A Day in WV's High Country--Part II

What a difference a little elevation makes.

Moving up to about 3200 ft elevation on day three of the WV New River Gorge Birding and Nature festival meant the mountain ridges were bare of leaves.  With the blast of cold, it felt more like March than the end of April.  But since I didn't get to prowl around in the woods with experts in March, this turned out to be a real treat for me.  

Meet my first new warbler of the day, the Black-throated Blue.  Heavenly.  One of many new birds for me that left me with a deep feeling of satisfaction.  When it comes to warblers, you can hear their song, see them flitting around in the tops of trees, find them in the field guide, see a wonderful photograph, but nothing compares to seeing these birds up close so you can really wrap your mind around how wonderful they are.  I wish every body could have this experience.  

Below, our guides, as we all wait in silence for a warbler song and watch for his arrival.  And let me tell you, there is nothing as still or as quiet as a group of birders waiting for a warbler!  Left, Will Hershberger; middle in dark jacket, Connie Toops; and far right in dark cap, Keith Richardson.

This was my first opportunity to meet Connie who is also very knowledgeable about plants.  Discovering this was like waking-up a kid inside me, a clear invitation to ask "what's this" a thousand times.  But Connie didn't seem to mind and I had the pleasure of enjoying her botanical expertise for three consecutive field days.    

Above you see a Lousewort or Wood-Betony.  Invariably, there is a fun folk tale to go with an amusing name like lousewort. People once believed that cattle would become infested with lice if they brushed against this plant.  And doesn't that make you wonder what they believed about cattle who ate them?

A beautiful plant with delicate fern-like leaves and muted colors that nearly disappear into the leaves and mosses of the forest floor, these flowers are easy to overlook and I'm glad I didn't miss them.
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Below, a Purple Wake-robin, also known as Stinking Willie or Stinking Benjamin.  There is no mystery to this name, they smell bad.

And right before heading back to camp, we visited a wide spot in the road, a rural pasture land with showy apple trees in their most beautiful stage of bloom.  Our reason for stopping, a nesting pair of Yellow Warblers.  Below, the male gives us one last look before returning back to his nesting site.

And that was, in deed, one of those moments of satisfaction.

At this birding festival, "back to camp" doesn't signify the end of the day.  There is a brief interlude for rest, if you grab it, before rejoining all your fellow birders for a delicious dinner and a presentation from one of our experts.  This was also our opportunity to welcome fellow bloggers who recently joined the festival--people I felt like I already knew, whose faces and names I recognized, but whom I had never met in person before.  And all I can say is, meeting them affirmed everything I knew with some fun additions.  I now have a voice and a laugh and some mannerisms that bubble into my mind, making me smile while reading their blogs.  

Above, left to right, Susan Kailholz-Williams of Susan Gets Native, Murr Brewster of Murrmurrs, and Nina Harfmann of Nature Remains (links provided below).  At the end of day three, Smokey's Restaurant was our dinner meeting spot...

and we packed it with nature lovers!

To see all my posts on the New River Birding and Nature Festival click here.

Links and Resources:
Susan Kailholz-Williams--Susan Gets Native
Nina Harfmann--Nature Remains
Murr Brewster--Murrmurrs
Will Hershberger--The Music of Nature
Connie Toops--Lost Cove Farm
WV's New River Birding and Nature Festival
National Park Service, New River Gorge Website

A Day at the Meadow with Experts

The more time you spend with nature, the deeper and richer your experience becomes.  That's the quality of accumulating experience.  Put yourself out there and your mind and body will absorb it.  But add an expert to that experience and your world of discovery will enlarge in leaps.        

Above:  Common Blue Violet, one of many violet species enjoyed during the festival.

This is one of the fun parts of attending a nature festival and a good description of my experience at The Meadows at Opossum Creek Retreat during the New River Birding and Nature Festival. I couldn't possibly remember everything I saw and heard on that day, but familiarity is the first step and I did store away a few  enriching experiences to share with you.

