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.
Watching for a meal, on a post next to the garden. An Eastern Phoebe, Sayornis phoebe, is a perfect friend to have around. A loner, even as mated pairs they spend little time together. A loner, finding insects to wolf down, she relies on insects for sustenance most of the year. When it is too chilly, and insects are hard to find, she resorts to eating berries.
Here on my mountain, she nests year after year in the same spot – under the eaves of the woodshop. It will be the female who builds her nest, or in this case repairs her nest as is necessary. She will lay 2 to 6 eggs in 1 or 2 broods. Normally I see 2 broods each year, and then – POOF – they are gone, with the exception of the one who will help me keep insects at bay.
Rotting fruit, sap flows on trees, and even bird droppings. The favorite foods of the Red Admiral,Vanessa atalanta. If the Red Admiral can’t find these it will sip flower nectar from Common Milkweed, Red Clover, Aster, and Alfalfa and more.
The dropping Persimmons here on my mountain have been a bigtime draw for these beautiful butterflies, and Coma and Question Mark butterflies. Try putting out some extra ripe fruits to see if some of these butterflies will come by for a visit.
Here in the mountains fermenting persimmons have drawn many butterflies as well as European Hornets, Vespa crabro. These large insects have been in North America since the 1800s. When I say “large” I mean 1.25” – LARGE. They dine on insects such as bees, flies, and grasshoppers. As summer begins to wind down and the populations of their insect meals dwindle they concentrate on sweets such as rotting fruit and hummingbird syrup. And they aren’t happy to share – often chasing the hummingbirds away.
It has been so dry, but yesterday brought a glorious 1/4 inch of rain. Hallelujah! That rain brings a brief moment of relief to suffering vegetation.
The rain also brings beauty to the landscape. I love what rain does to colors, deepens them, makes them more rich. But of coursemore rich! Those colors are decorated with DIAMONDS. Here a Catbrier leaf, Smilax bona-nox, sparkling with rain drop diamonds, set against berries of Japanese Beautyberry, Callicarpa japonica.
Those berries will go begging for a while. There are more yummy things to tempt the birds right now, but as the days get shorter until we reach the dead of winter, birds will gather in the branches of these bushes and strip them bare.
Keep in mind if you are interested in Beautyberry, there is a highly recommended native, Callicarpa americana. Keep that scientific name in mind as you shop. Natives are the way to go.
This morning finds me at the yoga studio early. Frost covering much of the world down here in the lowlands. I take the opportunity to capture the beautiful dusting on Purple Dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum).
A photo from another day, you can see how it becomes a ground cover.
Though a native to Europe and Asia it can be found covering whole fields, creating a purple sea here in Virginia right about now.
Yellow-rumped Warblers, Setophaga coronata, have to come to visit for the winter. They’re also affectionately referred to as Butter Butts.
When insects are available, that’s their meal of choice but here, in the cold months, they will settle for goldenrod seeds, and the berries of juniper, poison ivy, poison oak, greenbrier, grapes, Virginia creeper and dogwood.
Some people are able to entice them to feeders with sunflower seeds, raisins, peanut butter, and suet but I’m not one of the lucky ones. That’s okay! They seem to like it here anyway. AND they do seem to enjoy the bird bath that I keep ice free during the winter.
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 ever stopping for in the past. Something that I never would have guessed I’d see from the driver’s seat of my truck. A HUGE caterpillar. My surprise only increased as I approached the caterpillar and saw what it looked like. Certainly he was a Chinese dragon all set for a New Year’s parade.
An aqua color of 1950s cars, with accents of bright, rich orange, and black. Regularly spaced black spikes along his body segments and much larger spiked horns/antlers of orange, tipped with black near his head. Yes, that looks like a Chinese dragon to me.
In reality though this critter is a Hickory Horned Devil Caterpillar, the larva of the Regal Moth, Citheronia regalis. In addition to his interesting color scheme, this guy is incredibly large. Think the size of a large hot dog. But it is a caterpillar that you don’t need to be frightened of. He will cause you no harm. If you see one, treat him with care, and guide him to a spot of soft dirt where he can achieve his goal of burrowing, where he will pupate over the winter.
Spiked horns on two segments above his head (his head is the little orange, button-like thing at the very right), bright, rich orange, and shiny black.
In this stage of his life he has been eating. Chomping down on the leaves of hickory, ash, persimmon, sweetgum, sycamore and walnut. No wonder he made his home here. This is what many of the trees in my woods are. No need to be concerned about what he is eating. There are not enough of these guys to be a concern and for the most part are not considered a pest. The Hickory Horned Devil is native to the eastern US from New Jersey to Missouri and on southward to east Texas and central Florida.
The Regal Moth will emerge from the ground as an adult in late June or early July. As an adult he will not eat, and will live about one week.
He will reach a wingspan of up to six inches. Looking like a cuddly, furry, off white and orange Teddy bear, he will be in search of a mate. Eggs hatch in six to ten days. The larval stage, the Hickory Horned Devil Caterpillar, lives for about 35 days.
As the Queen Anne’s Lace flower ages and seeds develop the umbel curls up, creating a lovely cup, as I’ve caught in this image.
Queen Anne’s Lace is not native to our continent, but to Europe and southwest Asia. It is said to have some beneficial use in the garden, boosting tomato production and providing a cooler and moister environment for lettuce if the gardener plants QAL around the tomato or lettuce.
On the other side of the coin, QAL is thought to be a significant menace in pastures, where it remains viable in the soil seed bank for up to five years. For us humans, it can cause skin irritation and blisters and in some states it is considered a noxious weed.
I Prefer native plants in my gardens and surrounding woods, but Queen Anne’s Lace has cast a magic spell upon me. I enjoy having it around.
A patch of the native plant, Smooth Sumac, Rhus glabra. A wonderful magnet for birds during the late winter and early spring.
Hard to decide which might be my favorite bird, but one that is right up there at the top, Northern Flicker,Colaptes auratus, is one of the birds that is attracted to the rich crimson berries.
The place I would expect to find a Northern Flicker, unlike most other woodpeckers, is on the ground. They hunt for ant larvae and beetle grubs, pecking into the soil the way other woodpeckers would be pecking into a tree trunk.
During this part of the year though, it is in the Smooth Sumac where I often see these handsome birds.
And if my stars are lined up just right, I might be lucky and capture a flash of marvelous yellow.
Or perhaps I can catch one signaling to others, letting them know that it is safe to land.
A little beetle crawling along a branch. He looks like something I would have caught and put into a jar when I was little – a Lightning Bug. But here he is roaming around, not on a hot, humid summer evening, but in WINTER. This doesn’t make sense. So much of Mother Nature’s world is a mystery, but that’s why I’ve got all those books in my library. Books for the baffled master naturalist. Go digging in those books.
Mystery solved! This beetle is a Winter Dark Firefly, Ellychnia corrusca. A cousin to my childhood memory, Lightning Bug. This Winter Dark Firefly, as larva and pupa, produces his own light. As a young adult he will still glow but as he ages he loses that glow. As an adult he finds a snug winter home under tree bark and emerges in late winter or early spring, where I find him crawling along a branch.
