cardinal – In the Woods

bigleaf magnolia

10.30.24 ~ tufted titmouse
North Carolina Botanical Garden

For this walk we set out to locate the bigleaf magnolia specimen at the botanical garden because we heard its leaves were changing color for fall. But along the way I spotted an adorable titmouse waiting for a turn at the birdfeeder…

… and an American witch hazel in bloom with a caught leaf…

The native range of this southeastern tree is spotty, but the botanical garden is home to this majestic magnolia.

The bigleaf magnolia has the largest simple leaves and largest flowers of any tree indigenous to North America. It is a rare, native, deciduous, pyramidal tree with a single trunk and develops a spreading, broad, rounded crown with age, and grows 30 to 40 feet tall and equally as wide. It may be semi-evergreen in the deep south. The huge oblong-obovate leaves measure up to 3 feet long and 1 foot wide. The leaves are green above and silvery-gray and pubescent below. Showy fragrant flowers are creamy-white with rose-purple at the petal bases, and measure 8 to 14 inches in diameter. Although quite large, the flowers are often located far off the ground and are not always easy to see close up. The flowers give way to spherical cone-like fruits which mature to red in late summer, releasing individual red-coated seeds suspended on slender threads at maturity.
~ N.C. Cooperative Extension website

I have to admit I haven’t paid too much attention to this tree, even though we pass by it often in the Mountain Habitat part of the garden. I will try to look up more often to see if I can see the flowers and then the seeds in the coming seasons. But for now, these are the huge leaves in their fall colors.

Perhaps because the flowers are located so far off the ground is the reason I never noticed them before. I hope the zoom lens on my camera can get some pictures of them in the spring.

looking up through flowering dogwood branches and leaves
to the bigleaf magnolia canopy

I love the contrast between the size and colors of the dogwood leaves and the huge magnolia leaves, high above them. Since the dogwood leaves are closer to the camera and they still seem much smaller it gives a little perspective.

autumn notes

10.23.24 ~ North Carolina Botanical Garden

Our walks are usually taken in the morning but we decided to go for an afternoon meander this time. Autumn is in the air even though the temperatures are above normal. The sun felt so good on my bare arms!

A southern variation of sugar maple, chalk maple grows to 25 ft. and usually has 2-3 trunks. Its attractive, mature bark is chalky-surfaced. The significant landscape feature of this tree is its brilliant fall foliage.
~ Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website

Before we left the garden we took a peek inside a little, dark, windowless shed called the Herb House. It was air-conditioned and had a bench for Tim to sit on. He hadn’t been enjoying the warm sunshine as much as I had been!

Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive — it’s such an interesting world.
~ Lucy Maud Montgomery
(Anne of Green Gables)

This afternoon walk was a very nice change of pace. At home we’re getting more frequent visits from the cardinal couple and the juncos are arriving for the winter. The squirrels are busy burying their nuts. It’s a wonderful time of year!

sun-drenched wings and petals

5.21.24 ~ North Carolina Botanical Garden
sun-drenched female northern cardinal

It was a borderline-humidity morning, between comfy and muggy, and Tim was still coughing from the cold he caught in Italy, but we decided to chance a walk anyway. This is the time of year when the sun feels too bright and my camera sometimes responded by turning the blurry bokeh effect into solid black.

We forgot the bug repellent and I came home with two mosquito bites, one on each forearm. But the pretty (and non-biting) insects were out enjoying the sunshine, too! I’m not 100% sure of all my identifications here, but I’m giving them my best guess. Some of the butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies seemed new to me.

dusky dancer damselfly on hemlock needles

Summer, for the cold-blooded, represents the Elysian days. Warmth brings life and animation. Their blood responds, literally, to every rise and fall of the mercury. Chill is synonymous with sluggishness, cold with immobility. The sun directly regulates the intensity with which they live.
~ Edwin Way Teale
(Grasshopper Road)

ebony jewelwing (aka black-winged damselfly)

mating silver-spotted skipper butterflies

Even though it isn’t technically summer here yet, either meteorologically or astronomically, it can now be called summer for all intents and purposes!

hunting for cinnamon fern

4.2.24 ~ ‘old blush’ rose arbor
North Carolina Botanical Garden

It was spring vacation week so we had a chance to take Katherine with us on one of our walks at the botanical garden. Like her grandmother, she was enchanted by the rose arbor. And we finally saw tadpoles in the frog pond!

