Wildlife - Prey and Predators

 Our wildlife cameras have been busy in the last month or so. Where there is plentiful prey, there are predators as well.

Turkey hens have been showing up pretty regularly. We haven't seen any poults (chicks) yet, but they're probably out there in the woods.

This handsome buck emerged from the woods about an hour after sunrise.

Within 10 minutes there were at least five deer grazing.

Different day - something spooked these "whitetails".

This rather haggard-looking doe was walking down the road. I can't tell what the line of dark spots along her back are - they continue down her right shoulder.

But maybe she was exhausted from recently giving birth to this fawn, who doesn't look very steady on its feet and was only 10 seconds behind mom.

Same location two days earlier. I hope the little fawn can be protected from the coyotes.

I think bobcats are beautiful. They probably can't take down a fawn, but turkey poults are easy pickings.

Douthat State Park

Monday, June 15, 2021

The Monday Hikers stayed local this week, with a 5-mile hike in Douthat State Park. The star attraction this week was abundant Indian Pipe, with about-to-bloom Spotted/Striped Wintergreen a close second.

Everyone finds Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora) an interesting plant. After a soaking rain and very warm temperatures, Indian Pipe reliably pokes out of the ground. Despite its overall look, it is not a fungus, but a flowering plant that lacks chlorophyll. It gets its nutrients from mycorrhizal fungi in the soil, which ultimately get their food from the trees in the forest. It is fascinating to watch this plant change over the course of about two weeks, as documented in a previous post.

I only recognize about a half-dozen ferns, and Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum) is one of them. One hiker thought it should be called the "Necklace Fern", since its stipe (stem) makes a nice circle.

Sometimes a slip-of-the-finger in Photoshop can give a startling revision of the original.

A close-up look at the small flower of Spiked Lobelia (Lobelia spicata).

Last year we hiked in Douthat about a week later. This year the Spotted (or Striped) Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) was on the verge of blooming, so I retrieved this photo from last year (June 22, 2020) that shows both the flowers and the buds.
In addition to these beautifully variegated leaves, we also saw the distinctive basal leaves of rattlesnake plantain (Goodyera pubescens, net-like white-veined leaves) and rattlesnake weed (Hieracium venosum, purple-veined leaves).

Lon found a patch of this interesting fungus, appropriately named "Dead Man's Fingers". These specimens were quite small in size, so it is most likely Xylaria longipes.

More Dead Man's Fingers poking up from the ground.

Mt Pleasant - Wildflowers

 Early June wildflowers were in abundance on our Monday Hike. We hiked this a week earlier last year, so a whole new set of flowers were in bloom. But we missed the Lady Slipper orchids.

Rhododendrons (most likely Rhododendron catawbiense) were the stars this time. We hit peak bloom time.

The illusive Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arasaema triphyllum) is always one of our favorites.

False and True Solomon's Seal were common and usually found together. False (Maianthemum racemosa, flower cluster at end of stalk) is on the left, and True (Polyganatum biflorum, hanging flowers along stem) is on the right.

The leaves give this plant away as a Clintonia - in this case, White Clintonia (Clintonia umbellulata).

Indian Cucumber-root (Medeola virginiana) is common and easy to identify from its whorled leaves. More difficult to see are the small green flowers hanging from the top whorl. In the fall the plant sports blue-black berries on brilliant red pedicels.

Cow Parsnip (Heracleum lanatum, formerly H. maximum) is a plant to be wary of. It is large (3-6 ft, 1-2 m high), with equally huge leaves and flowers. Be careful! The sap can make your skin photosensitive and erupt into large blisters. A similar looking but much larger plant, Giant Hogweed (H. mantegazzianum), was introduced as an exotic garden plant. It is far more noxious and requires a hazmat team for removal!

We saw lots of these leaves as ground cover, but only rarely saw the flower of False Lily-of-the-Valley (Maianthemum canadense).

At the summit we found a nice large patch of Bleeding Heart (Dicentra eximia). This is a relatively rare plant and is listed as threatened or endangered in some states.

Right behind the Bleeding Heart was a magnificent specimen of Stonecrop (Sedum ternatum).

