Miscellany

While tromping through the woods looking for azaleas, Lon flushed a bird that turned out to be a whip-poor-will. We hear whip-poor-wills every evening after dusk (and early morning before sunrise) - they are LOUD. And I've "spot-lighted" a few in the evening, but this is the first time we've seen one in the daytime. They're ground nesters, so Lon probably came too close to the well-camouflaged nest.

If Lon hadn't seen the bird land on the log, and it hadn't been "fluttering" trying to distract us, we never would have noticed this bump on the log indicated by the yellow arrow.

I was able to get some shots with a telephoto lens. It's much prettier in the day than it is at night when it is just a dark shadow with a reflective eye.

This small bear cub wandered by our game camera one evening. It's considerably smaller than our dog, so it's probably only about 30 to 40 lbs (14 to 18 kg). Mama bear never showed up on the camera, but with a cub this small, she must have been very close by.

Spring is the time for controlled burns - using fire to manage the build-up of leaf litter and small understory trees. The left side of this road (Bear Loop Trail on Nature Conservancy land on top of Warm Springs Mountain) was burned about two weeks earlier. The right side was untouched - excellent control of a controlled burn!