My first delight of the day was learning a new bird song, the Ovenbird's "teacher, teacher, teacher".  As many as three of these birds were singing in the area as we walked.  Even though one of our hosts, Keith Richardson (right), had his scope handy, we did not see Ovenbirds on this day.  As the days of the festival went by, I had more opportunity to practice recognition of this song.  More about this bird later.  

A blue-green lichen picked up from the ground, now has a name and an interesting function.

Lichen is actually formed by a symbiotic relationship between an alga and a fungus.  This particular blue-green lichen is called Green Shield Lichen. The expert who called our attention to it was Jim McCormack (right), who rolled the scientific name off his tongue like it was an everyday expression, Flavoparmelia caperata.  This is also the name of the fungus that partners to create the lichen.

Even more fascinating, Jim informed us that hummingbirds favor this type lichen for nest building material because of its characteristic ruffled edges.  These variable edges make the lichen easier to pry loose and more pliable for molding into the rounded shape of a tiny hummingbird nest.    

                                

Bill Hilton, Jr.(left) talked about birds while demonstrating banding.  

Below, he examines a female Red-bellied Woodpecker's  feathers to age her for the record and explained that the emerging red feathers on her crown were an indicator of older age, possibly caused by hormonal changes.

Once the banding and recording were complete, he carefully pulled out the woodpecker's tongue to show us the tiny little barbs that enable this woodpecker to capture insects hiding in tiny cracks and crevices.  This of course gets your thoughts churning.  Every species in nature is especially equipped for its habitat, its food, its lifestyle and its relationship with the other species that share that habitat.  And that is part of the intrigue that keeps my curiosity so engaged and coming back for more.

(Click the image to enlarge)

Birds were only part of what we enjoyed on our nature walks.  Keith Richardson pointed out the leaves of the Dwarf Rattlesnake Plantain growing along an adjacent wooded trail.

Colorful violets (top image) and Golden Ragwort were plentiful all around us.

And a short postscript on birds.  The most surprising bird of the day was a calling Peregrine Falcon, the first ever recorded at The Meadows.

Next:  WV's Waterfalls and Warblers

Related Links and resources:
WV's New River Birding and Nature Festival

National Park Service, New River Gorge Website

Bill Hilton Jr--Hilton Pond
Jim McCormack--Ohio Bird and Biodiversity and Hummers, gnatcatchers and lichen
What are Lichens?
Susan Kailholz-Williams--Susan Gets Native
Debbie Barnes-DJB Photo Adventures
And on this blog, you may be interested in:
Impressed with a Red-bellied Woodpecker's Tongue and Who's Boss?

Necedah NWR Boghaunter Trail--A Meadow and the Meadow Hawk

Meadows and wetlands make a wonderful combination. There is something to see and enjoy everywhere you look. We were actually getting good views of Bald eagles, five of them (as if that's not special enough!), when I spotted this Northern Harrier gliding low over the marshy meadow. While she appears to be over water in the sketch, she was actually at the edge of a grassy meadow, focusing on prey. In the next instant, she stopped in mid-flight and hovered, one of the many aerial feats that make these hawks so much fun to watch.

I give Northern Harriers credit for pulling me deeper into bird watching and prompting the purchase of my first pair of binoculars more than ten years ago. Several Northern Harriers wintered over in the fields where I lived, giving me daily views of their incredible aerial hunts. In this instance, at Necedah NWR, there were two Northern Harriers in view while we watched.

Below, along the trail, you see the same yellow aster shown in my previous post, this one in a different stage of maturity.

Lacy asters and other flowers dotted the meadow...

mixed in with a variety of milkweed plants displaying their pods.

I will venture a guess that above is the Common Milkweed, and below, the orange Butterfly Weed. Though this is risky at best, since Necedah is home to other milkweed varieties, including the Wooly Milkweed. Read more about the rare meadow flowers found on this trail in Geoffrey Tarbox's Sept 23rd post in Operation Migration's field journal. (Scroll down and watch for the date and this title, "Watching the Canfield Site/Return of the Plant Man".) Next post: Necedah's Oak savannahs and Red-headed Woodpeckers (possibly interrupted by some surprising and fun yard birds back in Tennessee).

