Category: Caterpillars

Art In The Ice

The yoga studio’s vernal pool was full and thick with decorated ice this morning. Many leaves including the oak leaf here in the artwork. First captured by the wind and then anchored by the water and ice.

The cold, and all the beautiful snow and ice takes me to a different world. Just this morning I had a chat via text with a dear friend who shares similar feelings about the winter season. She told me that taking a breath of the cold winter air is like breathing in peppermint. Oh what a perfect description.

Rain Tomorrow Night

Rain drops on Virginia Pine (Pinus virginiana). Perhaps this is will be the look of things tomorrow afternoon and into the night. I hope.

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A Bird Of All Seasons

The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is a year round resident, one that doesn’t migrate. Looking stunning all year long, but particularly in late autumn and winter, when there are few colors to complete with their many shades of red. This female Cardinal is enjoying Beautyberry (Callicarpa) drupes.

Cardinals and snow. What a perfect combination.

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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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White Berries

Gray Dogwood (Cornus racemosa). White berries, not red, as we would normally expect on another member of the same genus (Cornus), a Flowering Dogwood tree.

Those white berries, sitting on bright crimson pedicles, that to me look like miniature trees. Those pedicles lasting through the winter.

Gray Dogwoods send out suckers from their rhizomes, creating dense thickets. They make great nesting sites for birds, and shelter for birds and small animals.

Another part of Mother Nature’s world that is pure pleasure to watch as each season goes by.

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Feeder Buddies

The feeder has only been out a couple days. I expected the birds would take a while to discover it. Maybe a week or two. But the Chickadees (Paridae), and Tufted Titmice (Baeolophus bicolor) came right away, as if they had been waiting for just a short time for their seeds to show up.

I love hanging out with my cousins, my best friends, and these two species of birds, Chickadees and Tufted Titmice, are also close cousins, members of the family, Paridae.

And they don’t need to have a family reunion to get together. They see each other at the feeder every day.

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Color Coordination

Red berries. Red bird. Good timing for the Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), finding those berries of the Flowering Dogwood tree.

I haven’t started feeding the birds yet. Soon though.

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No Leaves Left

Our autumn is now past its peak. The wind has come through in a rage, taking not just the leaves but some branches and trees as well.

Here, sitting in a Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) is an Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe).

Dogwoods are so beautiful all year long. With their leaves gone and the berries still there, that adds up to extra beauty.

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Red Berries Deep In The Woods

Solomon’s Plume (Maianthemum racemosum), can be found in large colonies emerging from their thick rhizomes in the spring. Clusters of white flowers form at the end of their long arching stems. In the autumn you’ll find these beautiful clusters of red berries at the end of those stems.

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