Critters of the New

We found a bunch of cool critters on our hikes to and from climbing spots at the New River Gorge over the 4th of July weekend.


Leaving the crag one day I spotted a newly emerged luna moth (Actias luna) hanging out on a stick. The camera was buried somewhere in the backpack, so I found this (undoubtedly much better) photo on flickr to share. This was my second ever luna moth spotted in the wild, and the first for Doodle and Roo.


We found six of these juvenile red-spotted newts (Notophthalmus viridescens, red eft form) at the base of the Honeymooner's Ladders at Endless Wall. They made themselves scarce not long after we arrived, but we felt lucky to have spotted them out and about.


While J was retrieving the last bits of climbing gear at the end of our final day there, our friend Brenda spotted this brilliantly-colored bird hanging out in the understory - turns out it's a Scarlet Tanager! This is another flickr photo, as yet again the camera was buried.


We also found a beautiful Promethea silkmoth during our hike out in the rain. This is another photo from flickr, as we only paused briefly during the rainstorm to admire the gorgeous, large male moth obviously trying to stay dry on a tree trunk as we passed by.

Birding

In addition to learning a new flora now that we're out East, I also have a new avifauna to work on. I've never been an avid birder, and am frankly a bit embarrassed by my general lack of birding knowledge. I have slowly been working to hone some birding skillz by attempting to identify all of the birds I see in or near our yard. I have started to keep a Yard Bird List over there ---> in the right sidebar (so you subscribed readers will just have to come look at my blog itself to check it out).

The birds so far are pretty standard for this area. The Downy Woodpecker is nesting in our neighbor's Oak tree, and had a territorial dispute with the White-breasted Nuthatch a couple of weeks ago that was very fun and interesting to watch. The Blue Jays and Dark-eyed Juncos have been making the circuit through our yard each morning for the past couple of weeks, as have the Cardinals a little later in the morning. I'm enjoying getting to know our avian neighbors a little better, and slowly work on my birding skills. Maybe by the end of winter I'll even have a handle on what the darn unknown sparrow hanging out with the Juncos is.

If you're curious and want to see some pretty photos of some of our local birds, check out this blog post by the folks at Shaver's Creek Environmental Center (just a bit south of us). If you've never seen a Tufted Titmouse you should really look at the photos to see what a cute little bird it is.

Oh, and I almost forgot! If you have a bird feeder and are interested in learning more about the birds in your area and conducting a little Citizen Science, check out Project Feederwatch. Lacking a feeder, I've opted not to participate this year, but they have some awesome resources like this poster of common Eastern feeder birds that I just stumbled across. I may figure out that sparrow yet!

Dinos in Durham

While in N.C. we visited the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. It was AWESOME. We first rode the little train around, from which you can see the longneck (above; yes, she recently watched The Land Before Time) and Meat Eater!!! (below; it's an Albertosaurus).

After the train we walked through the dinosaur park exhibit, marveling at the size of the dinos and how cool they all were.

(Above: Leptoceratops)

We even got to dig for fossils, and found some! The museum had trucked in a bunch of soil from a nearish quarry where lots of small shell, coral, etc. fossils are regularly found. That was cool.

In all, the museum was amazing. There was a large outside portion, including the train, dino trail and a butterfly pavilion (also very cool). In fact, we hardly spent much time inside, but what little we did see was really neat. We'll definitely have to visit this museum again.

Wish I could remember the name of this one. Has anyone else noticed how many more dinosaur names kids know these days? Why, back in my day, we had Stegosaurus, T Rex and Triceratops. Everything else was "a dinosaur like..." one of those three. Oh, plus dinosaurs like the characters from Land Before Time. At least until Hollywood brought us the Velociraptors.

Doodle even got to sit on one. It's a Parasaurolophus, of course.

Unseasonably Warm

The daily weather forecast on the radio has been for "unseasonably warm weather" every day this week. We've made a point to soak up as much of it as possible, knowing that winter is just around the corner.

The insects seem to have the same idea. Ladybugs searching for a good winter hiding spot

while dragonflies squeeze as much living as possible into these last warm days. (Doodle caught this one with my hat, and later it landed on her leg to finish a meal.)

Ahhh, Vitamin D. Good stuff.

Photos from our outing to Penn-Roosevelt State Park.

Climbing at Mocanaqua

We went climbing a few weeks ago at Mocanaqua, a place about 2 hours away. Our friend E was trying out his new camera lens, so we got some good photos from the outing.

Dirty Doodle pretending to be angry. The bath was sooooo gross that night.

Dirty cute Roo.

That's the look J gives me when I'm nearing my wit's end with a frustrating crabby Doodle. This look says "Patience, love. She's only three." I get this look a lot.

Roo fading.

And whaddaya know? With enough climbers around to belay and play with children, even Mama can get on the rock. I just did one route, a 5.7, but it was good to climb nonetheless. Hopefully next season I'll get up even more, and maybe even start improving at this whole rock climbing thing.

Mast year

See that pile? Beneath the meager collection of leaves is a whopping pile of acorns. Yes, my children are jumping in/on an acorn pile. Don't feel bad for them. The acorns are subsiding FINALLY, and the leaves are coming down in greater numbers. We really do have leaf piles now for jumping in. Because acorn piles? They kinda suck.

But really, the kids look happy, right? Wouldn't you be happy if your big sister gave you her fuchsia-sequined headband then told you you're pretty?

Backtrack to Black Moshannon

Awhile back I wrote about our 'splorin' adventure to Black Moshannon State Park. Now that I've found the camera cables I wanted to share a few of the photos from that outing.

This is a flower from the non-native orchid, Epipactis helleborine.

Black Moshannon Lake. Lots of waterlilies.

Photo by Doodle.

Doodle & Papa botanizing. She found some sundews, which are cute little carnivorous bog plants.

Reading the informational signage.

This is the Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora), a holoparasitic mycotrophic plant. That means it doesn't photosynthesize and relies entirely on food taken from other plants by way of a connection to a fungal intermediary to their roots. Really dang cool.

It was everywhere.

Me & my minions, futilely searching for frogs.
Maybe we'll find some next time.

Yay humidity?

Now that we live in the land of humidity, it's become apparent that...

(look closely - can you see it?)

... Roo has curls!