And of course we saw lots of flowers…

Katherine knows a lot about cinnamon ferns and she located some starting to come up in the Mountain Habitat (above). And then, in the Coastal Plain Habitat (below) she spotted some more that were taller and starting to unfurl. My granddaughter informed me that, among other things, cinnamon fern is the oldest species of fern on earth. (70 million years!)

learning about cinnamon ferns from Katherine
(photo by Tim)

Of course there were some birds to enjoy and a couple even paused for a photo or two…

Mr. & Mrs. Cardinal
he was feeding her but I couldn’t capture it!

What a blessing it was to share a beautiful day with our granddaughter, to share our interests with her and to have her share hers with us.

songbirds, blooms, some other things

2.14.24 ~ North Carolina Botanical Garden

There were lots of birds at the botanical garden feeders on Valentine’s Day, most of them flitting about too quickly to catch with my camera, but I got a few. And a new lifer!

I thought I’d never catch my elusive new life bird — this was the only good picture out of the bunch.

A bird true to its name, the Pine Warbler is common in many eastern pine forests and is rarely seen away from pines. These yellowish warblers are hard to spot as they move along high branches to prod clumps of needles with their sturdy bills. If you don’t see them, listen for their steady, musical trill, which sounds very like a Chipping Sparrow or Dark-eyed Junco, which are also common piney-woods sounds through much of the year.
~ All About Birds website

Coastal Plain Habitat boardwalk in February

More blossoms to enjoy in the Lenten rose patch:

We’ve been hearing frogs croaking for a couple of weeks but they always stop and hide before we get to their pond, no matter how quietly we approach. This time we did see a lot of their eggs in the water, though.

One of these days we might actually see a frog! 🐸

hunting for seedbox

1.12.24 ~ North Carolina Botanical Garden

Every day the North Carolina Botanical Garden Facebook page adds a post about something currently happening or growing in their gardens. Recently they posted a picture of a square seed capsule with the following information:

This funky plant grows in wet areas like ditches and freshwater tidal marshes. Its small yellow flowers drop their petals quickly, sometimes after just a single day, but we get to enjoy the beautiful seed capsules through the fall and winter. You’ll find seedbox alongside the goldenrods and ferns in our Coastal Plain Habitat.

So I decided we would hunt for this interesting looking seed capsule. We had no idea what size it would be but we headed for the Coastal Plain Habitat and searched and searched with no luck.

We then looked for identification signs for goldenrods and ferns, found some and located what looked like a promising patch of dried up vegetation near them.

Then Tim googled seedbox and found out that these seed capsules were very small, about 1/8 in. cubed. So my eyes kept inspecting the area ever more thoroughly…

We did see lots of pretty dry plants…

And then, at last, I found some!!! In the picture below the seedbox capsules are tangled up with another kind of plant.

Tim used his walking stick to move one stem of the capsules away and turned them so we could see the tops of them. Cute little cubes. I imagine there is a seed in each box. Seedbox! So tiny! (picture below) Our persistence paid off and I doubt we would ever have noticed these little gems if we weren’t looking for them.

seedbox *(ludwigia alternifolia)*
aka square-pod water-primrose

After that bit of excitement a hermit thrush flew by us and landed in the bushes. It stayed put for quite a while and I thoroughly enjoyed the photo op.

The botanical garden also has a bird blind with bird feeders in the Children’s Wonder Garden so we walked over there, spotting some cardinals and lovely trees along the way.

river birch bark
(reminds me of the one I had outside my kitchen window in Connecticut)

And lo and behold, there on the feeder was a new life bird for me, a Carolina Chickadee!!! I couldn’t zoom in fast enough before it left but I was happy to spot one. 🙂

John James Audubon named this bird while he was in South Carolina. The curious, intelligent Carolina Chickadee looks very much like a Black-capped Chickadee, with a black cap, black bib, gray wings and back, and whitish underside. Carolina and Black-capped chickadees hybridize in the area where their ranges overlap, but the two species probably diverged more than 2.5 million years ago.
~ All About Birds website

A Carolina wren kept us amused for quite a while with his antics on the feeder.

