Author Archives: Brenda Clements Jones

About 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.

Common Yarrow In Late June

June 28, 2025

Common Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) in bloom throughout the area now. Flowers are in flat clusters atop plants that sometimes reach 3 feet tall. Individual flowers in those clusters are 1/4 inch across with 5 white or pale pink ray flowers, slightly notched, surrounding cream colored or soft yellow disc flowers.

These Yarrow leaves are alternate, and have the look of lacy/feathery fern fronds, decreasing in size as the leaves go up the stems. Both nectar and pollen entice a long list of pollinators to these flowers, including bees, wasps, ants, flies, beetles, butterflies, moths, and true bugs.

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Wild Bergamot

June 27, 2025

Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), looking like the hairstyle of a Dr Seuss character. Blooming in lavender or pink for a month during the summer. A plant that attracts bees, moths, butterflies, and hummingbirds.

Native to all of the continental United States with the exception of Alaska, California, and Florida. It’s also native to 7 provinces of Canada. A member of the mint (Lamiaceae) family with square stems, and opposite leaves that are fragrant.

In my gardens Wild Bergamot is blooming contentedly right now.

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Ruby Memories

June 26, 2025

Since these bushes were put in several years ago, memories come back to me every summer in late June. Memories of Red Currants (Ribes rubrum).

And childhood memories of the Godshall family reunions held every summer on Hill Road in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, where I’d have such fun getting together with my precious cousins. Wonderful food, A-Treat Soda, boulders here and there that each had its own name like “The Rocket”, quoit (pronounced kwait) pits next to the bushes that grew ruby-like fruit.

Those Red Currants are ripe, looking like rich red gems right now, and the birds are enjoying them. Yesterday morning as I was pulling out of the garage, on the way to yoga, I spotted a Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) having a breakfast of my memories.

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Juvenile Cardinal

June 25, 2025

Something that I rarely see. A juvenile Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis). Black legs, black beak, and feathers that allow it to blend in with its surroundings.

It looks like an adult Cardinal though the coloring is wrong. Sometime between 2 and 4 weeks of age the juvenile will grow to the size of an adult Cardinal. Its beak stays black until its first molt in the autumn, when the beak becomes lighter and brighter and the feathers will turn red, or pale tannish brown with reddish streaks.

Nature seems to always surprise me with the new or the seldom seen.

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Brown Thrasher Singing Its Wonderful Songs

June 24, 2025

While on the ground a Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) will use its long curved beak to rummage through leaf litter looking for things to eat such as insects. They also eat fruits, seeds and nuts, earthworms, snails, and if the Thrasher comes upon one that is small enough, lizards or frogs.

They’ll also ramble through trees and bushes, enjoying berries and seeds that are found. All the while singing their beautiful songs.

A couple days ago a Brown Thrasher was roaming the yard, singing as it went, ending up in one of the many blueberry bushes. It managed to find a few ripe berries. Payment for a beautiful concert.

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Orange And Yellow

June 23, 2025

The bright orange of Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa). Surely this plant has a perfect name. It attracts multitudes of butterflies that are drawn to the abundant nectar that it produces. It also draws in bees and hummingbirds.

Butterfly Weed is the host plant of Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus), Monarch (Danaus plexippus), and Queen (Danaus gilippus) butterflies.

This butterfly enjoying the nectar is an Orange Sulphur (Colias eurytheme).

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Sharing Blueberries

June 22, 2025

A male Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea), back from his winter home of South America, here for the summer.

Scarlet Tanagers eat insects and other invertebrates, along with various fruits, including my blueberries which I’m happy to share.

A smidgeon brighter than our male Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), that, and the black wings make it obvious which red bird he is.

A female with her totally different coloring, blending in with the greens of the season. She enjoys the blueberries just as much as the male. I’ve got plenty and it’s great that they come for the berries!

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A Lovely Shade of Blue

June 21, 2025

Native to western Asia, North Africa, and Europe, Chicory (Cichorium intybus). A perennial herbaceous plant of the family Asteraceae.

A plant that seems to be ubiquitous along roadsides right now, adding a lovely shade of blue to the landscape.

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Iridescent Colors

June 20, 2025

The tiny birds with scarlet red, and emerald green, iridescent feathers. The clowns of summer. They’re here entertaining me. So quick in motion. I put out sugar water and they come when I call. I’m totally enchanted. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris).

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Anemone Virginiana

June 19, 2025

Tall Anemone (Anemone virginiana) is beginning to bloom right now, along the trails and also the ones that have volunteered in my gardens. It’s a herbaceous perennial in the Buttercup (Ranunculaceae) family. Native to central and eastern US and to Canada as well.

The seedhead, just beginning to form, in the upper left of this image, becomes a cottony thimble shape that persists into spring providing nesting material for birds.

This Anemone is resistant to roaming deer and rabbits, which is a definite plus in my book.

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