Eastern Bluebird

We took a short visit to North Georgia, where I had the privilege of sitting in family's backyard and watching two active bluebird houses.

Fern Walk

For the second year in a row, we were privileged to be a part of the Great Smokey Mountain National Park Wildflower Pilgrimage.  What a great time we had!

One of our classes was a fern walk.

Here is a list of ferns we identified:
Ebony's Spleenwort
Resurrection
Christmas
Hay-scented
Cinnamon
Grape
Protruding Bladder
Maidenhair Spleenwort
Rattlesnake
New York
Southern Lady
Running Ground Cedar
Adder's tongue (which looks NOTHING like a fern!)

I entered the class knowing not much more about ferns than that I liked them, and walked away with a wealth of knowledge.  I'm sure I won't remember it all, but here are some highlights:

A fern frond (leaf) is made up of the raccus (middle stem), pinna (individual leaflets), and stipe (continuation of raccus past the pinnae.

Ferns are classified according to "clumped" or "colonial".  Clumped ferns grow up from one spot in the ground.  Colonial ferns grow horizontally, sending out shoots (rhizomes) that create a colony of ferns, all of the same plant.

A "fiddle head" is the fern frond as it is growing and unfolding.  I thought this was a name of one specific fern.  Many ferns emerge with a fiddle head.

Salamander Walk

My kids' favorite walk for both years at the Wildflower Pilgrimage in Great Smokey Mountains National Park was the salamander walk.  The poor man who led the hike was rushed each time someone found a salamander (frequently).  I had major claustrophobia issues when being caught in the crowd, so focused more on the wildflowers that we passed.

But here is a list of salamanders our group identified:
Southern red-backed
Blue Ridge two-lined
Spotted dusky
Santeetlah dusky
Seal

Blue Ridge Two-Lined Salamander

Wildflowers

Birds and Wildflowers Walk

Another walk we took with the Wildflower Pilgrimage was for birds and wildflowers.  It was a bitterly cold morning, and we drove to one of the higher points in Great Smokey Mountains National Park, hoping to find birds from a specific elevation.  Not much was out.  Too cold!  Here are the birds we did see, though:

Ovenbird
Red-breasted nuthatch
Blue-headed vireo
Dark-eyed junco

Blue-Headed Vireo

Wildflowers that we saw on this walk included:

Grandiflorum trillium

Sweet white trillium

Trout Lilly

Fringed phaecelia

Halbard leaf violet

Princess pine

Rattlesnake plantain

Galyx