Small Critters

I've been accumulating photos of a lot of interesting critters.

I'll start with the invertebrates.

While moving firewood, this Northern Black Widow spider caught my attention. We occasionally see Black Widows in our firewood racks - one of the reasons I always wear gloves when dealing with firewood. (The other reason is splinters.) Fortunately, they're not very aggressive, especially during the day.

This brightly colored millipede was under Lon's wood-splitting block.

As were two or three of this very shiny "Bess-bug" or "betsy-beetle".

Our lavender patch attracts lots of pollinators, especially bumblebees. Here a Silver-spotted Skipper sips nectar from the lavender flowers.

Moving on to vertebrates:

We've seen hardly any box turtles this year, but lots of toads. This is most likely a Fowler's Toad (or perhaps it's an American Toad).

These hatched Black Rat Snake eggs were found in our compost as we spread the compost in the garden. We've got lots of mice and not nearly enough rat snakes!

American Goldfinches love to perch on the chickenwire that protects our asparagus beds from rabbits.

From there they like to fly to the tops of some smaller oak trees. (Male at left; female at right.)

A rear view shows the black feathers underlying the bright yellow head feathers.

Chessie Trail

Today the Monday Morning Hikers walked the portion of the Chessie Nature Trail from the big parking lot near Lexington (Virginia) to the washed-out bridge over the South River. This is a pleasant section of the trail - mostly shady (great for a hot summer day), mostly along the river, and mostly away from roads. The trail follows an old C&O rail bed and runs from Lexington to Buena Vista along the Maury River. It is currently maintained by VMI (Virginia Military Institute).

A large kiosk near mile-marker 1, about 1/4 mile from the parking lot.

The trail is wide, flat, and shaded.

Not too far from the parking lot, Mill Creek enters the Maury River.

In the mid-1800s, the Maury was made navigable from Lexington to Glasgow with a series of locks and dams. At Glasgow, the Maury joins the James River, and it was possible to continue to navigate down river to Richmond. Remnants of a number of locks can be seen along the trail.

The trail passes beneath I-81.

The trail passes through cow pastures.

Fortunately, cows are pretty unflappable. Just watch out for the numerous "cow pies" on the trail.

The bridge over the South River was washed out by major flooding from Hurricane Isabel in 2003, and the trail takes a half-mile detour on the road, so this was our turn-around point.

Yes, I know it said "Do Not Enter", but we went 10 feet further to have a look at the washed-out structure. Two weeks ago when we walked the Buena Vista end of the trail, we talked to a contractor who was scoping out a replacement bridge.

Very near mile-marker 2.5 is a "bamboo forest". To quote VMI's website, "although providing an exciting surprise, the plants are alien invasives and were likely planted early in the trail’s history."

A tangle of spider webs in a tree.

Usually I give up when trying to photograph spider webs - the camera always wants to focus on the background rather than the web. Today I got lucky!

A Carolina wren scolded us as we passed by.

Skywatching

I've been accumulating sky photos for almost a year, and with Comet NEOWISE in the sky, it's time to put them on the blog.

We'll start with daytime and move to the night sky.

Usually rainbows are much higher in the sky. Because their center point is 180° from the sun, when the sun is still relatively high in the sky, the rainbow is much lower to the ground. If the sun is too high, the rainbow can only be seen from a plane or a high mountain top. This photo was taken at 4 PM (Daylight Time) on 7 Aug 2019.

Last November Venus and Jupiter put on a nice display in the evening sky. Here they are above the sunset on 22 Nov 2019.

Last week (10 July 2020) a storm over 100 miles to east put on a nice lightning display in a 10-second exposure. The low-lying fog is illuminated by lights from Clifton Forge.

Fourth of July fireworks over Clifton Forge as seen from our deck.

Last night we were finally able to see Comet NEOWISE from our house. Previous attempts were thwarted by mountains, trees, and clouds.

The comet is directly below the Big Dipper (upper part of the photo), and because our western horizon is obscured by Fore Mountain, it dipped out of sight by 9:30 PM, when the sky was still not completely dark.

The Milky Way and some earthly clouds in the direction of Cassiopeia. The white line heading into the trees is a satellite crossing the sky as I took this 10-second exposure.

