Waterrock Knob

Suzanne, Jake (the Fawn Pug) and I went to Waterrock Knob on the Blue Ridge Parkway today. It is to my shame and chagrin that I have never been there, just passed by it when going somewhere else. We took I-40 to US 19 through Maggie Valley, up to Soco Gap, where we got on the Parkway. We then went about 8 miles north to the Waterrock Knob parking area and Visitor Center, a nice little place to learn local lore and shop for cute gifts and guide books.
On this short trip to the Knob, we were treated to a spectacle of Flame Azalea, Mountain Laurel (called "Ivy" or "Mountain Ivy" by the old folks), and Catawba Rhododendron all along the road, and in absolute full bloom. In the parking area we also saw up close the Rhododendron, something I have managed to miss the last few years.
After going into the Visitor Center, and using the facilities outside (don't go IN there!), we took off up the trail. Though the trail is only about a half mile, it is a steep half mile, and requires some stamina. I lost a good bit of stamina when I suffered an aortic dissection, a dangerous splitting of the inner aortic wall. As mine was abdominal (type B), it was not really in my best interest to have surgery, so I am a bit handicapped. We got a hundred or so yards up the trail and sat down on a well placed bench, and I started to make a "pssht" sound to attract birds. Suzanne is much better at this than I, so when she started, birds were everywhere. We saw Juncoes (of course), a Black Capped Chickadee with his ragged bib, a Chestnut Sided Warbler who sounded more like a Hooded, and what could only have been a Pine Siskin, a bird that should be on its breeding grounds in Canada, but what do I know?
Moving on up to the "pedestrian overlook", we were treated to a view that is only like the view from an airplane. The vegetation here is classic "canadian zone" or "Spruce/Fir zone", with the addition of the ever present Red Maple. It is a lovely walk, a lovely place, and a wonderful escape from the heat and humidity of the valley. Since it is over 6000 feet, it has a good many Fraser Fir, and I suspect it normally has a great deal more water; however, in our drought stricken condition, there is little water to be found. I swear I heard the maple tree sigh when Jake um, "visited" it.
On the way down, the most striking view was just downhill from the "pedestrian overlook". Suzanne, who does not do heights to well, said "we look on the same level with that peak over there". As we were looking out into the Shining Rock Wilderness (I think), and may have been looking at Cold Mountain, I said that the peak was likely about a thousand feet below us. Such is the view from there.
We didn't make it to the top. When we got to the pedestrian overlook, I was a bit worn down, Suzanne was also, and Jake, who is a good bit brachycephalic, what with being a Pug and all, was doing a rather rough kind of breathing that can scare a Pug person, so we all agreed to head back down. I have heard the view is 360 degrees from the top, and when we are all in better shape, and maybe the weather is cooler, we will all three make it there. Until then, we all enjoyed it tremendously, and I would suggest that anyone wishing to see the flowers in bloom needs to do it this week, as they will probably start fading by next weekend.

Enjoy Nature folks:
Alex

Late Spring

Well, it is technically late Spring. I view it as early Summer. As this is the "Summer of Locusts", it is a bit different, what with the hordes of Cicadas still around. Still, it is much the same as has ever been in the Southern Blue Ridge. The Mountains look sweet and inviting. You see a mountainside from a distance, and you want to be under the tall trees there, near a small mountain brook, with the coolness of the water right out of the mountain. You can probably drink with impunity, especially if the spring is near, as no pollutants or diseases can be introduced to water right out of the mountain. You can poke around the stream bank or around the spring, and possibly find Box Turtles, holed up here to escape the heat and the dry, dug in under the wet leaves and boggy soil, staying cool while the world bakes in the unseasonable heat.
Or, maybe you gaze on a high elevation meadow in the Pisgah range, and want to be there, in the tall grass, with the butterflies and bees, and maybe a small stream flowing through. Elk, who have lately been re-introduced, can maybe be seen here, especially at Cataloochie. Maybe someday they will get into the Pisgahs.
All kinds of things can be done in the world of Nature, much can be explored, and there are many places that can help you, particularly two of my favorite places in the Blue Ridge, the WNC Nature Center in Asheville, and the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education, both wonderful places to go to learn about our Mountains. Check them out.
It is certainly time to get out, but with this crazy hot weather we have been having, I am for the high country. Let me tell you, it is nice and cool above 5000 feet!
See you later!
Alex
http://blueridgediscovery.com

Tree Tops

The twigs in the tree tops are beginning to droop, many are brown. The female Periodical Cicadas are beginning to deposit eggs. The mating is beginning to take on a fever pitch, and the sound of the males singing is almost overpowering. In a few weeks, many trees will have dead twigs drooping where the females have placed eggs. Males are starting to show up on the ground dead, their job of fertilizing a female's eggs done. The mating dance is starting to take on a extreme fervor now, with many individuals flying around trying to get mated, both male and female.
Their cousins, the Annual Cicadas will come out later, in July, during Dog Days. Here, they are called "Dry Flies", due to the dry, rasping sounds they make. Watch for them in a couple of months. You will be able to hear them, trust me. They have some of the loudest songs in the Animal Kingdom, some as loud as a jet plane taking off. They have the same sort of life cycle, just shorter, and some of them like pines and other evergreens; the Periodicals mostly like hardwoods, though I have seen a lot of them emerging under Spruce.
When the Periodical Cicadas are finally gone, and some people will be quite happy (not me!), it will be mid-summer; they will mostly be gone before the end of July. Then, of course, listen for the "Dry Flies".

