Red Admiral

On December 23rd a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) was seen flying about the Mahonia near the entrance to the Dinosaur Trail. The butterfly didn’t stand still for long, but when it did finally settle, it did so twenty some feet up on the trunk of a Loblolly Pine. It was a stretch, but I managed to get one shot of the butterfly. Red Admirals are just one of a handful of butterflies that can be seen in winter. Question Mark,Read more

A Common Thread

Each fall it seems that spiders appear from nowhere, crawling along the ground, stretching out their sticky webs across our favorite hiking trails, and even entering our living spaces. The truth is, they’re with us the entire summer, we simply may not notice them because they, along with their webs (if they construct them), are much smaller and less obvious than in fall. Above and below you will see some of those spiders, all of which were found along theRead more

Looking Back: Insects

With the closing of the year it’s perhaps time to look back and see what we’ve observed on the Explore the Wild/Catch the Wind Loop. Below, in the appropriate segments, I give totals for some of the species seen since January of last year. This past year I’ve tallied 27 species of odonates (dragonflies and damselflies) on the Explore the Wild/Catch the Wind Loop. To some that may seem like a large number. Considering that there are about 190 speciesRead more