Pinecones

We've Been Adopted

A stray kitty has been prowling through our neighborhood, seeking a permanent home.  We saw it at a neighbor's house one evening, and then heard it at another neighbor's house the next day.  It was crying pathetically, no doubt hungry and lost and lonely.  My kids had pity on it, and the short story of it is that it now wears a pink collar and gets fed every day.  We are its Forever Home, like it or not.  (We all like it.  We just weren't WANTING it.)

Snowy Egret

While on family vacation to Tybee Island, GA recently, I stalked this guy along the ocean's shores.  It was early morning, shortly after the sun had risen, and I was taking a walk with my son.  My son darted in and out of the waves, catching fish with his small net.  Just ahead of him was this egret, also catching fish.  Breakfast was successful and so much fun to watch happen.  I love the stealth these birds display. And the wispy feathers on the back of their heads are comical to watch as they get thrown around in the breezes:  it's akin to a "bad hair day", only they deal with it so gracefully.

Rat Snakes by Nickolas, age 8

My son has had a fascination with snakes for years.  He catches every one he possibly can.  He knows which ones are poisonous (and is NOT allowed to catch these), and can identify nearly every one he sees.  I regularly receive text messages with pictures attached from friends, asking my son to identify the snake they found.  He is obsessed with them!  

Wildflower Pilgrimage Journal Entries by Emily, Age 11

My daughter isn't nearly into nature journaling as my son and myself, but we took a class specifically on nature journaling while at the Pilgrimage, and the teacher declared that it is OKAY to doodle and draw fancy borders and write in fancy ways on your pages.  Emily grabbed onto this and ran!  She enjoyed nature journaling much more after she started letting her pen fly with this.  She also enjoyed playing around with the watercolor pencils.

Wildflower Pilgrimage Journal Entries by Nick, Age 8

After (or during) each of our nature walks during the Pilgrimage, my son journaled about one item he saw on our walk. 

Through Nick's Eyes, Age 8

Through Nick's Eyes, Age 7

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

Black and Yellow Garden Spider

May through August have been so busy!  We have moved from Tennessee to North Carolina, so in the adjustment, we are eagerly exploring the beautiful farm country that we are fortunate to be living in.  There has been little time to nature journal, although I have continually dreamt of the moment when I finally would be able to.  Well, today was the day!  And prompted by my children, no less!  We stepped outside, thinking about what grabbed our attention most.  A little while later, and another entry fills my journal.

There is something about nature journaling that makes me so content.  I have great satisfaction leafing through my journal.  I remember the times of close inspection and quiet reflection.  I remember the smallness and stillness of being one object in the vast beauty of God's creation.  I soak in the colors:  the soothing greens, blues, and browns; the punches of brighter contrasts.  I appreciate the things I've learned because of this experience.  If only there was more time!

Today as I studied and drew this spider, I talked with my kids, referring to this spider as a "banana spider".  I've noticed these beauties (if you can actually call a spider 'beautiful'!) ever since moving to the South.  I think they're one of the spiders that least creeps me out.  They're big.  They make their nests out in the open where I can see them instead of in the dark where they leap out and terrify me.  Their webs are generally neat, with a fascinating strong zig-zag line in them.  They are colorful.  And they are non-poisonous.  Imagine my surprise, when trying to find it on the internet, that the pictures of "banana spiders" did not match the one that I had drawn and clearly labeled incorrectly!  (This is not the first time this has happened.  Oops!)  And so, yes, I learned yet another thing through today's journaling.

Tickseed

Yard Flowers

I love this time of year!  The colors are so vivid after living in the greys and browns of winter.  This first picture was from five days ago, when the green leaves were just starting to peek out.  The second picture, from today, shows such a drastic change.  I think that if I sat under one tree and watched one bud, I might actually be able to see it grow!

I planted an ornamental cherry tree at the corner of our yard a few years ago.  Last year it was loaded with blooms.  This year, there are very few.  They're so pretty.

My poor husband.  He has worked so hard on our lawn over the years we've lived here, but the weeds are entirely persistent at overtaking the grass.  We now have a beautiful lawn of weed flowers, and hubby has given up trying to heed their progress.  So now we have a lawn of green, interspersed with pops of purple and yellow.  It's not all bad.

Growing up in the woods is an azalea bush.  I can't imagine that it was planted there.  Today my boy brought me a bouquet of flowers from this bush.

 My boy spent some time collecting a bucket full of dandelion seeds today.  The pollen count is very high, which isn't necessary to know the numbers of, because you can see a definite yellow layer covering every surface outside.  It is no wonder that my son is being violently affected by allergies!

