Chipmunks – Tendrils

So Many Common Box Turtles

Four days ago GrandCamper spotted a female Common Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina) digging a hole in the soil to lay her eggs. We were much too excited and created way too much commotion. Next thing we knew she had vanished without laying her eggs. We learned our lesson. In the photo above GrandCamper is adding her hand to the image for scale. I didn’t even have to suggest that!

Three days pass. Yesterday afternoon we’re out in front of the cabin picking blueberries and little GrandCamper spots another momma box turtle preparing to lay her eggs. This time we are quiet and respectful, making sure that we don’t make any grand disturbances. Success! This morning by mid-morning momma box turtle had covered her eggs and gone off to wherever she lives leaving the eggs on their own. GrandCamper and I have checked my photographs and we’re both sure that this is not the same turtle that was spotted earlier. This is another one. Her picture is above. So now we must wait. Common Box Turtle eggs can take from forty-five to ninety days to hatch. So we wait and watch. And a little help too. To protect the eggs from predators GrandCamper and her Grandpa went into the shop and built a little cage to place on top of the turtle nest, with a big rock on top of that, to protect it from skunks, raccoons, coyotes, foxes and chipmunks.

Blackhaw Viburnum

A large bush that I’ve been delighted to find is Blackhaw Viburnum (Viburnum prunifolium). It’s growing by my backdoor, and there’s lots of it growing in the woods all around my cabin.

The leaves of Blackhaw emerge from the buds involute, or curled as a spiral. The mature, glossy, opposite leaves are three to four inches long and one inch wide with fine serrations and pointed at the end. The petioles, or stems, of the leaves are a reddish color. In the autumn the leaves turn a purply-red.

Soon my bush will have buds. Buds that will become clusters of fragrant flowers four to five inches across. Flowers that will attract bees and flies to do their pollination magic.

Blackhaw Viburnum is the host plant of Spring and Summer Azure butterflies. The later caterpillar instars of the Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly occasionally feed on its leaves. Oh I wish I’d see a Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly! I’ve seen their caterpillars while pulling invasives in Shenandoah National Park. Never the adult though.

Its fruits, called drupes, are about one half inch long. They’re eaten by songbirds, gamebirds, squirrels and chipmunks.

As a tree Blackhaw Viburnum can grow to be thirty feet tall. Its bark blocky in a Persimmon tree sort of way. Large bush, small tree, all in all a mighty cool plant.

Cooper’s Hawk

A very fine (as in, “this is good”)(and as in, “the flakes are very small, but plentiful”) snow is falling out of the heavens, has been since lunch time when a Cooper’s Hawk, Accipiter cooper, not an unusual sight in the vicinity of my feeders, came by to see what was on the menu. Luckily for the potential lunch, they sensed his presence and took off. He left, continuing on his search for lunch.

By feeding song birds, I am attracting the Cooper’s Hawk, who eat medium-sized birds, rabbits, mice, squirrels, bats, chipmunks and even chickens. I don’t play favorites, this beauty is allowed here at my cabin along with all the other birds, particularly since he doesn’t come by daily. All welcome.