As many of you know, Hideaway Woods, our newest exhibit and playscape, opens very soon. You’ll be able to climb up and into treehouses, explore a Sweetgum Thicket, wade through a woodland stream, stimulate your senses along a piedmont woodland nature trail, and share many other adventures with family and friends. But, you know what else is in Hideaway Woods? Hammocks! Seven of them! Along the Nature Trail! I tested them out a few days ago. Ahhhhh!Read more
Cow Killer and Wandering Gliders
Top Image: Cow Killer or velvet ant, a flightless female parasitic wasp. A cow killer (Dasymutilla occidentalis) is a wasp. The females are flightless. If you’ve seen one, you’ve surely remembered it for its velvety, bright red or orange and black coloration. It was probably racing around your backyard, a sandy patch of soil with sparse vegetation, or across the hiking trail you were trekking down. If you were wondering what the insect was doing, dashing around as it was,Read more
Ravens!
At about 1 PM today (9/15) I heard what sounded like a raven calling. The sound was distant and I couldn’t pin down a direction. Finally, I looked straight up. There, directly overhead, were two ravens soaring, at times kiting, in the light air far above. Ravens are seen here at the Museum about once per year, usually in fall or winter. I didn’t see one last year, but I do recall hearing one at one point during the past winter. It’s usually theirRead more
Rough Green
I was just about to enter Catch the Wind from Explore the Wild on the back side of the outdoor loop trail when I spotted something stretched out on the path fifty feet or so ahead of me. It was either a snake or a twig that had fallen from a nearby tree. If a snake, it was a thin one. I increased my pace. As I sped up, two mourning doves that were also in the path, thinking I wasRead more
Strictly For the Record
It’s September and if we’re going to see a solitary sandpaper, or any shorebirds here at the Museum, there’s a good chance it’s going to be in September. And so it was on 8 September. It was closing time and I was making the rounds. I spotted a small white object perched on a rock in the Wetlands. It had to be a shorebird, either spotted or solitary sandpiper. I took out my camera, had a look through the viewfinder and zoomed in. Sure enough,Read more
Snowberry
I spotted a resting clearwing moth while I searched for caterpillars in the garden outside the Butterfly House here at the Museum. It was morning, and the day-flying moth probably spent the night where it perched, it was rapidly flapping its wings in shallow beats to warm itself for the first flight of the day. Snowberry clearwings visit flowers for nectar, often hovering above rather than perching on the flowers as they sip the sugary liquid. Both caterpillar andRead more
What’s in the Smartweed?
At the very end of the boardwalk which leads into Explore the Wild there is a patch of smartweed. Smartweed, as you know, will make your mouth smart if you eat it. That is, smartweed is hot and spicy and may make your mouth hurt, or feel the heat, should you eat the stuff. I’m convinced that this patch of smartweed remains in the Wetlands due to its undesirable taste. Even the invasive red swamp crayfish shuns the weed (most ofRead more
Monarch
While walking up the ramp leading away from the Butterfly House, I glanced over at the common milkweed that grows in the garden on either side of the ramp. It pays to keep an eye out while walking through this garden, many insects are attracted to milkweed, including monarch butterflies. Nearly everyone knows what a monarch is, if not their entire life cycle. The butterfly and its migrations are well known. But, in case you haven’t been paying attention, here’s aRead more