Linked to Bird Photography Weekly #57 at Birdfreak.com to celebrate the conservation of our world's birds

Necedah NWR--Boghaunter Trail and Meadow

Meadows are magical this time of year, even more so for their bounty, a time when blossoms have yielded their fruit and the stage is set for a delightful display of color and texture. Laced with late blooming flowers, pregnant pods spilling their seeds and a parade of foliage gradually easing into the reds and golds of autumn, fall meadows are filled with endless opportunity for discovery. And as I walked through this one in Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, Wisconsin, I was reminded again of how little I know and how much there is to enjoy in a simple meadow walk.
And despite having perused a Wisconsin Wildflower guide and several other field guides, I can tell you no names, only give you a titillating look at what's out there to enjoy.
The area habitat includes oak savannas, wetlands and shrubby meadows full of goldenrod, asters, lupine and milkweed. At a different time of year, the endangered Karner blue butterfly can be found here along with blooming lupine. The trail is named for Boghaunter dragonflies. But the one dragonfly that I glimpsed, and I mean glimpsed, revealed a copper abdomen and little else. You can get a sense of this as you try to sort out the dragonfly shape in the image above. He/she disappeared into the copper foliage after landing and in the next instant was gone. The brilliant late stand of yellow asters above, which may be a variety of goldenrod, attracted an enormous community of nectaring bees, wasps and moths (and other insect varieties), all of which were unknown to me, but intriguing, nonetheless. Below you will find close-ups of two moth varieties and a lovely orange-banded bumble bee.
Next--Part 2 of Boghaunter Trail

A Meadow Fairyland!

I had almost forgotten how much I love meadows.


Ironweed, asters, sunflowers and daisies. Chirping Goldfinch and cone flower heads partially picked away. Brilliantly colored insects, even the spider web that caught me by surprise--all together they equal meadow delight.

This was the nature of my recent visit to Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville, TN. Don't miss this late summer bounty. Visit a meadow near you. I'll tell you more about my visit soon.

Thank you, Seabrooke Leckie at the Marvelous in Nature, for ID'ing this colorful moth as an Ailanthus Webworm Moth, one of the many perks to belonging to the Nature Blog Network!

White Birds at Necedah NWR

My whooping crane biologist friends often refer to mature whooping cranes in the east as “white” birds, distinguishing them from juveniles. The palette of cinnamon among new white feathers and black wing-tips is truly beautiful on whooping crane fledglings. Add to this combination a young peeping voice and magestic wings that span nearly seven feet and you have glimpsed some of the wonder of this tallest bird in North America. Gradually, by the end of their first year, these young whooping cranes lose their cinnamon feathers and develop the facial mask that is characteristic of adults.They also lose their peeping voice and develop the distinctive whooping calls that earned this species its name, a call that can be heard as far away as two miles.
While visiting Necedah for Cranefest, I had the enjoyable experience of touring the refuge with several other Operation Migration directors. Our knowledgeable guide and storyteller was Brook Pennypacker, Operation Migration crew member, photographed here while wearing the costume that helps keep our captive-reared whooping cranes wild and unaccustomed to the human figure.Among the other white birds we viewed was this family of trumpeter swans.
Not only was it a pleasant surprise to get a glimpse of this family, the photo itself was a surprise.It was taken from a moving vehicle with the camera stretched across another passenger to access the open window. I have to give the credit here to my talented camera, the amazing Canon Rebel Xti!
There are three signets in the photo but you have to look a bit more carefully to find the third. There were many wonderful things to see at the refuge that I missed and will look forward to seeing the next visit, among them the endangered gray wolves and karner blue butterflies.But black-eyed Susans and blue asters were easily accessible, scattered along forest edges and meadows, never failing to catch my attention.
Soothing to the eye and close at hand, their splash of color complimented a rich landscape rapidly changing into fall foliage.