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.
pipevine swallowtail butterfly
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.
fire pink
common whitetail dragonfly
oakleaf hydrangea
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)
white waterlily
ebony jewelwing (aka black-winged damselfly)
grass pink orchid
mating silver-spotted skipper butterflies
tulip prickly pear
variable dancer damselfly
stokes’ aster
chamomile
downy wood mint
Coastal Plain Habitat boardwalk in May
Even though it isn’t technically summer here yet, either meteorologically or astronomically, it can now be called summer for all intents and purposes!
On this visit to the botanical garden there wasn’t much change in the American columbo’s flowering stalk, but we’ll keep checking back. In the meantime there were more new blooms to appreciate as spring continues along its way.
common sage
onion
Paradoxical as it may seem, the purposeful life has no content, no point. It hurries on and on, and misses everything. Not hurrying, the purposeless life misses nothing, for it is only when there is no goal and no rush that the human senses are fully open to receive the world. ~ Alan Watts (The Way of Zen)
I heard a towhee singing “drink your tea” and was determined to locate him somewhere in a nearby tree. At last I spotted him and did my best to get a picture of the elusive bird. My last attempt was in 2020, when we heard one rummaging around in the brush on the ground. If you’re interested see this post, eastern towhee. What a treat to get a picture of him singing!
It is only when singing that the Towhee is fully at rest. Then a change comes over him; he is in love, and mounting a low branch, he repeatedly utters his sweet bird s-i-n-n-g with convincing earnestness. ~ Frank Michler Chapman (Life Histories of Familiar North American Birds)
eastern towhee
wildflowers in a sassafras sapling grove
marshallia 2009 NC Wildflower of the Year (these reminded me of the Sno-Caps candy I used to love)
Georgia false indigo aka Georgia indigo bush (rare)
As for the wild spontaneous Flowers of this Country, Nature has been so liberal, that I cannot name one tenth part of the valuable ones. ~ John Lawson (A New Voyage to Carolina, 1709)
downy woodpecker
female house finch
male house finch
The finches seemed to be a pair. He kept coming down from the tree to the feeder but she wouldn’t follow him. Wish I could have gotten a picture of them together. And so ended another lovely morning in the garden.
The folks at the botanical garden are very excited because one of the American Columbos they planted 19 years ago is looking like it might flower this year! This flowering stalk (above), also known as yellow gentian, is about 2 feet tall and it could grow to between 3 and 8 feet tall.
After spending 19 years in our Mountain Habitat as an unassuming rosette of leaves near the ground, one of our American columbos is about to put out a spectacular flowering stalk for the first and only time. Then, after reproducing, it will die. ~ NC Botanical Garden Facebook page
will it flower???
a rosette of America columbo leaves on the ground ~ apparently this one not going to be flowering this year
We also enjoyed the presence of other plants and trees, already blooming…
fringe tree blossoms
northern sundial lupine
sandhills bluestar
wild azalea
white-throated sparrow
A nice, quiet and cloudy late morning in the garden. We were a couple of hours later than usual and there seemed to be fewer birds out and about.
It was a windy day for a walk but off we went. The very first thing we saw was a snail crossing a side entrance path at the botanical garden. A slow moving creature is so easy to photograph, even if it was partly in its own shadow. And then a little patch of windflowers, how fitting for this windy day.
wood anemone aka windflower
lily of the valley
maiden pink
‘white lady banks’ rose
Manchurian lilac
mountain witch-alder
wild blue phlox
cobweb on a sweet shrub (aka Carolina allspice)
Coastal Plain Habitat boardwalk in April
I keep wondering if this is the same hermit thrush I keep seeing in this same spot, ever since January.
hermit thrush
ladybug
yellow-rumped warbler
tufted titmouse
On our way back to the parking lot we passed by the Children’s Wonder Garden and I spotted another life bird! And this one isn’t found in Connecticut, so I had to pencil it into my Birding in Connecticut book, like I did with the Carolina chickadee. I may have to get a different book to keep my life list in.