Two spectacular ferns. On the left is Cinnamon Fern (Osmunda cinnamomea), so named because its spore frond resembles a cinnamon stick. On the right is Interrupted Fern (Osmunda claytoniana). It is distinguished from the Cinnamon Fern by having spores in the middle of the frond. Both are large ferns. I've seen cinnamon ferns 5 ft (1.5 m) high.

Mountain-ash (Sorbus americana) is not an ash, even though its compound leaf does resemble that of an ash. It is a small tree/shrub in the rose family (Rosaceae). Later in the summer the flowers will become a large cluster of bright red berries.

Beardtongue (Penstemon canescens).

Mt Pleasant Hike

Monday, June 7, 2021

The Mount Pleasant area of Amherst County offers a nice loop trail, the Henry Lanum Loop Trail. It's far enough away (about 1 hr 15 min from Clifton Forge), that we don't hike it very often. Last year I wrote: "This is a not-too-difficult trail with stunning views and lots of interesting wildflowers." To see the views, you'll have to go back to last year's post. But the wildflowers continue to be interesting! (Wildflowers in next post.)

This time, the rhododendrons were the stars. We hit peak bloom.

So much for a "view hike"! The trail wasn't foggy, but the view was! At least the fog cover kept the temperature in the 70s rather than the 90s.

What a difference a week makes. We were about 1 week earlier last year. This year most of the ground was covered by an army of fern.

We saw several toads, but most didn't cooperate for a photo. This is most likely an American toad (Bufo americanus).

This was quite a collection of burls. From a distance, the one at lower right kinda looked like a tree face (below).

A gnarly face?

Quite a Year for Snakes

What's with snakes this year? We've seen plenty!

Our most common snake is the black rat snake. We see several shed skins every year, and they live in holes below a concrete pad at the back of the house. This one was at least 5 ft (1.5 m) long. They love to eat mice, and we have plenty of those!

A closer look at the front end.

The ring-necked snake is a small snake. This is a large one at about 18 inches (45 cm) long.

A closer look at the head and its namesake neck ring.

The middle/southern Appalachians have only two venomous snakes. This is the timber rattlesnake, easily identified by its rattles and triangular pit-viper head. The other local venomous snake is the copperhead, last seen and noted in a previous blog post.

Hoop Hole

Hoop Hole is a lovely trail just west of Eagle Rock, Virginia. We hiked the less-challenging (and far more popular) lower loop on Memorial Day. The stand-out feature of this trail is the numerous stream crossings - some of which are somewhat difficult if you don't want to get your feet wet. This time of year wet feet isn't that much of a problem, but when we last hiked this trail on a cold day in February 2020, we definitely wanted to keep our feet dry.

The trail goes up along Hipes Branch and returns along Stony Run. Both creeks tend to be clogged with debris and rhododendron.

Now that the trees are fully leafed-out, the trail is nice and shady for summer hikes.

One usually doesn't expect to see art in the forest, but someone assembled "Iron Man" (Lon insists that it's "Iron Woman") from pieces of pipe, presumably left over from logging days. Hoop Hole is adjacent to Roaring Run, which has an old iron furnace. The site had iron ore, limestone, water, and plenty of trees (for charcoal) to make iron metal. The local iron industry petered out in the 1920s when better sources of iron ore and carbon (coal) were found nearer to major rivers and the Great Lakes, and Pittsburgh became the iron/steel center of the country. By that time most of the mountains had also been denuded of trees, but over the last 100 years, the forests have returned.

From July 2020: The iron furnace at Roaring Run.

Galax (Galax urceolata) leaves are fairly common along streams in the mountains, but this is the first time I recall seeing galax in bloom.

From February 2020: In the fall galax leaves turn bronze and a visible all winter.

A closer look at the galax flower. This one is drooping at the top, but most stand tall and straight.

I didn't know that there were native sedums - I'd only seen sedum in garden centers. This beautiful ground cover is stonecrop (Sedum ternatum).

Common polypody (Polypodium virginianum) is a small fern that was seen along the trail.

Hemlock Polypore (Ganoderma tsugae). While relatively common on hemlock logs near streams, this fungus is usually much smaller than these plate-sized (12-inch, 30-cm) specimens.

Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) makes an interesting shadow on a mossy rock.

This Pale Beauty moth (Campaea perlata) had attached itself to the underside of a leaf.