Wildcat Glades and Shoal Creek

An hour into my last road trip to Dallas, I made a planned stop at Wildcat Glades and the Shoal Creek Conservation Education Center. It was shortly after 7 AM and a Monday so the center was not open but my purpose was to just explore the area little….see if it would be worth returning for hiking and photography. I walked around the native wildflower plantings in the Wildcat Glades Friends Group area and then drove around to the Wildcat boat ramp. I was there for about 20 minutes; it was obvious that it would be a great place to visit on summer mornings!

One of the buildings in the friends group area has a mural of wildflowers!

But this time of year, there are real flowers in bloom!

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There was a luna moth sculpture in one of the beds.

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There was a good-sized stand of milkweed with a monarch butterfly sculpture too. The morning was still cool enough that there wasn’t much insect activity.

There were bluebirds in one of the boxes. A bit of drama: there was a bird chasing a squirrel along a fence top; the squirrel paused…and the small bird rammed into its rump!

When I drove around to the boat launch, there were rabbits at the edge of the road (and on the road). They didn’t seem to be paying any attention at all to my car, so I took a few pictures and moved very slowly.

My husband is amenable to making a field trip to do some hiking and birding in the area so stay tuned for a blog post about a longer visit.

A Year Ago

What a difference a year makes….

Last June I made the road trip from MD/PA to MO twice (beginning and end of month) to help my daughter move to Springfield MO. On the first trip we were in one car and I was in the passenger seat when we drove into St. Louis…was able to take a picture.

The only sightseeing we did that trip was to the Springfield Art Museum when the key to the house my daughter had rented would not open the door and we had to a few hours waiting for the landlord.

The highlight of the drive leaving Springfield on that first trip was a luna moth at our first rest stop.

On the trip toward the end of the month, we took a break before the movers arrived to visit the Springfield Botanical Gardens….saw zebra swallowtails in their butterfly house and a clever Monarch butterfly life cycle playground.

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This June I am not traveling at all because of the pandemic. I am also not volunteering. Last June – between the two road trips – I was volunteering with two organizations: Howard County Conservancy field trips (there was a particularly memorable session with preschoolers learning about trees) and Brookside Gardens in their Wings of Fancy exhibit.

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I miss the traveling and volunteering but have so many things I enjoy doing at my house that I am not feeling the pinch as much as I thought I would by this point. I credit the forest view from my house and the pleasant company of my husband and cat too.

Unique activities for yesterday:

Browsing National Geographic magazines. I’m slowly working my way through the digitized versions on Internet Archive (issues from 2009 – 2013). They always have wonderful pictures. So far – I’ve been limiting myself to 1 or 2 per day…giving myself time to savor the stories in each one.

Cat on the deck. Our cat is an early riser but not as early as me. He can be loud if he wakes up and no one is about so I listen for meows when I am out on the deck in the early morning….and encourage him to come out with me rather than waking up my husband. The cat usually settles down for a nap even if the birds are active around the deck. He wakes up and does some grooming when I start moving around…ready to go inside. I took a picture of him as he finished. He doesn’t look like he was ready to move but he got up immediately when I headed for the door.

The cat is 19 years old and has a cauliflower ear and is missing part of his jaw….still able to go up and down the stairs in our house although he chooses to not do it as frequently as he did years ago.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/9/2020– Macro Luna

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Baking a carrot cake. There is plenty of time to cook these days – a special dessert is always welcome. I opted for a variation of a recipe I found online…with some modifications:

• Whole wheat flour rather than white

• Heaping teaspoon of cinnamon

• ½ cup less sugar since I was using applesauce and sweetened coconut

• No pineapple and since I didn’t have the juice I used a tablespoon on lemon juice and then added water to make 1/2 cup liquid

• No nuts

• No frosting

• Made cupcakes rather than a larger cake (We enjoyed cupcakes right out of the oven with butter, later with orange marmalade or ginger preserves…or reheated with butter). I had enough batter left to make a small sheet cake we will probably freeze for later.

Noticing that the Dark Eyed Juncos are gone. I looked back at our birdfeeder camera and the last day they were recorded at the feeder was 4/6. Last year they left around the same time. In 2018 they were still around on 4/7 but were gone by the 9th.The birds are only in our area for the winter. They may go north for the rest of the year…or just a little west to the higher elevations of the Appalachians.

