Thanks to series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun I was able to go out and capture an image of the Northern lights (aurora borealis) tonight. A rare treat for central Virginia!
That bright star you see nearly at the center of the picture is Vega.
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A handsome male Common Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina) rambling across the road. This is my first this season to give a helping hand across the road and into a safe environment again.
What intricate patterns they have on their shells. Those patterns are just like our fingerprints. You can identify a Box Turtle by the pattern on its carapace (the top of its shell). I take a picture of each turtle that I help across the road and make note of where it was. The Common Box Turtle has a home range with a diameter of about (just!) 750 feet. Home ranges of these turtles often will overlap.
The Common Box turtle can live to be 25 to 30 years old. Some have lived to be 40 to 50 years old and a few lucky ones have been recorded to live beyond 100 years.
How special that they can live that long. Maybe with the help of people who stop to help them across the road.
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Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum) a perennial herb, native to Eastern North America. It’s decorating the landscape everywhere up here now. Rich pink dots of color can be found in endless places. Charming spring.
Flowers though, in the lower elevations are coming to the end of their lives, slowly becoming seed pods with a fun surprise included in each one. Those pods have fibers inside that begin to coil up, spring-like, as they ripen and dry.
That coiling creates tension inside the pod allowing those spring-loaded seeds to be flung a good distance from the plant.
This is what those spring-loaded seeds were tossed from. This is what is left after the seeds are gone, only an empty capsule left. I think this is something fun to see, making my imagination run wild. It looks like a miniature carousel or a tiny fairy in a ballet performance or any number of other tiny things.
Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) blooming abundantly right now, to welcome the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds back from their wintering grounds in Central America. Long tubular orangish-red flowers, seem to be designed just for the clowns of summer.
Coral Honeysuckle is native to the eastern United States. Its opposite leaves, growing directly below the blooms are fused at the stem forming a cup which catch rain drops creating enchanting little puddles.
These flowers continue blooming through the summer though not quite as enthusiastically as in the spring.
And they’re beautiful.
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Hiking along the trails up here in the mountains during May you might find this splendid herbaceous perennial. With rich yellow blooms, this is Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea).
The native range of Golden Alexanders is the eastern and central US where it can grow to 2.5 feet tall.
The host plant of the Black Swallowtail butterfly.
Finding these plants in bloom while out roaming is pure delight.
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Canada Violet (Viola canadensis). Yellow centers, purple stripes accenting the lower petals with the two side petals having smaller purple stripes. The backs of the petals have a wash of purple. Leaves are heart shaped with a long slender base with bluntly toothed edges.
Violets are the host plant of Fritillary butterflies.
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Lovely Trilliums growing in the woods up here in the mountains. Depending where you are, you might come upon a huge patch of them. A community of White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum).
These white blooms will slowly turn pink after being pollinated. This has confused me because occasionally I see pink buds opening. In the image directly above, the pink bud is just right of center, below the other three flowers already open. The same bud is in the top photo. This pink bud is a Trillium grandiflorum forma roseum. From start to finish this bud stays pink.
Not something that is usually mentioned when discussing aging of the White Trillium petals.
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The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have arrived, and now I’m pleased that another of the many birds that spend the summer here has arrived. The American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla), like many of the birds that spend the summer here are stunning.
The top image is a male Redstart and in the image directly above is a female Redstart.
They eat mostly insects and spiders making it unlikely that I’ll see one at my feeder. They love the birdbath though.
I try to keep at least one birdbath full whether it is summer or winter. I get to see many birds that way, that I wouldn’t see otherwise.
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A stunning butterfly. Just look at those colors. Black and white, rich purplish-blue, and that red (orange?). This, the dorsal side (or top side) of the butterfly.
This is a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) which has an impressive range including North and South America, Europe and Asia. And of course because of its vastly different homelands it also has many, many different host plants. Here in Virginia their main host plant is Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica).
Here is the ventral (underside) side of the Red Admiral. Quite a different look.
As an adult the Red Admiral has a life of about 10 months during which they consume tree sap, the juices of rotting fruit, and the moisture from bird droppings. If these choice liquids aren’t available they’ll resort to drinking the nectar of Milkweed, Clover, Aster, and Alfalfa flowers.
One of so many butterflies to make our world beautiful!
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Carolina Allspice (Calycanthus floridus). Keep that scientific name handy since I discovered if you Google “Carolina Allspice” you will get all sorts of things that are not this shrub.
Carolina Allspice grows to 6 – 9 feet tall, and is native to the southeastern US, where it is found at woodland edges and openings. Its blooms are about 2 inches across. Those blooms have a pleasant fruit scent which varies from bush to bush.
The leathery leaves grow to 6 inches long and turn yellow in autumn. Deer don’t find Carolina Allspice tempting. Amazing. Surely if they’re really hungry they’ll nibble on it.