Road Trip, the Final Act

After we left the campground, Treebeard and I headed out along a trail that was about a mile long. We kept our eyes open for anything that might be out and about. Here are a few of the photos we took along the trail...

A young garden spider waiting patiently for a snack to run into its web.

 

A damselfly teased us by flying close and sitting just long enough for us to focus the camera before flying away.

 

An empty shell of its former self, a cicada exuvia was perched on a leaf next to the trail.

 

This swamp darner wasn't feeling up to snuff, I'm afraid.  We found it in the middle of the trail.  I transferred it to an upright stem in a shrub.  I hope it was able to recover and fly away -- swamp darners are one of my favorite dragons.

 

This beauty teased us by flying just out of range of our cameras the first time we saw it.  Luckily, patience pays off when one is dealing with dragons.  We waited and this golden-winged skimmer finally cooperated for a photo.

 

My favorite find of the day was this bagworm on sycamore.  These moths are really weird -- the female never leaves her little bag and never grows wings.  But boy can she eat!!

And that's the last of the photos from our road trip.  Thanks for sticking with me!

If you'd like to know more about Pettigrew State Park, please go to www.ncparks.gov

Road Trip, Part Deux

When last I left you, Treebeard and I were making our way from the picnic area down to the lake. And quite a lake it is - over 16,000 acres of natural lake, all rain-fed due to the fact that it sits higher than the surrounding land. I didn't bother taking a picture from the boat ramp out over the lake, but I did snap a quick shot of the nearest bit of shore.

 

It really is a quite remarkable body of water.  It is shallow throughout and since the water is clear you can see much of the sandy bottom.  You can also see loads of little fish, particularly near the boat ramp.

 

I'm not sure what any of these little guys are, but there were huge numbers of little fish all around the dock.

 

After we got tired of watching little fish swim here and there, we headed back to the picnic area.  Along the way we were treated to some very cooperative dragonflies.  The one below is a blue dasher.  He was obelisking.  When some species of dragonflies that live in open areas get too warm they will sit with their abdomens raised in the direction of the sun.  This reduces the amount of their surface area that is exposed to direct sunlight and allows them to cool off a bit.

 

 

Apparently the female great blue skimmer pictured above did not feel the need to obelisk.  She was very cooperative and allowed me to get quite close.

Once we got to the picnic area we decided to keep on walking because it was still relatively early.  A little poking around along a fern bed revealed a northern rough green snake...

 

and a praying mantis, both hunting for an afternoon snack among the foliage.

 

As we strolled through the campground on our way to the trail, we couldn't help but notice the abundance of Virginia Creeper in bloom.  Virginia Creeper is one of those plants that folks tend to confuse with poison ivy.  It is actually related to grapes -- but you wouldn't want to eat the fruit it produces.

 

Another plant that was present in abundance was Beauty Berry, aka French Mulberry.  The pink flowers will give way to fruit of the most obnoxious shade of purple.  Most people think it is beautiful but I am definitely not one of those people.  As a matter of fact I usually refer to this shrub as "Ugly Berry."

 

At the edge of the campground sits a large old sycamore tree with an impressive hollow.  We have found bats roosting in this tree in the past so Treebeard stepped in to take a look.  He didn't see any bats, but he did see some nice big spider eyes staring back at him.  (I have been inside this tree with six other adults.)

We'll continue our adventure in another post. It's time now for Treebeard and me to go out and do our evening yard and garden prowl. Hope you're having a wonderful first day of summer/solstice!

Road Trip

On Friday Treebeard and I hit the road for a day trip. If you do much traveling in eastern NC, you're going to have to go over a lot of bridges. This particular bridge is the second longest in the state and crosses the Chowan River as it enters the Albemarle Sound.  We're on the middle in this photo.

 

Our destination was a state park a little over an hour to our south where we planned to attend a retirement luncheon for a friend.  If you're going to have a retirement luncheon this is the kind of place to hold it.

 

 See that sycamore tree with the hole near the base? Somewhere amongst the family photos there is a picture of me with my two sons inside that tree. Maybe one of these days I'll dig it out, scan it and post it for you.

Following the festivities we decided we had better take a walk to better digest the barbeque and ribs we had stuffed ourselves with -- not to mention the perfectly awesome cafe mocha brownies a co-worker had baked. OMG.

Of course, when Treebeard and I take a walk there is always a lot of stopping and poking about so I'm not too sure we accomplished much in the way of burning calories...but we enjoyed ourselves and that's what really matters.

But enough chatter...on to the photos:

Somewhere under all those fennel leaves there is a caterpillar. It will grow up to become one of the emerald moths, but for now it is hoping you won't notice it.

Leaf-cutter bees were having a big time in the jewelweed. They had cut and carted off many a little circle of green leaf.

 

Something slithered near my feet as we were walking along a canal. I stepped in a little closer to see what it was and surprised this black racer. He turned to dash away and landed himself in thick mud. Racers don't do mudding very well. We watched him to make sure he made it out of the muck. I guess we would have drawn straws to see who went in after him if he got too bogged down ;)

 

A few yards down, where the canal empties into the lake, we got to see evidence of someone going in the mud after their dog...

 

Don't you love the perfect butt print they left behind?

 

We saw plenty of tracks in the mud. Whatever made these tracks fared much better than the person who went in after the dog ;)

 

Yikes! I'll have to stop here and pick this back up tomorrow. It's nearly bedtime and I must get up early in the morning...oh, stop laughing - I know you checked the time stamp when I said it was nearly bedtime and saw that I posted this at quarter to 10. You have to understand that that's late for us...

A Little Behind

 

Sorry for the lack of posting...I'm a little behind on a whole lot of things, plus I am guilty of spending too much of my on-line time on Facebook these days. In addition, several months ago someone implied that in one of my posts a while back I was disloyal in some way to an organization that I have supported with my entire being for my whole adult life. Needless to say, it pissed me off to a tremendous degree. So much so that I nearly pulled SwampThings off the web for good...but I reconsidered.  Let me just say that if the individual(s) in question do not like what I post, they are free to go elsewhere to do their reading.

Enough of that.  Now on to other things...

Things are hopping in the yard and in the swamp. The photo of the bear (above my rant) is from the swamp and was shot through a dirty windshield at a pretty good distance, so don't give me too much grief for the poor quality. I do what I can with what I have ;) That being said, here is another photo through the same dirty windshield...

 

In case you can't tell, it's a fawn with its mom. We have been seeing lots of fawns this spring/summer.  They are quite cute but they are very demanding nursers - constantly nudging their moms whenever they stop.

We've also been seeing loads of rabbits, both in the yard and in the swamp. One afternoon, just shy of my driveway, I had to stop my car and shoo a little bunny out of the road. Apparently cottontails are not intimidated by your vehicle if it happens to be a Prius. This bigger bunny was hanging out near the bridge at work. He kept a watchful eye on me but never slowed down on his munching.

 

Turtles have been busy laying eggs and kingsnakes have been equally busy burrowing into the nest and eating the eggs. This snake was just outside my office window. I watched him work on turtle eggs for three hours (no, I didn't watch the entire three hours. I did have work to do!)

 

I took some video of the snake eating one of the eggs it dug up, but it's about as exciting as watching paint dry so I won't bore you with it.

Things in the yard have been busy. The butterfly garden is attracting butterflies...

 

Birds are nesting here and there...

 

 

We have had indigo buntings, blue grosbeaks, summer tanagers, Carolina wrens, prothonotary warblers and several others nesting on the property. Treebeard and I have coffee on the porch every morning just so we can greet the day with birdsong.

There are other things going on as well but I'll save those for another day. Later...