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Corydalis flavula Revisited
If you’ll bear with me, I’m going to start calling this plant by its scientific name largely because I had misidentified it and want to make it clear to me what it is. That’s why I’m reposting about this precious little plant. Getting things straight in my mind. A couple weeks ago as the earliest…
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Greenbrier, and Catbrier
Greenbriers and Catbriers are in the Smilax genus of plants in the family Smilacaceae. About 300 species of these vines live worldwide. Twenty of the species are native to North America north of Mexico. Eleven are native to Virginia. The small flowers of Greenbriers and Catbriers attract bees, beetles, and flies as pollinators, with their…
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Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
My first sighting this season was yesterday. The state insect of Virginia, the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly (Papilio glaucus). Native to eastern North America. The butterfly I saw yesterday had just emerged from its chrysalis. Brand new. In the autumn an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar will form itself into a chrysalis. NOT a cocoon but…
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Trout Lily
If ever there was the perfect use of the word “diminutive” I think it would be for describing Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum). A lily that grows to be just six inches tall. A bit too big for a doll house but still mighty small for a lily. It’s flower which dips shyly has no petals…
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Downy Woodpecker
The Downy Woodpecker, Picoides pubescens. A permanent resident here and in most places in their native range. That range, with the exception of the desert southwest and the tundra of the north, is nearly all of Canada and the United States. But in the northern portions of their territory, some may wander a bit south…
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Tufted Titmouse
A bird that doesn’t migrate. Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) is a bird that comes to my feeders during all seasons. Well, all seasons that I have those feeders out. Bears think the seeds I put out for the BIRDS are for bears as well. During many months of the year I must consider the pluses…
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Tomorrow is SPRING!
Many of you know that I love winter, my totally, over the top, favorite season. But I also delight in the seasons changing. If the seasons stayed the same, day after day after day after day I wouldn’t be content. I think the world of CHANGE. Sometimes even Mother Nature just doesn’t want to let…
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Cedar Waxwings, Part 2
At my cabin there are so many blueberry bushes. So many, if I had to guess, that guess would be maybe twelve mature bushes. Maybe. By the Fourth of July every year my freezer is filled with quart sized bags of berries to provide muffins, pies, pancakes, toppings for ice cream, scones and more pies.…
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Cedar Waxwings
Perhaps you’ve seen this photo in the past. It’s one of my favorite images of the many many that I’ve taken. Surely I’ve used it before. These Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) are performing a mating ritual in which the pair pass a treasure (in this case a sumac berry) back and forth. No telling which…
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Cutleaf Toothwort
A spring ephemeral, a perennial native to eastern North America. Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata). The “toothwort” of its name is thanks to the appearance of its rhizome. The Cutleaf Toothwort likes woods with mesic soils covered with lots of leaf litter. This certainly must be the description of the woods where I live. Many of…