Today, The Home Swamp

 

Things That Caught My Eye

Treebeard and I went for a walk today - surprising, I know ;) Several things caught my eye as we rambled and I thought I'd share some of them with you.

First a little swamp art:

If you click on the image to enlarge it, you can more fully appreciate the Picasso-esque quality of this particular baldcypress knee. Baldcypress knees are kind of like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike.

Next, a sort of Mother Nature still life...

An oyster mushroom bowl holding a nut and a leaf from a beech (Fagus grandifolia), a grape leaf, and a bit of dried grass. Variations on a theme of brown.

Then, a bit of snail graffiti. This time variations on a theme of gray.

But, in the winter woods, the eye is always drawn to a spot of color. This bright green was provided by Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides).

And then there were textures to appreciate. The smooth tupelo berry (Nyssa aquatica) resting against a bed of prickly baldcypress needles (Taxodium distichum), crunchy red maple leaves (Acer rubrum), and a tupelo leaf.

Last, but certainly not least, some very persistent blueberry leaves and some buds (probably Vaccinium corymbosum).

Solo Saturday

It has been ages since I have had the opportunity to take a walk with no particular destination in mind and no time table to follow. Treebeard and I have been tied up with work or with house-building related tasks for what seems like forever. Even today I guess I should have been out on the property doing some prep work before the contractor comes in to place the foundation...but I needed some time to just be, so I headed out for a ramble this morning. Treebeard is on duty this weekend and my dog is too old to go for an all-day hike so I headed out solo. It was hot and cloudy, not exactly ideal conditions, but how glorious to be out and about!

The beech trees whispered to me as I walked along the trail and the Spanish moss sighed out on the pond.
Resurrection fern took advantage of the humidity provided by our recent rain...

...and a tiny little garden of twinberry, mosses, and lichen flourished at the base of a tree.

A wrinkled old mushroom gave a mysterious wiggle.
A gentle tilt of the cap revealed the source of the wiggle - an unidentified scarab beetle at work.
Somewhere along the way an unwelcome hitcher - a black-legged tick - snagged a ride . Needless to say, he is no longer with us.
Plus, another sojourner joined me. This hunting dog was wandering around, separate from his pack. When I came along he must have figured I was the next best thing so he walked with me for about 2 miles. I'm not a fan of hunting with dogs and it is particularly irksome when the packs get on the park. This is the last Saturday of hunting season - the woods were full of dogs. Unfortunately, dogs can't read boundary markers. This fellow is back home with his owners now, hopefully with a full belly and a nice box to sleep in. (He was an amiable companion, made me miss walking with my dog...)
Evidence of other more task oriented wanderers...snail trails on a dead log.

Morning Stroll

A stroll through the yard this morning offered up a variety of things to see. I selected four that I liked most and decided to post them without identifying them properly -- radical, eh?

Mr. Toad starts us out (actually, I think this is a female)

Then we move on to a tiny toad stool. Ironically, the toad was sitting next to this 'shroom when Treebeard spotted it, but it hopped off before I could catch the two in the same frame.

Next we move to "ground-nesting" saprophytes.

And finally to a fine, furry caterpillar.

There, I did it! I posted pictures without identifying the critters -- so double "ha" to the person who said I wouldn't be able to do it! (And no, it wasn't Treebeard)

Friday's Finds

Friday was drizzly. Actual water was leaking from the sky - amazing! I went for a two mile walk to gather materials for a program and I only got damp, so it wasn't exactly a drought-busting day. But hey, at least it was something.

The photo above shows one of Treebeard's favorite fall treats: persimmons. He eyes this particular tree each time he comes to my work swamp. Persimmons don't get me too excited - as a child I ate too many at time once and sort of lost my taste for them :0

Persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, is a dioecious species. You have to have both a male and a female tree in order to have fruit.

The flower is yellow crownbeard, Verbesina occidentalis. Sorry I don't have an ID on my little invertebrate friend. I really do need to find a good reference for snails...

Something relatively small has taken a bite out of this pawpaw, the fruit from Asimina triloba. Most of the pawpaws have been gobbled down already. Bears love 'em and I found plenty of bear sign where I found this particular fruit.

Can You See It Now?

 

There is some pretty weird stuff going on with Picasa and Blogger lately. Pictures showing up for some folks and not for others, the program telling me I need to be connected to the internet when I'm already connected...I'm convinced it's gremlins or maybe web sprites at work.

Gone Walking

Treebeard is off to his week of in-service refresher training tomorrow, so he and I are going walking for a while this morning. If we see anything interesting we'll let you know.

By the way, the tracks above were made by white-throated sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis). Lately there have been hordes of them on the roads at the work swamp.

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And we're back. We showed great restraint and only walked about four miles...

Our ramblings yielded a variety of rewards. Here is a collage of a few things we saw this morning. Left to right, top to bottom: someone's building a home in a maple tree, mosquito fern on ice, cattail seeds, a dandelion in bloom, a hardy diving beetle swimming around under the ice, evidence of a raccoon who forgot to wipe his feet, a whopping big bunch of mistletoe on a skinny tree, dogbane seeds waiting for a breeze, and the muddy evidence of how flexible that raccoon's hind foot was.

This and That

I've been pressed for time of late and haven't had a chance to put together a coherent post. Hopefully this little disjointed post will satisfy the reader who emailed me with the complaint that I hadn't posted anything "swampy" in a while :) I will try to do better in the future -- say, February?


Many thanks to Treebeard for holding this pair of very active ticks for me. I wanted a picture of both sexes but couldn't hold them and focus the camera at the same time - the little suckers are quick! The female is the larger one on the left, the male is on the right. The Black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) is a carrier of Lyme disease. Luckily we seldom find them attached.


A surprise on the forest floor. This is a puttyroot leaf. Puttyroot, a.k.a. Adam-and-Eve, Aplectrum hyemale, is a native orchid that blooms in the spring. It is much more common in the mountains and piedmont of my state so I didn't expect to find it here in the work swamp.


Not sure which species of potter wasp constructed this nest. I will have to keep an eye on it and see what emerges in the spring.


Are you lookin' at me? White-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus.


Treebeard snapped this picture of a hermit thrush, Catharus guttatus, from his truck window. He seems to be enjoying the new digital camera that Santa brought him.

Thursday Things

A motley assortment of a few of the things that caught my attention at work today. It was an exceptionally beautiful day and I felt fortunate to be able to spend a majority of my time outside.


Swamp treasures of the prehistoric kind. Okay, so I found the shells on Tuesday...but they were still sitting on my desk today.


Lycoperdon pyriforme, Wolf-fart Puffball. Why wolf-fart? I don't have an answer for that :) You'd have to ask a mycologist.


This limb is just outside my office window. What makes it significant you might wonder. Nothing, I just like it. Some days it is full of birds stopping for a rest, other days it might find itself host to a gray squirrel munching on a pilfered fungus.


Bad light and too far away...but I don't care. Cedar waxwings are too pretty to ignore. A bunch of them swooped in and started eating honeysuckle fruits. The downside of that is that they will distribute the seeds far and wide.


Wonder what worked so hard to make this lovely cavity? I'll have to keep an eye on it this spring and see if anyone new moves in. I wish I had a way to look inside -- perhaps one of my bat mirrors can be adapted to fit in the hole...but that is a project for another day.