My wife, a grandson, and I took a trip down to Pigeon Mountain to check out an old minesite, but that was just an excuse. We couldn’t avoid a walk around the boardwalk part of Shirley Miller Wildflower Trail. Other than the time with my wife and grandson Joseph, who is learning his wildflowers well, the highlight along the boardwalk for me was the beginning of the wild hyacinth bloom. Photo by Joseph Ibach.
Wild Hyacinth; Atlantic Camas – Camassia scilloides
This Carolina wren – Thryothorus ludovicianus – was active around our house last year. I hope for his return this year.
Carolina Wren - Thryothorus ludovicianus
It was a beautiful day today, and I got to make a brief trip to The Pocket at Pigeon Mountain (with author Jay Clark, but more on that later!) This is just a quick update on what’s blooming now. The dominant species is probably the Bent White Trillium – Trillium flexipes. But read on for more.
White Trillium, Nodding Wakerobin, Nodding Trillium – Trillium flexipes
Back on March 11 I ended the Content Distribution Network experiment with Cloudflare. However, the reason I entered into that experiment still existed – performance of the website, and fear of having my Hostgator shared hosting account suspended for overuse (“abuse” is what they call it; but they don’t provide a way of predicting when we’re getting close to that “abuse” level.) Today Twitter friend Steve Creek had his Hostgator shared hosting account suspended for this very reason – caused by the site’s popularity. Twitter friend Adam Jack had previously mentioned that he was looking at Amazon’s Cloudfront service, so I had taken a look at it and it seemed usable. I made some changes today.
I was raised on a dairy farm, and the American Crow was the enemy of our corn crop. One of my jobs – or maybe pastimes, because I enjoyed it – was hunting the crows to try to reduce the crop damage. Fortunately most of the crows survived – I was never a very good hunter, and the crows were smart. One of the things they did was to post a sentinel in a tree. This sentinel would raise a ruckus when it spotted me, and the flock would fly noisily away from the corn field, usually in the same number as they arrived.
This may be the city version of my sentinel crow, watching out for marauders. There are a couple more photos down the page…
American Crow - Corvus brachyrhynchos - The Sentinel
This is a quick update to Friday’s status on The Pocket at Pigeon Mountain; things change daily during this time of year. Read on for some changes I noticed in a trip we took down there today so my wife could see the Dutchman’s Breeches.
Jack-in-the-Pulpit – Arisaema triphyllum
I was excited to see my first Columbine of the season in bloom. Several plants were forming their blossoms, like in the photo here, but one plant along the horse trail had several blossoms open. Read on for the full list of what I remember blooming today.
Eastern Red Columbine, Wild Columbine – Aquilegia canadensis
The American Robin (Turdus migratorius) is perhaps the best-known bird in the United States. Although it is migratory (take a look at that species epithet) and the winter range maps I’ve seen show it as not being a normal resident of North Georgia during the winter, we’ve had robins in our yard all winter this year in spite of it being a rather cold, snowy winter. I photographed robins in our yard in December 2010, and January and February of this year.
These pictures were taken last spring, however, not this winter. Every time I see this first photo, I’m struck at the eye crescents. I’m not really a very observant person unless at a particular circumstance I make a conscious choice, and honestly I’d never really noticed them before. More photos are included…
American Robin - Turdus migratorius
As mentioned in a previous post, I started using Cloudflare Content Distribution Network on Feb 3 in the hope of getting improved performance, and to lower the load on my hosting account. I’m calling this a failed experiment.
Red Maple, a native tree, has been added to the USWildflowers database (03/11/2011.) Scientific name is Acer rubrum. It’s also known by the common names Swamp Maple and Soft Maple. Photo below was taken in Walker County, Georgia on April 3, 2010.
Red Maple, Swamp Maple, Soft Maple - Acer rubrum