Cicadas everywhere

They really are everywhere, or so it seems. In the Asheville area, the constant trill is almost mind numbing, especially around noon.
We are experiencing a phenomenon that has had people in awe for hundreds (and probably thousands) of years. The old folks, and here I mean the people who were my grandparents' age when I was growing up, called them Locusts, and said that they were the locusts of the Bible that plagued Pharaoh, when Moses was asking him to release the Jews (Children of Israel). They did not know, due to the insularity of the Mountains, that a locust is a different creature altogether; a grasshopper.
These creatures have an extraordinary life, one that extends for 17 (or 13 in some cases) years underground, and emerge all at once in a horde that totally swamps any predators, allowing most of them to feed (some say they do feed), mate, and deposit eggs in relative peace.
What makes them so terribly special to me, and almost magical (indeed, their Genus is Magicicada), is this hidden life, and I have always celebrated the emergence as a special event. I know that some folks do not (including my wife Suzanne), but I rejoice in them.
They are in all the trees here, and can be seen flitting around from tree to tree. I have heard two different songs, the "Pharaoh" trill of the species M. septendecim, and the odd ratcheting sound of what was likely a M. cassini.

My first experience of these insects was when I was 6 years old, in 1957, as I wrote in a previous post. I was unable to handle them then, as the old folks said they were "poisonous". In 1974, I handled them, and photographed them, and again in 1991. I am playing with them this year too, and even brought one in the house, and photographed it emerging, a pretty little male. You can see him in his white coloration before he turned to the orange color of full adulthood.

I am glad to have seen this emergence, and this is likely to be my last or next to last of this brood number 14 (XIV), as I am 57 years old, and have a dissected aorta. (Uh oh! ) However, I might see another in 17 years, if I am a good boy!

Enjoy, and come see them before they are gone, and the babies take another 17 years!

Blackberry Winter and "Locusts"

Blackberry Winter has been here, and thankfully, there was no frost. What is Blackberry Winter, you ask? It is that cold spell in the early part of May when the Blackberries are blooming in this part of the country. The Jet Stream is still writhing like a big old snake on hot ground due to the change over to Spring, and cold fronts march across our country like invading armies, only to be repulsed by the Summer to come. These cold fronts don't do much in most of the country, but here, in the Southern Appalachians, we feel it. The old folks said that if there were no cold and rain when the Blackberries were blooming, Blackberries would not bear. I have to agree, from observation. Curious.

On quite another note, a rather rare occurrence is taking place here, and it has me terribly excited. It has had me excited since I was a small child, and i have only seen it three times in my life, and this year makes four. A low trill fills the air, not really loud, but certainly noticeable, a trill that oddly resembles the trill of an American Toad, but only heard every seventeen years instead of every Spring. It will become a background to life for about two months, and then fade away. It is the song of the Seventeen Year Cicada, called Locusts by the old people. It is one of the largest broods, brood # XIV, and has quite a widespread occurrence. The old Mountaineers like my grandparents would tell me they are the Locust of the Bible, and even call "Phaaaraoh" (their trill is uncannily like the word Pharaoh, curiously) and since they have a synergistic emergence, they truly seem to be here in plague proportions. Since they only come out every seventeen years, and the nymphs live underground for seventeen years, they would seem something mythical, or perhaps, Biblical. There are so many of them, and the egg laying activities of the females make such an evident mark on trees, leaving dead twigs hanging everywhere, that it is understandable why folks think it is a "plague". Actually, the tree damage does no harm, and few if any die from the "damage". You can see a picture of a representative of one of the species (there are three actually) at the top of this blog; I do not have the technical expertise or the patience to move it to the middle of the page.
Older people, when I try to tell them these are NOT Locusts, will disagree, and will go into that response common to many Southerners "are you callin' me a LIAR?!". No, I am saying you are ignorant. Sorry, but that response brings out the worst in me.
It has been said that inside every tall tale is a hard kernel of fact. I have found that in some cases, it is a hard kernel of ignorance. The old people had never seen a Locust, a type of grasshopper (see Locust Photos and Wiki Locust), so obviously called them a Locust. The fact that the call, a trill that rises slightly and then falls quickly, sounding very like a trilled "Pharaoh" is the final nail. This call can be heard on the site www.magicicada.org, where they have calls of all three species liable to be out.
Another thing I was told when I was seven years old was that they are poisonous, and if they sting you, you will die, probably because the females "sting" trees, and the twigs die. Not. They are harmless, and even edible, if you are so inclined (Man vs. Wild, anyone?). I prefer to observe them, and listen to the chorus. Matter of fact, I think I will go listen to the chorus of "Phaaaroah", and see if I can handle a few.
Bye now!

