Category: Trees

  • Bear Marking Territory

    Bear Marking Territory

    Ah! That feels so good! Sure looks like it, but that isn’t what is happening here. Black bears, young, mature, female, male, all bears mark trees, utility poles and wooden sign posts along their paths of travel. Most bears that do this marking are males during mating season. They do this marking by rubbing their…

  • Flowering Dogwood

    Flowering Dogwood

    The Flowering Dogwood trees (Cornus florida) here in my neck of the woods are just beginning to open as the Eastern Redbud blooms (Cercis canadensis) are on their way into decline. That’s the pattern every year. A slight overlapping of their big show. Like homemade vanilla ice cream with home grown strawberries on top. In…

  • Mother Nature’s Art

    Mother Nature’s Art

    When there is a weather forecast that includes freezing rain or snow or simply freezing temperatures, I’m all set, so is my camera. A vernal pool is a wonderful canvas for great artwork. Freezing temperatures and moisture, a magical mix. Mother Nature has created an ear worm! I’m hearing, “earth below us drifting falling” and…

  • Five Inches of Snow

    Five Inches of Snow

    It snowed overnight. Wet puffy snow has covered everything. I’ve been transported into a Christmas card waiting to be signed and sent on its way. It’s the second snow here this winter making winter seem a bit more like the way winters ought to be. The winters that I think of when I think back…

  • Black Walnut Bark

    Black Walnut Bark

    So many trees out there! Summer provides us with leaves to look at to recognize species, often right away. When winter arrives we’re left with very little hint as to what species of tree we might be looking at. Along with limb character, the tips and buds on branches, and the look of leaf scars,…

  • Common Hackberry

    Tree bark offers great opportunity to identify a tree during the winter. Some more straightforward than others. One tree that through its bark is a cinch to figure out, Common Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis). Its bark makes me think of a 3D topo map with all the ridges and valleys laid out and wrapped around the…

  • BIG Caterpillar

    BIG Caterpillar

    I am always on the alert for turtles in the road and if conditions allow, I’ll stop and help the critter, usually a box turtle, cross safely. A few days ago as I drove up my mountain, along the twisty, steep, gravel road, I spotted something. Certainly not a turtle, but something I don’t recall…

  • Robin

    Robin

    American Robin, Turdus migratorius. Two in one of my Eastern Red Cedar trees chowing down. They love those berries. Robins have no concept of the legends we humans have, such as Robins being a sign of spring. This photograph was taken in December. They’re around my cabin from time to time throughout the winter. Silly Robins. Wishing you…

  • Tulip Poplar

    Tulip Poplar

    Here in the central Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, the Tulip Poplar, Liriodendron tulipifera, is among the first of the trees to begin to change colors in autumn. The apple green leaves take turns, one by one, turning to bright yellow with brown spots. Giving the trees a dotted appearance. Not an impressive start, not a hillside…

  • Eyed Click Beetle

    Eyed Click Beetle

    A goal of my hike this morning was to find a cover shot for my Facebook timeline. I was collecting images of tree bark, lichen, and beautiful mosses, all possible candidates. At a mature sassafras tree, as I worked around some poison ivy vines, I came upon a surprise: two BIG eyes looking back at…