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A Fresh Start And Spring
What a relief to get back to Tendrils and sharing my photographs with you. Much like many see winter a burdensome season, I felt isolated while this blog was on the fritz. Actually that is not how I see winter though. To me winter is a time of recalling childhood, sledding, snow-angels, snow days off from school,…
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Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers
Beautiful patterns, holes in tree bark, looking like a sort of Morse Code, is not the work of Martians leaving us a message, or wood boring insects. These holes are the work of a brightly colored, medium sized woodpecker, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Sphyrapicus varius. The photo, above, is a cluster of holes (called sapwells) that I discovered less…
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My Winter Birds
Perhaps these are my pets, the birds that come to my feeders. Wild birds that give me comfort just by being there. The bird you see in the picture, above, is a winter bird in my area (the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia), a White-throated Sparrow, Zonotrichia albicollis. He has a sweet song that is easy to remember,…
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Hackberry
Here on Snow Mountain, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, I see quite a few hackberry trees, Celtis occidentalis. Most are trees with circumferences of 5 inches or smaller, trees that have not been around long. Their small size may be, in part, because the forest up here is a young forest. Back in the 1950s…
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Winterberry
I am in my element now. It is winter. I like to say, whatever season is happening at the moment – it is my favorite, but truth be told, winter is really my favorite. At least for the next few months! I love the stark landscape, very little color (with the exception of black, gray, white, and browns),…
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Virginia Pine
The holidays. They’re here. They’ve got me thinking of pine trees, and pinecones. And I’m wishing for snow. I’ve had a tiny bit of snow already, but I’m ready for more. This is Virginia pine, Pinus virginiana. I live in a cabin, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in central Virginia. There are plenty of Virginia pine up…
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Witch Hazel
The autumn bloomer. American witch hazel, Hamamelis virginiana. Blooming to catch the last of the lovely purple asters. The asters have been blooming for many weeks now, adding an unexpected color to the color scheme of fall. Their bloom time overlaps, just a bit but I’m getting distracted. I want to tell you about American witch…
