Piedmont Nature Trails – In the Woods

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The periodical (every 13 years) Great Southern Brood of cicadas are fascinating creatures and they are everywhere! Walking in the woods we found the one (above) sitting on a sign post. When inadvertently disturbed it flapped its wings and landed down on the leaf litter with its wings spread out.

Returning home, we noticed our dogwood tree was covered with the empty nymph cases, still clinging to the twigs and leaves.

We wondered about the noise they were supposed to be making, but in a few days we started hearing a faint buzz outside which got a little louder each day and soon could even be heard from inside the house. The buzzing is constant. To me, it sounds like a lawnmower in the distance, not at all like the jack hammer some folks were suggesting. But who knows? Maybe they haven’t reached their peak yet.

A few days later we stopped by the botanical garden to check out the American columbo and to take a May Day picture of the trees at my eight seasons spot. It was a very bright and sunny day and for some reason my camera decided to give me a black background for this sun-drenched iris.

Much to my delight the mountain laurel is starting to bloom!

When we got to the American columbo plant the flower stalk looked like it was about three feet tall now. It’s kind of hard to make out in the third picture here, with all the other greenery surrounding it. It looks top heavy, with the bundle of buds bending way over.

The next picture is my scene for Karma’s “same location for all 4 seasons” photo hunt. I made it an 8 season endeavor, including Groundhog Day, May Day, First Harvest and Halloween, which fall between the solstices and equinoxes. If you want to join in please see her instructions at the end of this post HERE at Karma’s When I Feel Like It Blog.

5.2.24 ~ Courtyard Gardens
May Day (8 seasons series)

I can’t believe the difference from the first two pictures I took and this one. It will be fun to post them all together at the end of the year. And I will keep on checking the American columbo! It’s getting hot. It was almost 90°F that day, above the average mid 70s, and Tim didn’t last too long. (I was finally in a short sleeve shirt with no jacket!) And the drought monitor officially has us at abnormally dry. It should be an interesting late spring and summer.

dimpled trout lilies and other small spring things

3.3.24 ~ Piedmont Nature Trails
dimpled trout lily

On this Sunday morning my friend Susan and I set out to find dimple trout lilies at the botanical garden, only to find the gates would be closed until 1:00. No matter, we decided to saunter along the nearby nature trails for a couple of hours. And there turned out to be plenty of the tiny lilies in the woods. They are so tiny they barely poke through the leaves on the forest floor. They are native here in the Piedmont.

dimpled trout lily poking up through the fallen leaves

This post has way too many pictures but I couldn’t bring myself to cut out any more than I already did. The woods still looked like it was winter, unless one looked down and more closely at the leaf litter for tiny spring ephemerals.

The Dandelion’s pallid Tube
Astonishes the Grass —
And Winter instantly becomes
An infinite Alas —
The Tube uplifts a signal Bud
And then a shouting Flower —
The Proclamation of the Suns
That sepulture is o’er —
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1565)

When the botanical garden gates opened we went in and found more dimpled trout lilies and what looked like more kinds of trilliums coming up.

North Carolina Botanical Garden
more dimpled trout lilies

What a wonderful time we had enjoying springtime’s opening act in this part of the world! I’m sure there will be many more flowers coming soon.

a splendid autumn hike

For this wonderful long walk we went back to the Piedmont Nature Trails and took two different trails this time, part of Oak Hickory Trail which led us to part of Elephant Rock Trail. Of course, we were very curious about Elephant Rock. Much to our delight, we found ourselves in a mixed hardwood forest, which had an abundance of fall color, even if much of it was still green.

Oak Hickory Trail started with a very long stairway

“The [mixed hardwood] forest in this area contains no pines but is made up primarily of oaks, hickories, and maples with understory trees such as dogwood and sourwood. This sloping area has not been cut over in 100 years or more, and it apparently has never been cultivated as the low, flatter areas were.”

“This leaning white oak was split in 1954 during Hurricane Hazel but continued growing.”

first squirrel encounter
sometimes when they’re holding a nut they’ll stay still

we’re learning to look up to see the brightest fall colors

Elephant Rock Trail had a few stairways, too

while I stopped to examine this little brown jug…

Elephant Rock on the banks of Morgan Creek — the color of the right edge of the rock kind of blends in with the color of the water

Tim stepped down in front of Elephant Rock to give some size perspective

some reindeer lichen and oak leaves hanging over Morgan Creek

little brown jug is also called heart-leaf ginger, Virginia ginger or wild ginger

we met elderly sisters Mabel & Molly
and had a nice chat with their guardian, Tom

Back in May 2009 one of the first wildlife shots I got was with my first little digital pocket camera — a red squirrel on Beech Forest Trail at Cape Cod National Seashore in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It was the picture that got me started loving nature photography. I keep it at the top of my sidebar as a reminder of that wonderful feeling.

Over the years, while living by the sea, I grew fond of gulls and see that I have 90 blog posts featuring pictures of them! At the moment there are only 25 posts with squirrels but I have a feeling that number will be increasing quickly. One of these days “gull” will likely disappear from the tag cloud in my sidebar and “squirrel” might appear in place of it. We’ll see.

Gulls or squirrels, they’re both fun to photograph!

autumn amble

10.30.23 ~ Piedmont Nature Trails
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Another gorgeous walk! The Piedmont Nature Trails meander through an 88-acre forest behind the North Carolina Botanical Garden. On this day we started with the Streamside Trail, which follows Meeting-of-the-Waters Creek and crosses it twice. We are currently in an abnormally dry spell so there wasn’t much water flowing.

looking back at the steps leading to the bridge

In a moment of weakened ch’i
even a small patch of blue sky
a glint of a sunbeam
autumn light on the forest floor
can grant you strength and resolve.
~ Frank LaRue Owen
(Blister & Resolve, The Temple of Warm Harmony)

The above picture was a happy accident. These two squirrels were chasing each other up and down the trees, tackling each other and taking off again. Were they playing or courting? This is the only picture of the dozens taken that came out! Since the internet says they breed in mid-December or early January, and that a few breed again in June, these two were probably playing.

One online source says the fall colors peak in this part of the state in early to mid-November so we are starting to notice some larger patches of them as we drive around town. On the bright side, we will get to enjoy colors for a longer period of time since the trees seem to be taking turns being spectacular.