Visual Thoughts

Heavy Skies by D L Ennis at Visual Thoughts

 Looks like a painting, right?  But it is a photograph - not mine, of course, but an example of the amazing stuff over at Visual Thoughts, a fellow blog which doesn’t easily mesh with the other resources on my side bar but still belongs and is cherished on my blogroll.  D L Ennis posts about life and art and very much whatever, but if you’re in the mood or have a need to drink in a direct connection with nature, go to this unique blog: nature is there, coming through loud and clear.  Through some very artistic human eyes.

     Here is another image from Visual Thoughts.  The flower had ole D L stumped. Later, when I showed it to Cara she knew exactly what it was and went to look it up.  Meantime, I saw a comment by Jan had identified it as lycoris radiata, or red spider lily.  Cara knew it as outdoor amaryllis, for the single stem’s dramatic (and leafless) emergence.  We didn’t get to have the fun of informing D L , but I found Jan’s blog, which is lovely.  Just one of the wonderful things you may find at D L Ennis’s Visual Thoughts. Check it out!

The Domain of Mushrooms - raleighnature.com

     We have had plentiful rain, in the short run, at least, and when I saw a couple of mushrooms in a row I decided to go on a mushroom walk.  Not much to say:  I am blogging from the library on a timeclock and I don’t know anything about mushroom i.d.  Here they are and we’ll sort them out later.  But what a variety!  And what change in any one over time….now I’ve had time to look at my National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms - and I’m not about to tell you a positive i.d. on any mushroom!  Don’t eat any of them!!  Unless you are an expert or with an expert.  I will try some if T.P. or Katie and Russ have some to share, but I sure don’t trust my judgment.   Fun to watch, though.  And remind yourself the mushrooms we see are just the fruiting body (spore producer) for a whole network of tiny filaments in the ground or, more likely, in the dead plant material, especially wood.

NEWS: This blog is now published at the domain www.raleighnature.com and has moved from it’s old site.  If you have the old netweed/raleighnature url as a favorite or on your blogroll, I would greatly appreciate you updating it.

         

***********************************

         

***************************

         

*******************************

         

************************* 

These pictures were taken at Cedar Hills Park and Fred Fletcher Park.

 

Here we are - I hope you’re with me!

I hope all my old readers don’t get lost in the Internet woods, but Raleigh Nature has moved to this site on WordPress.com.  While I was in the mountains, a virus squatted on my old site and we had to close it.  I will be ironing out details for some time, but almost all the posts are restored here.  My sincere apologies to anyone who was inconvenienced by the old site’s bug.  Back at you soon.  Please spread the word.

Ranging the Piedmont

This post was originally published on June 21, 2008

Haven’t posted, haven’t been on the greenway. Been furiously finishing up my school year, doing some arts writing, and starting a new personal blog. And now I’m off for 5 days to the mountains. Doing a big environmental education workshop at the Pisgah Forest Institute in Brevard. Once I get back, I’ll be posting more often.

On my way to the mountains, I will traverse this widest section of the eastern U.S. Piedmont, which stretches 225 miles from Raleigh to the scarp of the Blue Ridge Mountains. At Morganton, I will travel just north of the South Mountains, which are significant, “real” mountains but not part of the Blue Ridge system at all. They are monadnocks, outcrops of rock even more ancient than the Appalachians, which have withstood the millions of years of erosion and flattening that produced the Piedmont. They look decidedly odd in the midst of the Piedmont’s gentle swells, as I hope you will get some idea of, below.

These are from south of the South Mountains, off the 64 route rather than 40. Below is the development just beginning within sight of this peak. My drive on State Road 10 and 64 reminded me that it is not just near the big cities that Piedmont vistas are filling up with homes and shopping centers.

Below is a scene from South Mountain State Park, which was closed due to being completely filled the Memorial Day Monday I went. Another trip we will explore the unique granite faces associated with these Piedmont mountains.

