Author: Brenda Clements Jones

Brenda is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist, a Habitat Defender for Shenandoah National Park, and a devoted fan of Mother Nature. She lives in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, and hikes up to the higher elevations of her mountain often to see what nature is up to. Her constant hiking companion is a camera that captures nature as it unfolds through the seasons. It’s her goal to share the natural world around her through her photographs.

Meteorological Autumn

It started just over a week ago, and some leaves are playing their part perfectly. Meteorological autumn has begun. Temperatures are cooling. Days, little by little, are getting shorter.

Trees of the forest pick up on these signals. They know it’s time to get ready for the cold that will descend upon them. Prepare for winter. Stop producing that green chlorophyll, and let the leaves become brilliant red, yellow and many shades of orange.

These leaves, of Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), have picked up on the signals quickly.

Woodpecker In Highland County

Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus). One of many birds, that I watched from the front porch of the house we stayed in during our visit to Highland County.

The Northern Flicker, along with all other woodpeckers, is in the family Picidae. They have strong bills and most woodpeckers use their bills for drumming and hammering into trees and have long sticky tongues for grabbing insects and larvae from their hammering sites. The Northern Flicker though, listens to a different drummer, and for the most part uses its bill for drumming into soil, looking for ants and beetles and their grubs. And that tongue? It can extend it 2 inches beyond the end of its bill.

And here a male Northern Flicker is either showing off why birds of his species also have the common name of Yellow Shafted Flicker, or he is directing traffic. I’m not sure which.

Clean Up Crew

Three Black Vultures, part of Mother Nature’s clean up crew, were here yesterday just checking things out and making a lot of noise. Look closely. There are three there. They were on the roof making thumping noises and on the front steps making sounds like car doors slamming. But they decided it was a false alarm and soon took off to look for other places where cleaning was required.

There are two different species of Vultures that live in this area. One is the Black Vulture Coragyps atratus), as you see in the picture above, and the Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) that has a red head.

Not only do these cool creatures clean up the environment by eating dead carcasses, but their stomachs contain acids so strong that nasty diseases that might be contained in the dead carcasses (think anthrax, botulism, cholera, rabies) are totally destroyed.

Thank you Vultures. You may be creepy, but you are also appreciated.

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A Comeback

Not the sort of bird I normally see. A trip out of my usual mountain environment allowed me to see a Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis). Declared endangered in 1970 under the Endangered Species Conservation Act. Threatened with extinction due to DDT and other pollutants. And like the Bald Eagle which is surprising me left and right with its surging population, the Brown Pelican is also making an impressive recovery.

Dogbane Leaf Beetle

A dazzling jewel in the world of insects. The Dogbane Leaf Beetle (Chrysochus auratus). As you might guess because of its name, the Dogbane Leaf Beetle depends to a great extent on the many species of Apocynaceae, the Dogbane family. Not a difficult task, since there are 4,555 species in that family, which includes Milkweed plants. This particular jewel of a beetle lives on and eats Dogbane and Milkweed.

As the beetle eats Dogbane and Milkweed plants, it takes in poisonous cardiac glycosides, and releases the nasty chemicals when threatened by predators. With its jewel like colors it is advertising that it is not to be messed with. This warning strategy is called aposematism, something that is used by many insects and other animals.

Native to eastern North America. The “auratus” of its scientific name is from the Latin “aureus” which translates to decorated with gold. That seems appropriate.