Brown-headed Nuthatch, #90
When the squeaky sound of a rubber ducky drifts down out of the canopy in a southern pine forest, be on the lookout for Brown-headed Nuthatches. These tiny blue-gray songbirds climb up, down, and around pine trunks and branches with the deftness of a rock climber. They cling to bark with their strong feet rather than leaning on their tails like a woodpecker. Brown-headed Nuthatches are social birds that travel in noisy family groups. Sometimes, offspring from previous years help their parents raise young. ~ All About Birds website
Well, we didn’t hear this cute little nuthatch or see him climbing up or down a pine trunk. Nor was he with a noisy family group. He was perched on the back side of the bee hotel, all by himself, feathers getting fluffed up in the wind. Finding him was a treat after a prior frustration.
Earlier on our walk we picked up the call of a white-eyed vireo on our Merlin app. We looked and looked in the trees where the call was coming from but couldn’t see anything. Tim finally resorted to taking random pictures of the tree with his cell phone, hoping to see a bird in one of them when he put them up on his monitor at home. Well, he did see a blurry blob that had the right coloring… But we can’t count it as a life bird — yet — because we didn’t actually see it!
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…
lobed tickseed
Florida flame azalea
Virginia spiderwort
bogbean
wild geranium (with tiny ant)
great white trillium
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!
northern cardinal
white-throated sparrow
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.
On the last day of March the temperature got up into 80s and the sunshine was abundant. It was the perfect setting for my first walk of the year without wearing even a jacket. Two friends came by and the three of us headed down to the neighborhood creek for a little adventure.
Two days earlier Tim & I had explored a bit and found a few bluets making a tentative appearance. What a difference two days made! There were bluets everywhere, clump after clump at every turn on the path. And the leaves on the trees were starting to leaf out in earnest.
As we wandered up the path following the creek we soon encountered a challenge, a steep bank on one side of the path and the swiftly flowing creek on the other. And the narrow path became a stretch of jagged rocks. There was a discussion about how or if we should continue and then, one friend took the lead and proceeded, saying, “we can do this!” And so we followed, hugging the hill, practically crawling, grabbing saplings and roots for support.
When we finally got past the steep bank and had a flat place to stand my adrenaline was pumping and I was shaking like a leaf. But I turned around, and took a picture (above) of the route we had taken. We had started down near where that tree is lying across the water so some of the “path” we took was behind the curve…
Our reward was a chance to walk around on some flat land and enjoy seeing more spring flowers. We saw some stairs leading up to a neighborhood and decided that would be our way home, and we saw a little bridge over the creek, too. So we crossed over and walked some more. There are so many paths in this forest!
looking up Bolin Creek before we crossed over it
dwarf crested iris
native, only 4-9 inches tall
bluets are called Quaker ladies down south here
mini rapids in the creek
There were birds singing everywhere, but they were hard to spot. I probably wouldn’t have included the following blurry pictures but I had to share my newest life bird! Although I’ve heard phoebes calling before it was a delight to actually see one!
Eastern Phoebe, #89
One of our most familiar eastern flycatchers, the Eastern Phoebe’s raspy “phoebe” call is a frequent sound around yards and farms in spring and summer. These brown-and-white songbirds sit upright and wag their tails from prominent, low perches. They typically place their mud-and-grass nests in protected nooks on bridges, barns, and houses, which adds to the species’ familiarity to humans. Hardy birds, Eastern Phoebes winter farther north than most other flycatchers and are one of the earliest returning migrants in spring. ~ All About Birds website
downy woodpecker
Retracing our steps to the bridge I was able to get a nice picture of it (above) from a little bank elevation. After crossing the bridge we climbed the stairs up to the road and walked home through the neighborhood. Tired and thirsty, but feeling wonderful!
3.30.24 ~ ‘old blush’ rose North Carolina Botanical Garden
It’s always a pleasure to be greeted by the roses dangling from their arbor each time we visit the botanical garden. It never gets old! Like sunrises and sunsets, I suppose. A steady presence. But we were on a new mission this day to locate a Virginia dwarf trillium, another tiny ephemeral we heard was blooming. Along the way we saw…
Spanish lavender
hermit thrush
This (below) was the only undamaged dwarf trillium we could find, surrounded by other kinds of plants. We had torrential rains for a couple of days and I think they did a number on the tiny trilliums. But I’m grateful we got a chance to see this one. It is much smaller than all the other regular size trilliums we’ve been seeing this spring.
