Another hot, lazy summer week has sped by here on the Cumberland Plateau. Nancy’s garden is in full glory, though I’m sad to say that butterflies have been far less numerous this year than in years past. I’m not sure why, though it could have something to do with all the rain we’ve had so far this summer.
In any case, early this morning this Silver-spotted Skipper stopped by for a visit on the Liatris Spicata, which is also known as Prairie Blazing Star or Prairie Gayfeather. This is among our favorite flowers in the garden, in part because year after year the butterflies love it. This species of skipper is one of the most common butterflies in Tennessee, but this year we’ll take what we can get.
Wishing you a wonderful, healthy weekend. Be safe. Be kind.
Found this guy about a week ago on my walk and then saw him again this morning. He is an Eastern Box Turtle, and, yes, I really do know that he’s a male, based on eye color and the bright coloring on his head and legs.
The funny thing is — and I swear this is true — the place where I see him is also the place where I always see a hare. (The rabbit is too quick for me; I can never get a good photo.) So, I assume that either they race everyday, or they’ve set their rivalry aside and have just become good friends.
Photo Friday has rolled around again. Seriously, where do the weeks go? I don’t understand.
Just about every morning I walk for 3+ miles along the rails-to-trails path here in our town. I have written about it before, and posted this black and white image during the winter. But I thought I would give you a photo of what it looks like this time of year, with the trees in full foliage, and the understory lush and verdant. It’s really quite beautiful.
Wishing you all a wonderful weekend. Be safe, be good to one another.
Every now and then, a week comes along when I haven’t had a chance to take my camera out for photos. This week has been rather plain weather-wise. Some flowers are blooming in Nancy’s garden, but nothing too spectacular. And, I will admit, I have been rather glum.
My mood is almost too frivolous to discuss. My family and I are healthy, we’re generally happy, and have very little cause for complaint. But, due to Covid-19, we have had to cancel our annual family beach vacation. Problems of the privileged, I know. Hence my reluctance to bring it up. The fact is, though, I love our time at the beach. It’s always just the four of us – Nancy, our two daughters and me. We rent a house right on the shore. We have no particular schedule, few chores, little work. We swim and take walks on the beach and nap when we feel like it and eat good food and drink good wine. What’s not to love?
We had a reservation, but for reasons relating to the pandemic and its effect on Nancy’s work, not to mention concerns about traveling with the virus still raging, we have cancelled it. We should have been heading to the coast on Saturday. Obviously, we won’t be.
So today, I offer you a couple of photos from the archives – images I captured the last time we were at the beach. I hope you enjoy them.
Enjoy your weekend. Be safe; be kind to one another. And to all my fellow dads, have a great Father’s Day.
Another week coming to a close and another photo to send you off into your weekend. We have grown accustomed to the annual rhythms of Nancy’s gorgeous flower garden, and this time of June is when her Clematis bloom. They are one of my very favorites. Climbers, a bit wild and unruly, with spectacular blooms. Enjoy!
Wishing you a wonderful weekend. As always, stay safe and be kind to one another.
Yesterday, while taking my morning walk along the Rails-to-Trails path in our town, I spotted this beauty. It is a Little Wood Satyr, a woodland butterfly identified by those four prominent eye spots along the margin of the wing. They are very small, as you can tell here by the relative size of the maple leaf on which it’s sitting, and they patrol forest floors with a sort of bouncing flight that can be difficult, if not infuriating, to try to follow. This one, though, was quite cooperative as I edged nearer to take my photos.
I hope all of you have a wonderful, safe weekend. Be good to one another.
Another week gone by. I swear, I don’t where the time is going right now. I can keep track of the days, but the weeks… Anyway, for today’s Photo Friday post, I offer you a set of images captured literally right outside our door. Nancy is an avid gardener and her Japanese Irises are blooming right now. They’re gorgeous, especially after a light rain. So here are a few photos I’ve taken over the past week or so.
For this week’s Photo Friday post I offer you a slightly different sort of image. Last weekend, early Sunday morning – 3:33 am, to be exact – I was awakened by something I hadn’t felt in years: an earthquake. The initial tremor was followed about 30 seconds later by an aftershock. Neither was very large: The first was 3.1 on the Richter Scale, the second 2.8. But they were forceful enough to make a rumbling sound that woke me from a sound sleep, and they did make the house tremble a little. And the reason for that was that they were centered, I kid you not, about 4 miles from our house here in Tennessee. They were also shallow – only a few miles into the earth’s crust.
