Most of our winter staples have arrived here at the Museum. There are a handful of birds that arrive each fall at about the same time; yellow-rumped warbler, ruby-crowned kinglet, yellow-bellied sapsucker, hermit thrush, white-throated sparrow, and dark-eyed junco. There are other land birds that come in each year but those six are the main characters in our winter troop of feathered players. I haven’t seen a junco or a hermit thrush yet, but they’ve been observed in the local area outside ofRead more
“Blue” Green Tree Frog?
As a naturalist, I keep a watchful eye to the sky, ground, and all around as I make my way through Explore the Wild, Catch the Wind, and the Dinosaur Trail during my daily routine here at the Museum. That said, there are certain locations I can’t pass without stopping and making a thorough scan. One of those locations is the patch of smartweed at the end of the boardwalk in Explore the Wild. Typically, there are pollinators visiting the flowers on the smartweed, perhapsRead more
Turtles Seeking Sunlight
Top Photo: Sliders catching some rays. As soon as the sun returned after a couple of weeks of overcast skies, and 12 solid days of rain, our Wetlands turtles returned to their favorite perches to bask in the golden, and long awaited, sunshine. The turtles were crowded onto logs, boulders, and tree limbs. Where there was sun, there were turtles. There’s proof in the Wetlands’ water that at least one turtle that had come ashore to nest this past summerRead more
Fall Goings On
Top Photo: Bald-faced hornet hive. It’s been drizzling, raining, and downright pouring over the past week or more here in the Piedmont of North Carolina. But, life goes on, herons gotta eat, snakes too, and wasps have to keep building additions to their hives as their numbers increase, you can’t stop progress. If, over the last week or so, you’ve happened to make it out past Hideaway Woods, our new outdoor playscape full of tree houses, woodland stream, nature trails, stick built “castles” and hammocks hungRead more
Maypops
I noticed a partially eaten maypop on the ground as I walked past a passion flower vine in Catch the Wind. Except for the fruit high up on the vine, the maypops have been steadily disappearing from this vine. I didn’t know at the time whether people had been picking the fruit or local animals were filling up on the green ovate shaped passion fruit. I now suspect it was the local fauna. Curiously, this particular fruit, or maypop, was onlyRead more
Panthea Returns
I saw a caterpillar last week (there are many caterpillars moving about at this time of year) that I hadn’t seen here at the Museum in two years time. At first, I was stumped, couldn’t figure out just what this caterpillar was. I searched through Caterpillars of Eastern North America several times, looking at every one of the 593 photographs of caterpillars in the book each time, and still came up empty. Recalling that caterpillars of some species can beRead more
A Weasel in Our Midst
This past Saturday, I was standing at the northwest corner of the Wetlands gazing out through the shrubs, trees, and grass between the edge of the water and myself. Something moved in the brush, a mammal. It was deep, dark brown in color. At first I thought it a muskrat. I’ve seen muskrat in the Wetlands before, rarely, but muskrat was the safest bet for a small dark mammal plying the Wetlands during daylight. As it moved closer I realized it wasRead more
Tussock Moth Caterpillar and a Tiny Wasp
I recently posted about a rustic sphinx moth caterpillar which had attached to it’s body dozens of tiny pupae of a parasitic wasp called a brachonid wasp. These tiny wasps (anywhere from 2 mm to 15 mm) lay their eggs into the bodies of caterpillars. The larvae eat the caterpillar from within and pupate inside tiny white cocoons on the outside of the caterpillar’s body, hanging there like so many banderillas on the back of a bull in the arena, it’s painful and will eventuallyRead more