Sense of Place

Tag: reptiles

  • Maple-leaf Viburnum

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in

    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…

  • Eastern Garter Snakes: Mating Balls & Sex in the Trees

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in

    Last week, Duke Forest staff photographed Eastern Garter Snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) intertwined on the forest floor. They had a discovered a “mating ball” of small males vying for the chance to fertilize a mature female. Other garter snake species are better known for their mating balls, including the Red-Sided Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis). In…

  • Return to Mason Farm (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in

    One evening this April, I visited Mason Farm with my dear friend gumby. As we started hiking down the grassy path, I commented on how Mason Farm was always a lucky place to find snakes, especially brown snakes, rough green snakes, and rat snakes. We were lucky to add another species to that list: redbelly…

  • Brown Snakes at Mason Farm Biological Reserve (Chapel Hill, NC)

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in

    One of the most delightful surprises of warm autumn days is finding snakes warming themselves on the walking paths that cut through forest and field. Today, temperatures reached at least 72°F in the Triangle, and snakes were out basking in the sun. At Mason Farm Biological Reserve, we found three DeKay’s brown snakes (Storeria dekayi)…

  • GREAT EXPECTATIONS: September in the Piedmont

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in ,

    BirdsSeptember brings an early pulse of winter residents back to the Piedmont, including Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, occasional Red-breasted Nuthatches, and a suite of wrens (Winter, Sedge, and Marsh) and sparrows (Swamp and White-throated). Ruby-crowned Kinglets—tiny olive-gray birds with a bright red crown patch (usually hidden)—also return this month after spending the summer in conifer forests of…

  • GREAT EXPECTATIONS: April in the Piedmont

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in ,

    BirdsApril launches spring migration in earnest, and the next couple of months can bring a steady stream of northbound travelers. Watch for wood-warblers (including Golden-winged, Nashville, Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Bay-breasted, and Blackpoll), along with herons (such as Little Blue Herons, Black-crowned Night-Herons, and Cattle Egrets), thrushes (Veery, Gray-cheeked, and Swainson’s), and sandpipers…

  • GREAT EXPECTATIONS: February in the Piedmont

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in ,

    BirdsIn 1936, writer and naturalist Donald Culross Peattie opined that “February is a good month in which to make friends with the birds of a great city.” In North Carolina, he may be right: winter still holds steady in February, and the bird community changes more slowly than it will later in spring. Some of…

  • GREAT EXPECTATIONS: January in the Piedmont

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in ,

    BirdsIn the depth of winter, as you walk through quiet woods, you may come across a lone thrush standing at attention, its delicately speckled throat exposed. The Hermit Thrush is a gifted songster, but its voice is mostly muted here; it saves its ethereal song for spring, when it returns to its breeding grounds in…

  • GREAT EXPECTATIONS: October in the Piedmont

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in ,

    Birds.− October marks the beginning of food-caching — a food storage strategy developed to sustain year-round avian residents throughout the lean winter. Caching strategies vary by species: red-bellied woodpeckers might store acorns in holes high up in the cracks and cavities of trees, while American crows might simply thrust a left-over meal into the loose soil…

  • GREAT EXPECTATIONS: August in the Piedmont

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in ,

    BirdsIn August, early migrants—including Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, and Blackburnian Warblers—begin passing through North Carolina as they head toward the Neotropics for the winter. Most will look duller than they did in spring, having molted out of their vibrant breeding plumage and into drabber winter attire. Many insect-eating (“vermivorous”) warblers stop briefly in the Piedmont to refuel,…