders, which make silken tents by pulling leaves over at the tops of plants and binding them together. I usually see these large, active spiders in the spring, carrying a large white egg sac in their mandibles. By midsummer the female spider has suspended this egg sac in the tent or “nursery web” she has made. She will stand guard over the eggs and the dozens of tiny spiderlings that hatch from them and shelter in the web for safety from predators. It’s surprising to see the big, tawny female below her brood like that, since spiders, like insects, are not usually known to care for their young after their eggs are laid. Male spiders are much smaller than females and are seldom seen. In the case of our nursery web spider, the male courts the female by bringing her a fly. If she accepts this gift, he will mate with her while she eats the fly. I can only imagine with what trepidation a male approaches a female nursery web spider several times his size, holding his humble courtship offering in his trembling jaws!
By the time I reached the trailhead I was ready to leave the sun-drenched meadows of “Hopeland,” named by an aristocratic couple, Major Rawlins Lowndes and Gertrude Livingston, who settled in the house they built here after the Civil War. The house was expanded by subsequent owners (the Huntington’s) and finally demolished. So this place, like some other grand estates along the Hudson, originally established as a retreat for the privileged few, can now be enjoyed by the all the people, especially those privileged to live in the Hudson Valley. And by wildlife like the kestrels I saw darting over the meadow I passed through at the end of my walk, recalling the name on the trail map, “Falcon Field.”
