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.

Graupel

Yesterday’s precipitation was for me a delight to see and my use of the word “graupel” in yesterday’s blog post took some of you by surprise. If you went to your dictionary, you might not have found it. It’s not in the dictionary that is here on my computer either but it’s a word that is used by meteorologists whenever this cold weather occurrence presents itself.

Graupel has the look of styrofoam that has been broken into small pieces. The process that occurs to create graupel starts out high in the atmosphere as snowflakes are falling. They hit a layer of supercooled water droplets. Stay with me here, supercooled water is in the form of a liquid but is below 32°. As the water droplets hit the snowflake they stick to its surface.

Think of graupel as a snowflake covered in frost, or rime. Generally it is a 2 to 5 mm clump falling to the ground. A soft clump. Not hard like ice as hail or ice pellets would be. Cool stuff, graupel.

Perhaps the Last Sighting for a While

Not really purple but raspberry red, male, and soft brown and white, female. A pair of Purple Finches (Haemorhous purpureus). Most winters I don’t see these finches due to their erratic and irruptive habit, thought to be connected to variations in the production of conifer cones in their winter range. Spring migration generally happens between February and May, the males leaving first heading to their breeding grounds. Hoping I’ll see them again next winter.

The Perfect Climbing Tree

Many years ago I would spend much vacation time at a wonderful home in southeastern Pennsylvania. There my best friends who happen to also be my cousins, Judie and Beverly, taught me that apple trees are the preeminent climbing trees. Perfect climbing trees for children.

Apple trees are also great climbing trees for hungry bears. Bears that love my selection of apple varieties. Or perhaps they don’t even care about the variety. Maybe to bears apples are apples, whether McIntosh or Jonathan. To this baker though varieties of apples make a great difference. One variety or another can make or break a pie.

There’s another creature that regularly visits this apple tree climbing up and down its branches and trunk, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Drilling sap wells to provide themselves and many other animals with phloem sap which carries the sustenance produced in the leaves to other parts of the tree. In the picture above you can see the small round holes, or sap wells, carved by the Sapsucker. The larger slashes in the bark have been made by a bear climbing the tree.

And here, something that pleases me beyond words. The Little One discovering that an apple tree is indeed, the perfect climbing tree.

American Woodcock

This morning returning from yoga I stopped several times to pick up cans that had been tossed aside along the road. A gesture that was rewarded, as my truck climbed the mountain, with the sight of an American Woodcock (Scolopax minor), slowly dancing across the road.

What a joy to see! This chunky little speckled brown bird had such personality, taking one firm step, rocking back and forth, another firm step, rocking back and forth, all the way across the gravel strewn road giving me and my approaching truck no notice at all.

The American Woodcock is 10 to 12 inches long from the tip of its tail to the end of its 2.75 inch long bill. That prehensile bill is used to poke into moist soil searching for earthworms and other invertebrates. They also eat seeds. Those oddly placed eyes give this little bird the ability to see what is going on as it probes the soft soil looking for dinner. This is the first Woodcock that I can recall ever seeing but I have heard them, while roaming the trails up here, making their funny little nasal peeeent.

Spicebush in Spring to Berries in Autumn

Right now, the beginning of spring, if you’re in the right place in the woods you’ll be surrounded by Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) in bloom. The woods appear to have been painted by a water color artist. A thin wash of butter yellow extending far into the distance.

As the weeks move along leaves will appear, emerald green.

Emerald green leaves, the perfect accent for scarlet berries come autumn.

What Have I Done?

The cabin was built 30 years ago. Back in the day when I had very little concept of native plants. It was then that I planted it. And now I am thinking, “WHAT HAVE I DONE!?”

There is a large hillside behind the cabin. Due to construction of the cabin there was absolutely nothing growing on it back then. “What to do, what to do?” thought the uninformed city person, yours truly. Then I thought of the perfect plan. Plant Periwinkle (Vinca minor).

Yes, it is a gorgeous color. Yes, it did cover that back hill very quickly. And more. But now I know. When considering what plant to put in, GO NATIVE. And certainly DON’T choose a non-native plant that is extremely aggressive. Another word I’ve seen for it, vigorous. Yes, it is definitely that too. It’s native to Europe and western Asia. The benefit of using natives? Native plants provide shelter and food for wildlife and support pollinators. That wildlife, those pollinators, need natives, often will only go to those natives. For an alternative, next time I’ve got a bare hillside to put in plants I’ll go with native Green and Gold (Chrysogonum virginianum). Or for sure something that is native to the Blue Ridge. Lesson learned.

Bloodroot in Bloom Now

The first of the Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) — up and blooming. A spring ephemeral native from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to Alabama, Arkansas, Nebraska, and Manitoba, that grows prolifically up here in the Blue Ridge.

As the leaf and bud push up through the soil, that leaf will envelop the bud, protecting it as it emerges, to meet the light of day.

And certainly unique, that leaf, multi-lobed, deeply veined, with an undulating edge, basically round with a deep indentation where it joins its petiole. Here with the still growing seed pod.

Each flower lasts just a couple days. With a little luck this just discovered bloom may last until Sunday, just long enough to greet astronomical spring.