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.

Raucousness

One of two Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata) that have decided there is food for them at the feeder. This one temporarily playing coy for the camera. Unlike the Blue Jay’s normal demeanor of pure raucousness.

Birds with beautiful feathers, many shades of blue, are here around my cabin all year long. They certainly are the bullies of the neighborhood, but I’ll put up with them and actually enjoy them since I don’t have much say in the matter.

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White-breasted Nuthatch Again

It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen one. One feeder, and only one, has been up for just a few weeks. Today though, I was treated to the arrival of one White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis). They’re usually permanent residents here.

This is the look of a male White-breasted Nuthatch, black, gray, and white. The female has more gray, and less black in its coloring, wearing gray, and white.

They’re birds I love to see. They’ll come to the feeder, take a seed, disappear, and quickly return for another. This behavior indicates it’s caching the seeds. Saving them for later. Hiding the seeds in cracks in the bark of trees in the area.

Such a simple thing, to feed the birds. And it brings me such pleasure.

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Apple Pie With Green Chiles

It was an apple pie sort of morning. Mighty chilly outside. To say the least. Those apples had been wafting their aroma all around the room ever since they came into the cabin.

My favorite for pies, McIntosh apples. Quartered, seeded, peeled, chopped into pieces, filled the waiting pie pan lined with Mom’s pie crust recipe. Then a double check on the crumb topping ingredients. That’s when it hit me, a new family favorite that I hadn’t even given a thought.

Apple pie with green chiles now out of the oven. Dessert tonight.

I’m a happy baker.

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Not Berries

In the vegetable garden there’s not much going on right now, except the parsley which is going crazy, enjoying the cold weather. Aside from that, there are what appear to be berries on the asparagus plants. Beautiful, small, perfectly round, scarlet.

Though they resemble berries, they are actually seed pods, containing three or four seeds in each one. And watch out, the seed pods are toxic to humans.

Asparagus plants are dioecious, meaning each individual plant is either male or female. It is the female plant that produces the seed pods.

Fun things in a garden that is mostly ready for winter.

The Sapsuckers Are Back

Elation at the cabin this afternoon as I spotted two Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers (Sphyrapicus varius). One took off before I was able to get a photo of both of them together, working on a Flowering Dogwood tree. They’ve returned to their winter home!

The one that remained in this image is a female. Working to get sap from the tree. Their tongues are designed for lapping up the sap that emerges from the small holes they tap into the tree’s bark. That design of the tongue, edges a bit like brush bristles which aid in that sap lapping.

Welcome back Sapsuckers. Hoping to see you guys often this winter.

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The Garden Gate

Tonight has me looking through photographs. Mainly snow pictures. I’m thinking perhaps I’ll come across an image that will be the perfect Christmas card.

I’m not sure about this one, though I love it. It’s from February 6, 2010, part of my favorite winter, 72 inches total during the season. In this image, mighty deep snow building up at the garden gate, and that great shadow.

Maybe the card will be with this image. Undecided at this point.

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Robins Roaming Together For Winter Food

During the winter the American Robin (Turdus migratorius), here in Virginia changes its diet, eliminating invertebrates and switching to fruits and berries.

Roaming, flocking, together with many other Robins, sometimes Cedar Waxwings joining in, looking for winter fruits, such as Holly berries, Juniper berries, Crabapples, Hawthorn berries. Emptying one location after another of those fruits. Always roaming, hunting for another store of fruit.

As spring arrives, each member of the group goes their individual way, switching back to invertebrates as their main food choice, and defending their territory during the breeding season.

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Dressed For The Season

Three little Red Maple leaves (Acer rubrum) on a stump, dressed appropriately for the holiday.

Wishing you a happy Thanksgiving!

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Reeling With Joy

Such a comfort to go for a walk and find the soil is moist, after receiving 2.93 inches of rain yesterday. After being so dry for so long. I expect this is just an aberration, like the 2.12 inches of rain that fell from the sky on September 10th. An absolute tease. Who knows though. I sure don’t. I doubt that it is known by anyone.

No more dried up patches of soil that have become like puzzle pieces, shrinking and raising at the edges. Except for the empty space between those puzzle pieces, fitting together perfectly. Just nice dirt in the garden that looks like it’s all set to receive some seeds.

Happy trees. Happy plants expressing their joy in their own plant ways.

We’ll see how long this lasts.

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Thankful For Rain

Rain drops on Colorado Blue Spruce (Picea pungens).

Severe drought. A sad situation. But today, at long last it has rained all day. Still coming down steadily. I’m watching as the inches slowly creep up. As I write this the rain gauge tells me 2.89 inches. A bit of a dent in our 18 inch deficit.

Hallelujah.

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