I lived in California for several years. Nancy and I were in Mountain View for the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, which disrupted the World Series, caused enormous damage, and resulted in many casualties. This little set of tremors was nothing compared to that. Still, an earthquake centered four miles from our house? Yeah, that’ll get your attention.
There is a major fault – the New Madrid Fault – centered around the shared boundaries of Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois. The network of minor faults from that seismic zone reaches our home. Which is cool. Sort of.
Anyway, the image below is the readout from the seismograph in the Geology Department at the university.
Have a great weekend. Stay safe, be good to yourselves and to one another.
The first step to overcoming a problem is admitting we have one.
I have a problem.
I am utterly addicted to the lake near our home, which has been the subject of far too many of my Photo Friday posts of late. Here is another image, captured there just before sunset about a week ago. The water was still, allowing me to use those gorgeous reflections, and the sun was gilding the new foliage on the poplars, maples, and oaks surrounding the lake.
You can see pollen on the water’s surface, and that might actually be the short-term solution to my Lake Jackson addiction. The pollen has only gotten worse in the intervening days, rendering the water somewhat less conducive to reflections and such. So this might be my last image from this spot for a little while. We’ll see. Already I’m thinking that thunderclouds reflected in late summer might make a stunning photo. And then the leaves will start changing. Oh, and late fall brings fog. And imagine this place in the snow…
–Sigh– I’m doomed.
Have a great weekend all. Stay safe and be good to one another.
Those who know me well, know that I am an avid birdwatcher. My older brothers got me started when I was just a kid. And when I say just a kid, I mean that – I started birding when I was seven. For Christmas just before my ninth birthday, my brother Jim created a whole set of life lists and year list templates (before templates were really a thing) and bound them in a notebook. Totally geeky, right? To this day, it remains one of the best presents anyone has ever given me.
I bring all of this up because we are now in the middle of spring migration, when the forests of North America become a byway for returning songbirds heading north to their breeding grounds. Yes, there are migrations for other types of birds as well – certain species of hawks return to our area in the spring, as do shorebirds. But for those birds fall migration is the more significant event. Spring migration is all about birds from the neotropics.
Warblers, tanagers, orioles, certain grosbeaks (Rose-breasted and Blue), flycatchers, thrushes vireos. These are among the most colorful and beautiful birds we see in the States. Brilliant yellows and oranges, deep reds, stunning blues. Many of the birds have gorgeous songs – the thrushes in particular. Most of the migrants are very small; the warblers tend to be only four or five inches from beak to tail. And many of them hang out at the very top of the forest canopy, making them very difficult to spot, much less identify, and leading to an avocational malady known as “warbler neck,” which is pretty much self-explanatory.
For serious birders, spring migration is New Year’s, Mardi Gras, and the Fourth of July all rolled into one. I know that it is my favorite time of the year and I am pleased to say that despite the pandemic, it is something I have been able to enjoy fully this spring. Every morning I walk a few miles on a rails-to-trails path near my home. I get a bit of exercise, and I see my favorite birds. Just about every day I am reminded of a birding experience from my childhood, of a moment with my brothers or an early sighting while alone that convinced me I could identify species on my own. For me, spring migration is about more than seeing the birds. It is about reconnecting with nature, and also with a passion that has remained with me for literally half a century. It is about memory and family. It both calms and invigorates me. A single good sighting on my morning walk can buoy my mood for the entire day.
As a kid, I was self-conscious about my interest in birds. A few of my closest friends knew, but otherwise I kept it to myself, fearing that I would be teased. I was already a nerd. I was short. I wasn’t the best athlete. I was usually in the school play. So already I had a lot of geek cred. The birdwatching, I feared, would be one nerd-attribute too many. Looking back on this, I regret how shy I was in this regard. It has always been so important to me. And yet, even to this day, I feel a twinge of embarrassment when I’m out with binoculars in hand, searching the foliage for a warbler or wren, and someone I know happens past. Old habits die hard.
On the other hand, I once had someone ask me for an interview what my superpower was. And the truth is, my superpower is that I can identify by song almost any bird native to my area. I’m sitting outside as I write this, and just in the moment I pause in my typing I can hear a Red-eyed Vireo, a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, a Carolina Chickadee, a Tufted Titmouse, a Summer Tanager, a House Finch, and a Nashville Warbler. Yeah, I know – as superpowers go, it’s not much. But really it’s all I’ve got.
In any case, I wasn’t sure what to write about today, and given how much of a balm birding has been for me these past few weeks, I thought I would share this.
For those who are interested, birding is an easy hobby to pick up and a rewarding one to pursue. All you need is a pair of binoculars, a good field guide, and a willingness to learn.
