Six months ago, in the autumn, we visited this gorgeous nature preserve for the first time. It turned out to be equally enchanting in the springtime. It was so green! We started at the other end of Robin’s Trail. It was cold out, however. After days in the 80s on this morning I was back in my winter coat and wore my gloves the whole time.
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by ~ William Blake (Laughing Song)
lots and lots of beech leaves
wild sage
New Hope Creek
Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another. ~ John Muir (The Wilderness Essays)
sunlit ripples in the creek
wildflowers and orbs at the forest’s edge
zephyr lily
As it was last time we visited, a very pleasant spring morning ramble along the creek and in the woods. 🍃
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!
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!
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.
Virginia spring beauty?
Meeting-of-the-Waters Creek
moss spores?
remembering to look up sometimes
a lone hemlock in the hardwood forest
eastern gray squirrel
tufted titmouse way up high
dimpled trout lily
rue-anemone
hepatica
little sweet Betsy (a trillium)
common blue violet
dandelion
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
hepatica
bloodroot
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.
2.20.24 ~ Colleton State Park, Walterboro, South Carolina
On our way home from Georgia we stopped to stretch our legs at a state park in South Carolina. The nature trail we walked on followed a cypress swamp alongside the Edisto River. This river is the longest free-flowing blackwater river in North America and on this day it was flooding over into the swamp.
part of the boardwalk was submerged
A blackwater river is a type of river with a slow-moving channel flowing through forested swamps or wetlands. Most major blackwater rivers are in the Amazon Basin and the Southern United States. ~ Wikipedia
part of the boardwalk
some of the water came very close to the trail
When we talk of flood control, we usually think of dams and deeper river channels, to impound the waters or hurry their run-off. Yet neither is the ultimate solution, simply because floods are caused by the flow of water downhill. If the hills are wooded, that flow is checked. If there is a swamp at the foot of the hills, the swamp sponges up most of the excess water, restores some of it to the underground water supply and feeds the remainder slowly into the streams. Strip the hills, drain the boglands, and you create flood conditions inevitably. Yet that is what we have been doing for years. ~ Hal Borland (Sundial of the Seasons)
This magical rest stop helped so much to break up the long journey home. The walk was a only a third of a mile, a perfect finale to a wonderful getaway. And it was so good to get home to North Carolina a few hours later.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean I guess I should ~ Counting Crows ♫ (A Long December) ♫
It rained for the first two days of our three-day visit with our son and daughter-in-law in Georgia. But our spirits were not dampened and we packed a lot of fun in in spite of it. When the sun came out on day three we headed for the magical Driftwood Beach. The name of it doesn’t make a lot of sense because these ancient twisted tree trunks and branches are what remains of a maritime forest after years of erosion from the sea.
jellyfish
least sandpiper with shadow and reflection
Surprisingly, I only saw one gull there. But, the last thing I expected to see was a pair of woodpeckers! A new life bird for me!
Pileated Woodpecker, #82
The Pileated Woodpecker is one of the biggest, most striking forest birds on the continent. It’s nearly the size of a crow, black with bold white stripes down the neck and a flaming-red crest. Look (and listen) for Pileated Woodpeckers whacking at dead trees and fallen logs in search of their main prey, carpenter ants, leaving unique rectangular holes in the wood. The nest holes these birds make offer crucial shelter to many species including swifts, owls, ducks, bats, and pine martens. ~ All About Birds website
As we were leaving, walking towards the sun, I started to notice some of the shadows on the sand… and then an egret fishing in a little beach pond along the path back to the parking lot.
great egret
It was so good being near the ocean again, even if just for a few hours. More vacation pictures coming soon…
2.6.24 ~ Parker Preserve, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
When the sun comes out the world brightens up, even the browns and grays in the winter woods. It was a very sunny morning the other day, but too cold for a walk. So we opted for an afternoon walk. Even then it was still cold, Tim wore a coat, and I was bundled up with hat and mittens, too.
We found a new place to walk, another property belonging to the North Carolina Botanical Garden, Parker Preserve. It connects to the Mason Farm Biological Reserve we had explored back in December. At the beginning of the trail is Parker Meadow, the site of the former home of Bill & Athena Parker.
American holly
coming soon!