***************

The Continental Divide at Interstate 40

After the South Mountains, I will drive through the Piedmont watershed of the Catawba River, then begin the climb up to the valley of the Swannanoah River, which runs from Black Mountain to Asheville. At Ridgecrest, I will cross the Continental Divide. Water falling to the east goes to the Catawba and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean. Water falling west of the crest will go north via the French Broad, find the Little Tennessee, and eventually flow into the Gulf of Mexico. As a child at Camp Ridgecrest, a summer facility of the Baptist Conference there, I learned this fact standing on a mountain ridge, where we were invited to spit in alternate directions and imagine the geographic adventures of our saliva. It was, truly, an unforgettable moment, and one of many that shaped me into a naturalist.

The state-published geological guide to Interstate 40, using mileposts, instructs you to look at this dark rock at the top of the incline, which is part of the Blue Ridge, and compare it to the lighter rockfaces in the roadcuts at the botttom. I tried - safely - but pictures of those lighter rocks will have to wait for a safer scenario than Memorial Day weekend!

I’ll see you again before July 4th! Have a great one!

 

Nature news around the town

This post was originally published on May 18, 2008

The Wakefield Ecology Club

I made my first public appearance as The Raleigh Naturalist by presenting to the Ecology Club at Wakefield Middle School! I took my naturing vest, bursting with loupes, dissection kits, pocket guides and other paraphernalia. I took my naturing briefcase, more of a suitcase with topography maps, geology binder, park guides and my hand-built tree scrapbook. I also had my camera bag and hat. I gave a show and tell with all of that and talked to them about founding an Ecology Club at Enloe and also about my daughter Lily’s Envirothon work there (much more recently!).

This is my walking cabinet of nature resources. I am mostly done color coding the watersheds on the large map. The vest weighs 13 pounds.

The Wakefield Ecology Club was a great group of kids, led by Ms. Cindy Bowling, who invited me. They meet each week and perform recycling chores at Wakefield, plus try to learn more about their environment from guests. They knew lots of great stuff about conservation, invasive species, and native wildlife. We played a quiz game and I rewarded them with conservation goody packets put together by Lily last summer as a service project. All of the students showed excellent interest in the issues. The Wakefield MS campus is lovely. Below are some nature images from their campus.

These blackberries will taste good soon! Below is a rockfall with some really nifty “man-made conglomerate” - some nice high-iron stone encased in concrete.

******************

More Nature News

The News and Observer just teemed with good nature news this week. Durant Park has become a part of the Piedmont Birder’s Trail. Repairs have finally been completed on the section of Greenway between Capital Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue. This stretch of greenway was also featured in a “best greenways” survey by Joe Miller. Links below.

Piedmont Bird Trail

Middle Crabtree Greenway opens!

Favorite Greenways

Triangle Greenways Guide

 

Spring Forward - erase your nature deficit!

This post was originally published on March 23, 2008.

The equinox on Thursday and the warm weather have us all thinking about getting out into the dirt - right?  Maybe your kid doesn’t like to get out and garden with you.  Consider sending them to the Green River Preserve this summer.  This environmental camp for rising second through ninth graders, with expedition programs for all high schoolers, is located on several thousand acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  They have an outstanding program.  They also promote a book, Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv, which centers on a concept to consider: nature-deficit disorder, which can affect any of us if we’re not careful.  Plant those seeds, take that walk, mount that expedition!  Have a great one!

 The flowery driveway of a street that edges Fletcher Park. This time of year, it’s one of the prettiest sights in central Raleigh. You can glimpse the new construction on the right.  More about that below.

                              

The Fletcher water garden project is really moving along and needs more coverage. One of the primary functions of the water garden will be to capture, slow and filter the water from this drainage as it makes its way down to Pigeon House Creek, across the railroad tracks by Capital Boulevard.  There are plenty of other tributaries to that troubled creek that need help more than this heavily wooded glen, but it definitely will provide some much-needed quality control.  We will watch this project carefully, and use it as an entrance to the many issues surrounding Pigeon House Creek.