This morning finds me at the yoga studio early. Frost covering much of the world down here in the lowlands. I take the opportunity to capture the beautiful dusting on Purple Dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum).
A photo from another day, you can see how it becomes a ground cover.
Though a native to Europe and Asia it can be found covering whole fields, creating a purple sea here in Virginia right about now.
Yellow-rumped Warblers, Setophaga coronata, have to come to visit for the winter. They’re also affectionately referred to as Butter Butts.
When insects are available, that’s their meal of choice but here, in the cold months, they will settle for goldenrod seeds, and the berries of juniper, poison ivy, poison oak, greenbrier, grapes, Virginia creeper and dogwood.
Some people are able to entice them to feeders with sunflower seeds, raisins, peanut butter, and suet but I’m not one of the lucky ones. That’s okay! They seem to like it here anyway. AND they do seem to enjoy the bird bath that I keep ice free during the winter.
I am always on the alert for turtles in the road and if conditions allow, I’ll stop and help the critter, usually a box turtle, cross safely. A few days ago as I drove up my mountain, along the twisty, steep, gravel road, I spotted something. Certainly not a turtle, but something I don’t recall ever stopping for in the past. Something that I never would have guessed I’d see from the driver’s seat of my truck. A HUGE caterpillar. My surprise only increased as I approached the caterpillar and saw what it looked like. Certainly he was a Chinese dragon all set for a New Year’s parade.
An aqua color of 1950s cars, with accents of bright, rich orange, and black. Regularly spaced black spikes along his body segments and much larger spiked horns/antlers of orange, tipped with black near his head. Yes, that looks like a Chinese dragon to me.
In reality though this critter is a Hickory Horned Devil Caterpillar, the larva of the Regal Moth, Citheronia regalis. In addition to his interesting color scheme, this guy is incredibly large. Think the size of a large hot dog. But it is a caterpillar that you don’t need to be frightened of. He will cause you no harm. If you see one, treat him with care, and guide him to a spot of soft dirt where he can achieve his goal of burrowing, where he will pupate over the winter.
In this stage of his life he has been eating. Chomping down on the leaves of hickory, ash, persimmon, sweetgum, sycamore and walnut. No wonder he made his home here. This is what many of the trees in my woods are. No need to be concerned about what he is eating. There are not enough of these guys to be a concern and for the most part are not considered a pest. The Hickory Horned Devil is native to the eastern US from New Jersey to Missouri and on southward to east Texas and central Florida.
The Regal Moth will emerge from the ground as an adult in late June or early July. As an adult he will not eat, and will live about one week.
He will reach a wingspan of up to six inches. Looking like a cuddly, furry, off white and orange Teddy bear, he will be in search of a mate. Eggs hatch in six to ten days. The larval stage, the Hickory Horned Devil Caterpillar, lives for about 35 days.
Have a cup’a Queen Anne’s Lace, Daucus carota.
As the Queen Anne’s Lace flower ages and seeds develop the umbel curls up, creating a lovely cup, as I’ve caught in this image.
Queen Anne’s Lace is not native to our continent, but to Europe and southwest Asia. It is said to have some beneficial use in the garden, boosting tomato production and providing a cooler and moister environment for lettuce if the gardener plants QAL around the tomato or lettuce.
On the other side of the coin, QAL is thought to be a significant menace in pastures, where it remains viable in the soil seed bank for up to five years. For us humans, it can cause skin irritation and blisters and in some states it is considered a noxious weed.
I Prefer native plants in my gardens and surrounding woods, but Queen Anne’s Lace has cast a magic spell upon me. I enjoy having it around.
A patch of the native plant, Smooth Sumac, Rhus glabra. A wonderful magnet for birds during the late winter and early spring.
Hard to decide which might be my favorite bird, but one that is right up there at the top, Northern Flicker, Colaptes auratus, is one of the birds that is attracted to the rich crimson berries.
The place I would expect to find a Northern Flicker, unlike most other woodpeckers, is on the ground. They hunt for ant larvae and beetle grubs, pecking into the soil the way other woodpeckers would be pecking into a tree trunk.
During this part of the year though, it is in the Smooth Sumac where I often see these handsome birds.
And if my stars are lined up just right, I might be lucky and capture a flash of marvelous yellow.
Or perhaps I can catch one signaling to others, letting them know that it is safe to land.
A little beetle crawling along a branch. He looks like something I would have caught and put into a jar when I was little – a Lightning Bug. But here he is roaming around, not on a hot, humid summer evening, but in WINTER. This doesn’t make sense. So much of Mother Nature’s world is a mystery, but that’s why I’ve got all those books in my library. Books for the baffled master naturalist. Go digging in those books.
Mystery solved! This beetle is a Winter Dark Firefly, Ellychnia corrusca. A cousin to my childhood memory, Lightning Bug. This Winter Dark Firefly, as larva and pupa, produces his own light. As a young adult he will still glow but as he ages he loses that glow. As an adult he finds a snug winter home under tree bark and emerges in late winter or early spring, where I find him crawling along a branch.
Rather than open meadows, which butterflies often prefer, the Northern Pearly Eye, Enodia anthedon, choses to flutter about in the woods, whether shady or with sun filtering through.
Fluttering by, feeling the need to rest, he’ll land upside-down to view his world.
His caterpillar hosts are various species of grasses, grasses which are happy living on the forest floor.
As an adult he dines on dung, mud, fungi, rotting fruit, carrion, and sap from willows, poplars, and birch.
A clever little guy, with an average wingspan of a bit more than 2 inches, this butterfly knows just where to land as I stalk him with my camera. He checks out the available landing spots and if it’s available he’ll chose a patch of poison ivy, just out of reach, as a safe haven.
Legs covered in blue and purple sparkles with a gilded body, much larger than mosquitoes that we usually notice, the Elephant Mosquito, Toxorhynchites rutilus, is one mosquito that we should encourage.
Here is the REALLY good part (1), the Elephant Mosquito does not hunt humans down to get a blood meal. They won’t bite us as they cruise the gardens looking for sources of nectar. They won’t bite as they roam the neighborhood hunting for plant sap, honeydew, or juices from rotting fruit, which they also eat.
And REALLY good part (2), the larvae of Elephant Mosquitoes eat other mosquito larvae!
Wow! Include this insect on my list of best friends!
American Robin, Turdus migratorius. Two in one of my Eastern Red Cedar trees chowing down. They love those berries.
Robins have no concept of the legends we humans have, such as Robins being a sign of spring. This photograph was taken in December. They’re around my cabin from time to time throughout the winter. Silly Robins.
Wishing you the best in the coming spring!
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.