The huge bench above is one of two sitting in the meadow, where a 19th century log cabin was destroyed by a fire in 1995. (I assume it was the home of Bill & Athena.) After noticing what we presume to be dozens of patches of daffodils about to bloom, we headed into the woods, following the Woodland Trail.
late winter shadows
marcescence highlighted
this leaf was probably stranded here all winter
moss with sporophytes
Off in the distance we saw a huge log, covered in moss with sporophytes sprouting out of it. I used maximum zoom but could only manage the fuzzy picture above. We have been warned repeatedly about copperhead snakes so I resisted every urge to go off the trail and wade though the leaves to get a closer look.
in the spotlight: a maple leaf surrounded by oak leaves
illuminated roots from a tree that fell long ago
I’m calling this a ghost stump
effulgence
The disadvantage to taking an afternoon walk is that the traffic on the way home is very congested and slow. We found ourselves sitting in the car for a very long time at a traffic light near the James Taylor Bridge. From the road this bridge is unremarkable, the only hint that a bridge is there is a small sign identifying it and a short cement wall with a low fence on either side of it. But it’s located a mile from JT’s childhood home and it goes over Morgan Creek, which he wrote about in one of his songs, Copperline. We’ve encountered Morgan Creek a couple of times on our walks. This is all of particular interest to me because James Taylor was my idol when I was a teen, and he was the first singer I ever went to see in concert. I had all his albums. It’s a small world.
Half a mile down to Morgan Creek I’m leanin’ heavy on the end of the week Hercules and a hognose snake Down on Copperline We were down on Copperline ~ James Taylor ♫ (Copperline) ♫
Our first winter holidays in North Carolina were amazing! Our walks were few and far between, though, due to all the other activities. Time to get back on track and back to the blogosphere.
Look back on Time, with kindly Eyes — He doubtless did his best — How softly sinks the trembling Sun In Human Nature’s West — ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1251)
eastern bluebird
I think if I’m going to photograph more birds we will have to visit more gardens than forests. The trees seem to be so much taller down here and my zoom lens just doesn’t reach those high perches to capture the winged creatures that well. But I’m including this bluebird picture anyway to remind me how nice it was to see and hear a few of them, way overhead, that day. 🙂
12.1.23 ~ Mason Farm Biological Reserve Chapel Hill, North Carolina
It was a dreary first day of winter when Tim and I drove over the ford crossing Morgan Creek and discovered an amazing biological reserve, chock full of birds! They were a challenge to photograph but I did manage to capture two new life birds.
Hermit Thrush, #78
An unassuming bird with a lovely, melancholy song, the Hermit Thrush lurks in the understories of far northern forests in summer and is a frequent winter companion across much of southern North America. It forages on the forest floor by rummaging through leaf litter or seizing insects with its bill. The Hermit Thrush has a rich brown upper body and smudged spots on the breast, with a reddish tail that sets it apart from similar species in its genus. ~ All About Birds website
Yellow-rumped Warbler, #79
Yellow-rumped Warblers are impressive in the sheer numbers with which they flood the continent each fall. Shrubs and trees fill with the streaky brown-and-yellow birds and their distinctive, sharp chips. Though the color palette is subdued all winter, you owe it to yourself to seek these birds out on their spring migration or on their breeding grounds. Spring molt brings a transformation, leaving them a dazzling mix of bright yellow, charcoal gray and black, and bold white. ~ All About Birds website
The reserve is a short 12-minute drive from our house. I like the no dogs allowed rule! Although, the possibility of another kind of canine encounter seems to exist. A friendly birder we met along the way pointed out some coyote scat sitting on the trail.
wholesome browns and primeval grays
celestial blue
vivacious green
snowy white
I love the few homely colors of Nature at this season, — her strong wholesome browns, her sober and primeval grays, her celestial blue, her vivacious green, her pure, cold, snowy white. ~ Henry David Thoreau (Journal, December 4, 1856)
Our walk was long and wonderful, in spite of the damp, raw air and gathering clouds. There were so many bird calls and of course, many squirrels busy with their nuts and chasing each other up and down the trees. The trail we were on had mostly deciduous trees, leading us to believe it will be a good place for seeing fall colors next year.
Before visiting we are advised to check a water level gage, available online. If the gage reads less than 4.5 feet “it is usually safe to cross” with the car. It made me nervous crossing the low-water bridge, or ford. But it will be worth getting used to it to have a chance to keep exploring this huge property. “Mason Farm serves as a wildlife corridor between Chapel Hill and the Cape Fear River Basin.” So much to learn about our new home!