 Didn't I tell you our yard is colorful?  I love these confederate violets.

The snowball bush's heads are small, but lovely.  Soon they'll fill out and turn white.

Spring Wildflowers of The Great Smoky Mountains

We just spent two glorious days in the Great Smoky Mountains taking an outdoor education class.  We took a short walk in the woods, trying to identify all the spring flowers.  While spring was truly late this year, the forest floor was still graced with such variety of wildflowers!  I am not all that good at identifying them yet, although I do recognize some of them, but my husband got in on the identification quite avidly.  As I madly sketched away, he would move ahead a few more yards, identify another one for me, and move on to the next.  Always a new flower behind, it was nearly a race to keep up with this fun challenge.  There were more; I couldn't get all of them.  But this is a sampling of what we found.  A few I forgot to write the name in immediately, so I'm not sure now what they are.  But I'll get another chance in a short time, as I'll be going back again.  Can't wait!!!

Bird Collage

Collage of three birds, recently sketched by my 7-year-old son:   great-horned owl, topography of a shorebird, silhouette of bird in flight. 

Birding in Belize

I was fortunate to be in Belize along with someone who I consider an amazing birder.  She was up every morning as soon as the birds started calling, meandering around the property we were staying at, catching all the birds she could with her binoculars.  Actually, her binoculars were in hand almost the entire time we were in Belize, so her total count was something like 120-plus!  I wasn't quite as ambitious as she was, but when I did venture out early, Jean helped me identify the following birds:

wood stork
magnificent frigate bird
tropical mockingbird
great blue heron
black vulture
kiskadee
great-tailed grackle
belted kingfisher
great egret
turkey vulture
cattle egret
northern harrier
golden-fronted woodpecker
scrub euphonia
yellow-winged tanager
grey hawk
summer tanager
red-billed pigeon
white-fronted parrot
rock pigeon
rose-breasted grosbeak
baltimore oriole
brown jay
brown-crested flycatcher
greater pewee
clay-colored robin
masked tityra
collared aracari
blue-grey gnatcatcher
lineated woodpecker
social flycatcher
grayish saltater
redstart
ruddy ground dove
hepatic tanager
green-breasted mango hummingbird
melodious blackbird
yellow-throated vireo
tropical pewee
king vulture
double-crested cormorant
anhinga
American kestrel
blue-wing teal
pied-billed grèbe
coot
reddish egret
spotted sandpiper
snowy egret
vermillon flycatcher
orchard oriole
catbird
black-headed saltwater
grassquit
white-eyed vireo
groove-billed ani
magnolia warbler
boat-billed flycatcher
flame-colored tanager
white-crowned parrot
black-collared seedeater
olive-throated parakeet
mangrove swallow
black phoebe
short-tailed hawk
bat falcon
yellow-bellied elaenia
jabiru
brown pelican
ruddy turnstone
royal tern
laughing gull
sanderling
little blue heron
lesser swallow-tailed swift
yellow warbler
yellow-throated warbler
meadowlark
ferruginous pygmy owl
yellow throat
yellow-faced grosbeak

Personal favorites?  The frigate bird, the parrots, the aricari, the lineated woodpecker and the pygmy owl.  Such variety and some wild colors!  A funny:  the melodious blackbird really IS melodious.  I spent most of the time in Belize thinking that Jean was referring to it as just a beautiful-sounding blackbird.  I didn't realize that its name really was "melodious blackbird" until well into our time birding!  

Caye Caulker Beach, Belize

 I've always heard about the blue waters surrounding the islands of Belize.  Seeing it with my own eyes as we bobbed along the ocean's surface in a little boat was surreal.  It is impossible to describe the shades of blues and greens and greys all around us.  After snorkeling over the reefs and seeing fish, eel, nurse sharks and sting rays that I've only before ever seen in books, we docked at Caye Caulker for the remainder of the day.  This island is so small!  We walked the length of it in just a few minutes, stopping for ice cream and to admire the local crafts being sold along the beach.  Finally we sat down in the cool shade of the coconut palms on the beach, and passed the remainder of our time soaking in the sounds and sights of this tropical paradise.

(This should be one long photo, with the boat on the left and the grass-covered dock on the right.)

Maidenhair Fern

I was fortunate to go to Belize on a mission trip recently.  I wished there was so much more time to nature journal!  There is SO much I would have added to my journal had there been time.  One day we went to the jungle, and this little fern leaf found its way back to our lodging with me, where I sketched it out and painted it over several days' time.  I love ferns, and would enjoy having a book full of paintings of all different kinds.