Top Photo: Acorns are falling. Three years ago I noted here in this blog that “Some of our white oaks are producing a bumper crop of acorns this fall.” It’s happening again. But it seems there are more than just some of our white oaks producing acorns by the bushel. They all seem to be producing fruit in numbers. At one point it sounded as though it was raining as the acorns were steadily dropping to the ground. There areRead more
Posts filed in: Birds
Water Snake
Top Photo: Northern water snake. Where there’s water there’s likely to be water snakes. If there are fish, frogs and tadpoles present the likelihood of snakes on the scene goes way up. If you live here on the Carolina Piedmont the snake you see is almost sure to be a northern water snake (Nerodia sipedon). In our little wetland at the Museum of Life and Science, I’ve never seen anything but northern water snakes. There are at least eight otherRead more
Raccoons in the Wetlands
Top Photo: Eyeshine from two raccoons about to climb up on the Floating Walkway in Explore the Wild. It’s a well known fact that raccoons use the floating walkway in Explore the Wild to get around the wetlands, they leave tracks for me to find every night. Otters use the walkway as well. Besides their foot prints, otters also leave behind signage in the form of scat, usually on the rocks next to the walkway, or on the walkway itself.Read more
Chicken Mushroom, Rare Wren, Odd Sweetgum, Active Tadpoles and Basking Turtles
Top Photo: Chicken of the woods. Chicken of the woods is a shelf mushroom which grows directly from dead wood. It does not have stems or stalks, and it’s a polypore, meaning it has numerous pores on the underside of its caps or shelves rather than gills to spread its spores. This mushroom may be bright yellow or orange when fresh but may fade to white or tan as it ages. It’s edible. However, while doing research, I found it’sRead more
From Muscadines to Silk Moths
Top Photo: Muscadine grapes ripening on the vine. Muscadine grapes are native to the southeast and are a common and welcomed plant here at the museum. Many birds and mammals including cardinals, robins, and turkeys, groundhogs, gray fox, and humans eat the fruit. There are many vines throughout the museum grounds. If you can reach the grapes as they grow on the vine, it’s worth it to grab a few for yourself before they’re all gone. Cardinal flower is bloomingRead more
Colors
Top Photo: Snowberry clearwing hovers at butterfly bush flower spike in Butterfly House Outdoor Garden. Snowberry clearwing moths are a type of strong flying sphinx moth commonly seen hovering at flowers to sip nectar. They’re diurnal moths and resemble small hummingbirds or bees as they visit the flowers seeking nourishment. They are responsible for pollinating a large number of flowers, especially deep tubular flowers through the action of their long, sturdy, probing proboscis and hairy body which transfers pollen fromRead more
The End of July
Top Photo: Male eastern tiger swallowtail seeks nectar from buttonbush flowers alongside Floating Walkway in wetlands. Eastern tiger swallowtails have essentially two flights here in the Piedmont of North Carolina. I see them in spring, centered around April, then again in July and August. The spring brood or flight is made up of smaller individuals than the summer flight. This may be due, at least in part, to environmental factors. The spring butterflies had been feeding, as larvae, from earlyRead more
Ghost Pipe, Treefrog, Sphinx, Yellowjackets, and a Large Skimmer
Top Photo: Ghost pipe growing and in bloom among ferns on Dinosaur Trail. Ghost pipe, or Indian pipe, though resembling a fungus is actually a flowering plant. The plant’s tissue does not contain chlorophyll and it doesn’t photosynthesize its own nutrients as most plants do. It has to rely on other sources to maintain itself. Ghost pipe gets its nutrients by tapping into fungi which themselves are tapped into nearby tree roots. Each summer the plant sends up white translucentRead more
Final Nest Box Update 7.8.25
Top Photo: Eastern bluebird eggs. The last nest with birds has emptied, all the birds have fledged. It’s late in the season and though we’ve gone into August in years past, that nest would have had to have been underway by now in order to make it through the rest of the season. So we’re calling it quits and tallying up the numbers. Twelve birds fledged this season, 9 bluebirds and 3 chickadees. Of those, 4 bluebirds fledged from theRead more