May Apples

May Apple, Podophyllum peltatum

In April you would have found flowers beneath these umbrella-like leaves.

Now, underneath the foliage, the fruit ripens.

Supposedly, Eastern Box Turtles find the fruit quite tasty. They are said to be one of the main distributors of the seeds of the May Apple.

Pawpaw Potential - Lost

Asimina triloba

The pawpaw flowers are beginning to open. This branch had a nice progression from tight bud to open flower. Unfortunately, these particular flowers will never result in fruit. Someone broke the branch and it is just barely hanging on. We will have to cut it off the tree because it now hangs down into the trail just at eye level.

Tidbits from Sunday

Sunday was a beautiful day. We headed out onto the pond (of course!) and then up into the swamp. We were paddling with a friend from Vermont who has been down camping for the past few weeks. He really likes it here - well, except for the ticks ;) He didn't even complain (too much) when Treebeard insisted he look in a couple of hollow trees in order to see the bats within.

Below are a few snippets from our day. I didn't take nearly as many photos as I usually do. It was just so beautiful out I wanted to concentrate on being out and not so much on trying to capture images.

Things have greened up quite a bit since our last paddle into the swamp a few weeks ago. The spatterdock (Nuphar lutea) has emerged, much to the delight of the beaver and nutria who have been nibbling off the leaves. Guess everyone enjoys a fresh salad now and again.

Although we usually see them mostly along the shoreline, the gambusia (aka mosquito fish) seemed quite happy swimming amidst the vegetation out in the middle of the pond. Good for them! Gobble up those wiggle-tails (mosquito larvae) little fishies, gobble 'em up!

A nice fresh tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) enjoying a not-so-nice and fresh scat. Aren't you glad we get our salts and other essentials from more appetizing sources?

The larger tree mid-frame is a bald-cypress (Taxodium distichum). It's one of those odd deciduous needle and cone-bearing trees -- hence the name, "bald". This one is extra special. Up there where it crooks off to the left there is a cavity and that cavity houses a beehive. We have found several bee trees up in the swamp this spring. I hope that's a good sign that there are at least a few healthy wild bees out there and that not all hives are suffering from colony collapse.

Otters don't have discriminating tastes, it seems. The head and skin above belong to a blackfish, Amia calva (aka bowfin, grinnel, mudfish, dogfish, spottail). This was a small one - they can get up to nearly 43 inches and 20 pounds - but I'm sure it filled the tummy of the otter that caught it. Click on it to enlarge it and take a look at its teeth.
Blackfish are capable of breathing air and they are tolerant of high temperatures, both valuable traits for a fish living in a shallow southern coastal plain pond. They offer fishermen a nice fight but are not particularly tasty.

A few of the least trillium (Trillium pusillum var. virginianum) are still blooming. We were surprised by that. They are usually through by the last week in March. This flower has some age on it as evidenced by its pink petals.

Sceloporus undulatus hyacinthinus, such an impressive name for a lizard. Me, I prefer the common name, Fence Lizard. This one is just a youngster. Hopefully it will grow up to be a fine fat adult. As lizard's go, these are quite personable and even moderately tolerant of being observed. They aren't nearly as jumpy as skinks.

Smacked tight to the trunk of a bald-cypress, this green treefrog (Hyla cinerea) was hiding in plain sight... just a whisper of Spanish moss breaking up its profile.
I can't help myself, I absolutely love these little amphibians and never pass up an opportunity to photograph them.

It was a fine day spent in excellent company in my favorite place.
I am a very fortunate person.

Fiddle-dee-dee

Across the road from the house, the Christmas ferns, Polystichum acrostichoides, are sending up fiddleheads.

Friday, On The Pond

Friday dawned clear, bright and breezy. The weatherman informed us that the day would be mild, the last such day for while. Since I had the day off, Treebeard and I decided it would be a good day to head to the Millpond and do a little paddling.
We were right :)

Loads of turtles were out basking. Most were very skittish so I had to zoom in to get a shot.

Red maples grow on old cypress and tupelo stumps out in the pond. The flowers create a nice contrast with the gray of the Spanish moss.

This beaver lodge has been in more or less constant use for at least the past 30 years.
Every once in a while it will be empty for a year or two, but then some enterprising couple will move in and fix it up again. It, like all the other lodges on the pond, is a great place to find basking snakes in the warmer months.

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Species list from Friday:

Insects: Honeybee, Apis mellifera; and others that we didn't take the time to ID

Amphibians: Spring peeper, Pseudacris crucifer crucifer; Brimely's chorus frog, Pseudacris brimleyi; Southern leopard frog, Rana sphenocephala utricularia

Reptiles: American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis; Northern black racer, Coluber constrictor constrictor; Yellow-bellied slider, Trachemys scripta scripta; Eastern painted turtle, Chrysemys picta picta; assorted Cooters, Pseudemys sp.

Mammals: Eastern gray squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis; Nutria, Myocastor coypus

Birds: (Order in which they were first observed)
Tree swallow
Canada goose
fish crow
red-shouldered hawk
red-tailed hawk
eastern phoebe
Carolina wren
winter wren
yellow-rumped warbler
wood duck
American black duck
American wigeon
turkey vulture (143 at once!!)
black vulture
mallard
bald eagle
ring-necked duck
pintail
killdeer
ring-billed gull
goldfinch
purple finch
green-winged teal
ruby-crowned kinglet
downy woodpecker
red-bellied woodpecker
white-breasted nuthatch
eastern bluebird
hooded merganser
hairy woodpecker
great blue heron
pileated woodpecker
American robin
Carolina chickadee
common grackle
barred owl
sharp-shinned hawk
northern flicker
golden-crowned kinglet
pied-billed grebe
belted kingfisher
redwing blackbird
pine warbler

Millpond Ramble

Baldcypress, mirrored in the dark water.

A little accidental chickweed garden, 20 feet up. Just exactly how did chickweed find its way
into the fork of a beech tree? Inquiring minds want to know...

A favorite spot out on the pond. The scrappy little tupelo gum in the front is sporting some mistletoe.

Red cedar bonsai - this tree's been the same size for the last 30 years. I've always considered it the millpond Christmas tree.

Red-backed salamanders were under nearly every log we rolled today. Tough little amphibians. This one is a youngster still.

Three very different trees stand together by the water's edge -- a beech, a swamp black gum, and a baldcypress. See the red shirt that Treebeard's wearing? I gave it to him in 1978 :)

Last, but definitely not least, another favorite tree. There is something about the base of this tree that always draws my eye.

We thoroughly enjoyed our walk this afternoon. The temperatures climbed into the mid-60s and the wind was gentle. I have been gone all week and haven't had a chance yet to catch up on comments, but I will. I also need to check Google Reader and see how many posts I need to read...

Sighting

 

The rare and elusive one-eyed swamp woozie...


Oh, okay. So it's not rare or elusive or even a swamp woozie. It's the open seed pod of a plant called anglepod, Gonolobus gonocarpus.

Taking a Break, Part II

Just a few images from the swamp we visited on Saturday.
It is an area rich with wildlife - particularly of the herp variety. We saw numerous turtles, snakes and lizards, all taking advantage of a warm October afternoon. I'll post some of the critter photos later in the week.

Root ball from a blow-down

It's kinda thick out there!

Smilax berries

Nyssa biflora berries