Allegheny Trail

Yesterday we checked out a small portion of the Allegheny Trail that starts at the trailhead just off Exit 1 on I-64. The trail is a north-south 288-mile spur off the Appalachian Trail, starting at the Mason-Dixon line near Bruceton Mills, WV, and ending at the Appalachian Trail on Peters Mountain on the Virginia-West Virginia state line. It's not marked on maps, so you need to get your information from the West Virginia Scenic Trails Association. We've hiked two other short portions of the Allegheny Trail: (1) the section that leads to the Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory near Gap Mills, WV (2017 blog post), and (2) a very short section in the Gaudineer Scenic Area in Randolph County, WV (2016 blog post).

The trailhead is obvious, but overgrown.

The trail is well-marked with yellow blazes and trail markers.

The lower portion of the trail has extensively washed-out creek beds. I presume most of this occurred during the devastating flash floods on June 23, 2016.

We turned around at the end of a long, relatively level ridge. We didn't take a map, so we didn't know that we were less than 1/4 mile (and a 200 ft climb) from the top of Allegheny Mountain and the Virginia-West Virginia state line. As is typical of hiking in the eastern mountains, summer views from the summits are very limited or non-existent. Views are better when the trees have lost their leaves.

Summer is not a great time for wildflowers, but we saw a few. This is a Rattlesnake Plantain Orchid. It's relatively common, and I see the distinctive leaves all the time, but this is the first time I've seen it getting ready to bloom.

A coral fungus.

Cranberry Glades - Cowpasture Trail

June 29, 2020

The Cowpasture Trail is a 7-mile arc around the bog area of the Cranberry Glades. We did an out-and-back hike on both ends.

I've been here many times, but this was the first time I knew that a federal minimum-security prison (Mill Point Prison) was located in the Cranberry Glades from 1938 to 1959. There was no fence or wall around the facility - the Cranberry wilderness was its fence. It was most famous for housing conscientious objectors in World War II, and those in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify in the McCarthy hearing in the 1950s.

A small creek was at the western edge of the prison camp on the Cowpasture Trail.

There was a lot of milkweed along the trail and Monarch butterflies could be seen flitting around the milkweed. While milkweed is required for the larvae (caterpillars), this adult monarch is feeding on a red clover.

Another view of the Monarch butterfly.

A white-tailed deer along the trail.

A viewing deck is about a mile into the other end of the trail.

The view from the deck towards the botanical area and boardwalk.

Panoramic view from the deck.

We'll have to come back and hike the complete trail someday - even though it gets pretty wet in spots!

Cranberry Glades Botanical Area

June 29, 2020

Another trip to the Cranberry Glades. This time with the Monday Morning Hikers to see the orchids that bloom about this time.

The boardwalk is beginning to get overgrown. This year everything seems to be about 2 weeks behind what I'm used to - probably because of that cold snap in early May.

Yew Creek in the early summer.

We came here to see orchids. This is the Grass Pink Orchid.

A close-up of a Grass Pink Orchid flower. It's unusual to have the stamens (pollen) and pistil (ovary) at the top of the flower, rather than as a lip at the bottom.

Another showy orchid is the Large Purple-Fringed Orchid. Usually we can also find Rose Pogonia this time of year, but we only saw a few, and they were too distant from the boardwalk to get a photo.

My favorite plants here are the insectivorous ones. Pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea) flowers were very abundant this year.

A closer look at these unusual flowers.

And a closer look at the pitchers - leaves at the base of the plant that capture insects. The inside of the pitcher has backward-pointing hairs that keep insects from crawling away from their doom. (The small pink flowers in the foreground at left and right are cranberries. See below.)

Another insectivorous plant is the sundew. These tiny pad leaves (10 mm, 1/2 inch across) capture insects on their sticky hairs.

This is the Small Cranberry - the namesake of the Cranberry Glades. They are easy to overlook because they are so so small. In the fall the flowers will have become small red cranberries (edible).

Bee-Balm (also known as Oswego Tea) was just beginning to open up. In a few days it will be a spectacular red flower.

The boardwalk is only a half-mile long, so we had plenty of time to also walk along the Cowpasture Trail. I've been to the Cranberry Glades many time with the Field Ecology Summer Regional Governor's School, but we've never had the opportunity to take any of the many other trails in the area.