There was much to see in the winter garden, many delights for the eyes. It was only 32°F (0°C) when we left the house so I had put on my thermal leggings and wool hat from Norway and managed not to get too cold.

The hunt for seedbox was good stimulation, exercising our brains along with our bodies.

our first southern nor’easter

12.17.23 ~ drenched northern cardinal outside my window

We experienced our first nor’easter down south here on Sunday, getting over two inches of rain and plenty of wind. This cardinal sat on the branch outside our dining room window, looking in, for several hours. I finally got up and grabbed the camera. He was thoroughly soaked and I saw no sign of his partner. The juncos weren’t around either.

His behavior made me think of the mourning dove who hunkered down in the arborvitae behind our condo back in Connecticut during the remnants of Hurricane Ida. (Story here.) Except this cardinal was very exposed on a bare branch.

The winter solstice arrives tonight and the days will be getting longer. Warmest holiday wishes to everyone, whichever festival of light you are celebrating!

’tis the season for birds

12.13.21 ~ Connecticut College Arboretum

Not the greatest pictures I’ve ever taken, but I was thrilled to see more birds than usual on this winter walk. Interesting that we didn’t encounter another human being on this day. Maybe everyone is shopping for the holidays. Not us! It was a sunny day with light westerly winds, a relatively comfortable 44°F/7°C with a feels-like temperature of 39°F/4°C. Connecticut’s positivity rate yesterday was 8.16%.

female northern cardinal, collecting wood chips?

white-throated sparrow bathing behind the reeds

white-throated sparrow, it was a quick bath

American robin, sitting very still but obscured by many twigs

The Brain — is wider than the Sky —
For — put them side by side —
The one the other will contain
With ease — and You — beside —
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #598)

natural stone throne

4.7.21 ~ White-Hall Park, Ledyard, Connecticut

One of Tim’s friends told us about this lovely park. This bridge goes over the overgrown tracks of the Norwich & Westerly Railway.

The Norwich and Westerly Railway was an interurban trolley system that operated in Southeastern Connecticut during the early part of the 20th century. It operated a 21-mile line through rural territory in Norwich, Preston, Ledyard, North Stonington, and Pawcatuck, Connecticut to Westerly, Rhode Island between 1906 and 1922. For most of its length, the route paralleled what is now Connecticut Route 2.
~ Wikipedia

It’s a blurry picture but I was so excited to finally see a Carolina wren in Connecticut. I first heard its pretty song and saw a few of them while at my daughter’s home in North Carolina in the fall of 2018. I’ve been hearing them sing in the spring and fall since returning to to Connecticut but haven’t been able to spot one until this day.

northern cardinal, another blurry “masterpiece”

budding red maple, a hint of spring colors to come

this photo by Tim ~ note his walking stick leaning
against the natural stone throne

A “Natural Stone Throne” was indicated on the map but we almost missed it behind all the brush. Tim bushwhacked his way up a steep incline and got the above picture on his cell phone. I wasn’t about to follow but then he noticed a cleared trail joining the main trail a little ahead of where I was. So I walked around and up and got the following two pictures. I made one attempt to climb up and sit on it but it was too high to pull it off!

We proceeded up the hill and found ourselves at eye level with the top of the 23-story Grand Pequot Tower at Foxwoods Resort Casino, a mile and a half away (2.4 km).

A little farther along we got to the end of the trail at High Ledge Overlook. Thank goodness there was a fence marking the edge. It was a long way down. And then we turned around and noticed different things on our way back down the hill.

an assortment of at least 4 kinds of mosses

How little there is on an ordinary map! How little, I mean, that concerns the walker and the lover of nature…. The waving woods, the dells and glades and green banks and smiling fields, the huge boulders, etc., etc., are not on the map, nor to be inferred from the map.
~ Henry David Thoreau
(Journal, November 10, 1860)