Virginia dwarf trillium
spreading Jacob’s ladder
white-throated sparrow
Only by living for many moons in one region, my peripheral senses tracking seasonal changes in the local plants while the scents of the soil steadily seep in through my pores — only over time can the intelligence of a place lay claim upon my person. Slowly, as the seasonal round repeats itself again and again, the lilt and melody of the local songbirds becomes an expectation within my ears, and so the mind I’ve carried within me settles into the wider mind that enfolds me. ~ David Abram (Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology)
yellow trillium (?)
twisted trillium
pine warbler
sweet shrub aka Carolina allspice
great white trillium (?)
tufted titmouse
red chokeberry
squirrel going out on a limb to reach maple seeds what a mess he made discarding the “helicopters”
carpenter bee (thanks to Eliza for the identification)
As we were making our way back to the parking lot this giant bee (above) was hovering over the walkway, blocking our path. Well, if it was just going to stay there I might as well get a picture of it. I don’t know if these creatures are unique to this area but sometimes they hover outside our windows and crash into them repeatedly. It sounds like someone is throwing pebbles at the window.
So we’ve lived here for ten moons I think, not very many so far, but our senses are slowly getting familiar with the seasonal changes.
It seemed like a good day to take a walk in our neighborhood woods to see what it looks like early in the spring. Recent storms had left us with over two inches of rain so we thought the creek might be nice and full. As we walked down the path towards the creek a hawk kept calling out, flying to and from its nest. Other birds were singing, too.
pinecone and rue-anemone
Bolin Creek flowing fast
sunlit new beech leaves
yellow-rumped warbler
When I rise up let me rise up joyful like a bird.
When I fall let me fall without regret like a leaf.
~ Wendell Berry (The Mad Farmer Poems)
old beech leaf, finally pushed off the tree and floating downstream (the ending of marcescence)
loblolly pine growing on the creek bank
looking up Bolin Creek
looking down Bolin Creek
caught and suspended
a bluet poking through the moss (my favorite childhood flower)
female downy woodpecker
Finding that little bluet made my day! I wonder if there will be more of them as the season progresses. I’m used to seeing them in small clumps. Now we’re starting to see a few bugs flying around. Pretty soon it will be time to get the bug repellent out of the closet and leave it out next to the camera!
3.20.24 ~ hermit thrush, North Carolina Botanical Garden
I lack roots, I cannot fly on my own wings, and I do not burrow into the earth. But I am a part of something vastly bigger than myself. I am a part of the enduring force, of life itself. And the great surge of life occurs every springtime. It is this that I am made aware of now. ~ Hal Borland (Hal Borland’s Book of Days)
fragrant sumac
Another favorite walk in the botanical garden, savoring every possible moment of this memorable spring flowering. Longtime locals have been telling us that this spring has come earlier here than it has in previous years. The last rose I found on this bush (below) was in November and this one in March is the first rose since then.
first ‘old blush’ rose of the season
Venus flytraps poking up from the soil
wild blue phlox
Carolina wren
white trout lily
limestone bittercress aka purple cress
‘finch’s golden’ deciduous holly
I’m planning to get a once a month picture from this spot (below) on the boardwalk. The areas on either side here were part of a subscribed burn sometime after we found the seedbox plant in January.
Coastal Plain Habitat boardwalk in March
3.20.24 ~ Courtyard Gardens Spring Equinox (8 seasons series)
Spring has returned — and now the earth is like a child who has learned her poems by heart. So many, so many … and for all her hard and lengthy studies now she takes the prize. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke (Sonnets to Orpheus)
eastern redbud cauliflory
Cauliflory is a botanical term referring to plants that flower and fruit from their main stems or woody trunks, rather than from new growth and shoots. It is rare in temperate regions but common in tropical forests. ~ Wikipedia
Learning something new every day… I’m trying to remember the word cauliflory by thinking of cauliflower. (I’m still having trouble remembering the word marcescence even after using it countless time on this blog…) This wonderful botanical garden is never the same twice.