Blooming azaleas.  Several buds have opened since yesterday. I took pictures between the rain showers.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

And now for the second installment of macro photography with our mail-order bugs. Today I am featuring the Luna Moth. It’s the one pictured in the upper right of this picture – our order from The Butterfly Co.

I saw one at a Missouri rest stop last summer; they can be found in the US east of the Great Plains. So - Luna moths are native to Maryland – like the Cecropia Moth. It’s smaller and not as brightly colored. The antennae of the male Luna Moth are tan colored rather than deep brown of the Cecropia’s. But the antennae are arranged similarly in pairs along the rib.

The wings have eye spots that are very different than the Cecropia. The Luna’s have a clear membrane in the center! The bit of color seen is the color of the Styrofoam that The Butterfly Co. used to pen the specimens. Also notice that the ‘scales’ on the Luna wing look more hair-like.

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The wings are a pale green outlined in brown and with a few brown marks.  The shape of the wing looks like an exaggerated swallowtail.

Luna Moth

A few weeks ago – a Luna Moth was found on the parking lot of Howard County Conservancy’s parking lot at Mt Pleasant. It was not able to fly very well (probably injured) so was taken into the nature center. The first time I saw it, the long ‘tails’ were still relatively intact…but I didn’t have my camera with me.

The next day it had managed to fly up to the ‘exit’ sign in the nature center and I had my camera. The ‘trails’ had broken off, but it is still a beautiful moth. The creamy green jade color is very appealing.

This was the second Luna Moth for me this year. The other was at a rest stop on I-44 in Missouri back in June.

Both sightings were cause for a little celebration!

Ten Little Celebrations – June 2019

There was a lot going on in June – the last of the spring field trip season with Howard County Conservancy, the Wings of Fancy shifts, helping my daughter move from Pennsylvania to Missouri….and there were a lot of little celebrations along the way.

Springfield Art Museum – The first visit to a museum is always the best…because everything is new. This one was no exception….and it was free!

Luna moth – Finding a Luna Moth at a rest stop in Missouri was the high point of a long day of driving toward home. I celebrated that it was there….and that it was a pleasant surprise in an unexpected place.

First week of CSA – I am always thrilled to get the fresh produce from the Gorman Farm Community Supported Agriculture. Every meal I prepare with the CSA veggies is a celebration.

Frogs at Mt Pleasant – Finding the frogs in the small pond is like working a puzzle…you look carefully and finally see….and celebrate. I celebrated along with my hiking groups of elementary aged students too.

Perfect field trip weather at Belmont – I was braced for June field trips to be overly hot…but the weather for all of them at Belmont was near perfect. The pre-schoolers at Belmont celebrated being outdoors and I did too.

My summer office – I moved my home office to a room that doesn’t get direct sun in the afternoon (so doesn’t heat up) and celebrated that the new location provided a better vantage point to the bird feeder while I am working at my computer.

Kombucha – My new food find of the month was mint lemonade kombucha from Wegmans. I didn’t drink the whole bottle all at once…wanted to savor it so I had about 1/3 each day for 3 days. Yummy! I might not get it every week…maybe only for a celebration.

1st monarch butterfly and caterpillar sighting of the year – I celebrated a Monarch butterfly on some milkweed at Brookside Gardens and then a Monarch caterpillar on another milkweed nearby. It’s always a milestone for the butterflies to make it Maryland and start laying eggs. The milkweed is blooming and sweet…plenty of food for the caterpillars.

1st Zentangle® class is history – I celebrated leading my first Zentangle class…and the tiles created by the students.

Fledglings – I celebrated seeing several fledglings come to our birdfeeder over the past few weeks: downy woodpecker, titmouse, Carolina chickadee, and catbird. Our maple tree seems to be a popular place for many of these birds….or maybe they just come through that tree from the forest and return to the forest the same way.

Luna Moth

A serendipity find at a rest stop off I-44 in Missouri: a Luna moth! They are such a lovely color – a creamy green jade – and the shape with the long tails is appealing too.

Like most moths, they are sedentary during the day and this one had opted for a window frame near the door to the Ladies room for its daytime roost. It was probably there for the day unless someone disturbed it.  I took out my cell phone to get a picture…and pointed the moth out to the people going by in the few seconds it took for the picture taking. It was still in its spot when I left – unnoticed by most people.

Luna moths are native to North America east of the Great Plains. The adult moths, like many large moths, don’t eat as adults so they are very active at night mating and laying eggs. They only live for 7 – 10 days.

What a great first-stop on a long driving day!