Tag: North Carolina
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Why Does the Junco Flash Its Tail and Other Notes
A winter storm approaches. Light flakes of snow dance in the air, and the birds forage and feast, fighting to fill their bellies before snow blankets their food source and enforces a period of fasting. The Ruby-crowned Kinglets are acrobats, flipping and bouncing through the trees. The Cardinals are confident, their size and boldness allowing…
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Fruiting Fungi & Woody Plants in the Piedmont
When we explore the Piedmont woods, our attention sometimes shifts away from the showy flowers, stately trees, and singing birds to the diminutive mushrooms around us. Many of these mushrooms have key and important associations with the woody plants that so often structure our definitions of ecosystems. Fungi & Oaks. In the Piedmont, there are…
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Deer Rubs
On Monday morning, I went for a walk through the riparian woods along the Eno River. On this familiar route, I noticed two trees rubbed raw, rufous-hued, wounded down to the cambium layer. These rubs are from deer, when a buck scrapes his antlers against tree trunks, creating signposts in time and space to mark…
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When Spring Comes Early: Shifting Bloom Times of Piedmont Ephemerals
Spring ephemerals are woodland plants that bloom early in Spring, capturing sunlight that hits the forest floor before the trees leaf out. Some of these ephemerals, like Trout Lilies (Erythronium sp.) have colonies that are over 100 years old! We see spring ephemerals, their delicate leaves and incandescent flowers, during their epigeous or above ground…
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Daily Noticing
I cannot afford to live without the daily routine of noticing nature. I need to see the sparkling frost that rims the sycamore leaves on the forest floor. I need to hear the rhythmic, thumping calls of the Red-bellied Woodpecker in the morning. I need to feel the cold air sting my face as I…
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Differentiating Local Hawks: Red-shouldered Hawk, Cooper’s Hawk, & Sharp-shinned Hawk
This morning, as I emerged from the Eno River woods onto a residential street, I saw a hawk flying towards a Mourning Dove in flight. In the Piedmont woods, we often see one of three hawk species perched on a branch at the ready to grab a meal, the Red-shouldered Hawk, the Cooper’s Hawk, and the Sharp-shinned Hawk;…
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Eastern Cottonwood
The Eastern Cottonwood (Populus deltoides) is an uncommon tree occupying well-drained, moist soils in the Piedmont and Mountains of North Carolina, but stretching north to Canada, west to Montana, and south past Monterrey, Mexico. The Eastern Cottonwood is dioecious, with a single tree dangling catkins in green (female) or red (male), but not both, in…
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Sugarberry Review
Even in January, one might still find ripe red-brown drupes hanging off the sugarberry (Celtis laevigata). This uncommon tree species of the American Southeast can be found in bottomland forests or in areas with more basic soil. It’s best identified by its warty bark and leaves with a mostly smooth margin. The Lumbee people, an…
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Maple-leaf Viburnum
This week’s plant feature is the Maple-leaf Viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium). The Maple-leaf Viburnum or Dockmackie, is found across eastern North America, ranging from Quebec to Texas. In the Piedmont, the Maple-leaf Viburnum is a small shade-tolerant shrub, found in bottomland and upland forests. This shrub typically grows in forests that have been growing for at…
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Weevil Pests of North Carolina Trees
Weevils are beetles (order Coleoptera) in a superfamily (Cuculionoidea) of beetles with long snouts that host chewing mouthparts. These species tend to be quite small – less than a quarter inch in length, and they notable as economically significant insect pests. In North Carolina, Conotrachelus nenuphar is most commonly seen in April and May, with…
Sense of Place 