Spring Climbs the Mountains

Spring indeed does climb the Mountains. You can see it happen, as I have when I was traveling weekly between Asheville at 2000 ft. and Morganton at a little over 1000 a few years ago. In the Piedmont, Spring would already be in full swing while only a few signs were showing here. At around 3000 feet, there was nothing.
Today, Spring is in full swing here. Sarvice (Serviceberry), has bloomed, and Dogwood is blooming. We even had Dogwood Winter. There are Spring wildflowers out everywhere like the Spring Beauty, Trilliums, and Fire Pink. Pansy Violets are also out. Tadpoles are in the pools and seeps where a few weeks ago there were only eggs. Leaves are out on many of the trees, and the hills are greening up.
However, if you look at the surrounding hills, you will see that the green goes only part way up the slopes. Past a certain line on the mountains, at probably 2500 feet, the woods are still gray. Spring hasn't gotten there yet. Go up the Parkway to Mt. Pisgah, and you will discover it is still the tail end of Winter there. So, Spring is indeed climbing the hills, as it has done for millennia.
Now is a great time to see wild flowers in the Smokies. A nice place is the Kephart Prong parking area.
Hope to see you out there!
Alex

Dogwood, wildflowers, and cold weather

Dogwoods are just starting to bloom, and the weather is turning cold. It has always been that way, or so I have been told. My grandparents called it "Dogwood Winter", and believed that we would always have a cold spell when the dogwood bloomed. In my 57 years, it has always seemed so. I could be all scientific and make some reference to weather patterns and coincidence, but generally, I just accept Dogwood Winter as part of my heritage. Perhaps this seems superstitious, and I guess in a way it is. However, I have seen it happen in almost every year of my 57, so there is some empirical data there. I do not believe in the "hoop snake", or a myriad of other myths and legends, and no, Copperheads and "Black Snakes" do not interbreed. However, "Dogwood Winter" seems to happen every year, as does "Blackberry Winter". So there.
There are a host of wildflowers out. Spring Beauty makes silver carpets where it grows thick, but if you get up close, it is white tinged with pink. So it is with the Pansy Violet, which is called "Johnny Jumpup", except they make a blue or yellow carpet, and the flowers are those colors. Appalachian Serviceberry, called "Sarvice" by the Mountaineers (including me) has made its snow white mist against the unrelieved grays and browns of the early Spring woods, and now is making leaves, and the sweet and tart berries that will be ripening about the middle of June. Bloodroot and Trout Lily have both bloomed, and are making seed pods; the Bloodroot is growing ever bigger leaves too. If you poke through the richer coves and bottomlands, you just might see the Little Sweet Betsy, a type of Trillium with dark mottled leaves and red upright flowers that has the odd odor reminiscent of over ripe apples. Other Trilliums will be blooming soon if they aren't already.
So, if you live near the Mountains, come visit. Start out at Asheville, or another place at about 2000 feet, and go up, maybe on the Parkway. You will see many phases of Spring, until you get high enough, and only the Sarvice (Serviceberry) are blooming. Beyond that and it is still Winter.
Shoot me an e-mail if you are going, and I will help you plan your route. Heck, I might even go with you if you invite me!
Enjoy!

Peepers at night and Wood Frogs

The Spring Peepers are out again. You can visit a wetland almost anywhere in the eastern US on a warm spring night, especially when it is raining or has just rained, and hear them. They are said to sound like baby chickens, and I guess they do, but a chorus is a jingling mess, with thousands of tiny songsters vying for females.

I went to a couple of sites near where I live to hear them, and record my observations for Frogwatch USA. They can be found at http://www.nwf.org/frogwatchUSA/ . Just copy this link and paste it into your browser. I'm too lazy to code out the HTML.

Unfortunately, I do not live in the country, but in the suburb, but even there, there are plenty of frog sites, and I have three very near the Western NC Nature Center. Two of them have Wood and Pickerel Frogs too, all three species are reputed to have antifreeze in their blood, so they won't freeze on those early spring nights that dip into the 20's.

At the top of this entry, you can see an egg mass left by at least two Wood Frog pairs. Woodies tend to aggregate their eggs for a number of reasons, the two top reasons said to be to hoard heat in the middle of the mass (for those sub freezing nights) and to swamp any egg predators - anybody eating from a mass would get full before eating the whole mass, so if you are a Wood Frog pair, you have a higher chance of producing babies if you deposit along with others.