-
The Woods: Part III
When I initially saw the plant there on the right I thought it was some type of coral root orchid. After consulting our Texas orchid book I quickly realized it wasn’t but was left hanging on what it actually was. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps it was a parasitic plant but I still wasn’t sure. So I sent an email off to Prem who is much more of an orchid expert than we are and I knew he’d be able to tell me what they were. Turns out we have beech drops a parasitic plant to beech trees! Pretty nifty and interesting! Parsley hawthorn What I really need…
-
Random Thoughts and Around the Web
Cool stuff on the web Kal has some cool Christmas desktop backgrounds to download, plus a plethora of other creative things you can buy for Christmas. Kasie has a recipe for pumpkin whoopie pies…um, yeah!!! Mom, make these! Elizabeth reaffirmed my dreamy nature in admitting she too wished to marry Prince William. We are both already off the market, but now Prince William is too. *drat*. Renee’s apple drawing made me want to bust out some art supplies. Check our her calendars, too. Chiot’s Run is also putting out a calendar for next year. It looks super awesome! We debated doing one before we started this job but the job…
-
A Photographer At Work
Caddo Lake, Texas.
-
Introducing Wildscape Photo
We have finally launched our photography website! Please take a look around, poke through our galleries and tell us what you think. Hopefully you see something you like and are interested and will purchase some fine art photographybut if you don’t, keep in mind we still have more photos to work through and will be adding more over the next few months. I will be showing some of them here and will update you when I add more…I know I have some butterfly orchids and more swamp photos to share than what is represented on my page. Keep in mind that Christmas is coming and photography is always a unique…
-
Trail Tales 13: Connecticut
Relevant posts: New England Once inside Connecticut we climbed Ten Mile Hill. The day had turned overcast from a mostly bright morning. On the north side of Ten Mile Hill we met some Student Conservation Association volunteers reworking parts of the trail. I know that in general flat rocks on the trail are looked at as being nice, but I personally feel like they are just too slick to walk on and would much prefer bare dirt. I’m not talking about trail that is already littered with rocks, but when a trail has specifically been maintained to add rocks to the trail. Lunch was at the Ten Mile River Lean-to…
-
Silent Sunday
-
The Big Thicket
The Big Thicket is a patchwork of forest in east Texas that is run by the National Park Service. It is similar to Big Cypress National Preserve in that hunting and other recreational uses are allowed unlike many other national parks in the system. I had been here 9 years ago in a wetlands class in college but didn’t quite remember everything about it. We went to a few different trails, the Sundew Trail, the Pitcher Plant Trail and the Beech Woods Trail. The last ivory billed woodpecker verified in the United States was seen in the Big Thicket near the Neches River. Interesting stuff! We found a black rat…
-
Trail Tales 12: New York
When we arrived in New York we did not hear Frank Sinatra singing to us the ode we all know, instead we were dripping with sweat and moving along slower than we were expecting. We had though we’d passed the Village Vista Trail which would signal we had about 2.7 miles to the road where more ice cream was waiting, but when we arrived at the sign we were greatly disappointed. Luckily the trail smoothed out a bit and we breezed down to the road and had ice cream before dinner. The Bellvale Creamery was heaven 0.2 miles off the trail and it was also packed. We got a few…
-
*Contest Winner* Five Lined Skink
Our contest winner is Christine who I figured might be the first person to guess. Honestly, I thought this would be trickier than it ended up being! Next time I will crop it differently to make it more difficult! The other morning I was doing some QC on some trash lines in the forest when I looked down over a smashed pine log and saw the skink just sitting there. It’d been a chilly morning but I wasn’t going to take my chances so I took my initial “I saw it” photo and then decided to try to get closer. It worked! These little guys/gals are quick and are incredibly…
-
Trail Tales 11: New Jersey
New Jersey is a state that most people don’t equate with mountains and nature, but it is a very beautiful part of the trail. When we left Delaware Water Gap we stopped at Sunfish Pond, the only part of the trail that Chris had been on previously. We ran into the Traveling Circus, Moose & Tetherball and Cubbie and Dilly Dally while there. It’s an easy hike up to the pond and the pond itself is a popular day hike destination. It was sprinkling a little that afternoon but we made a nice day out of it. We were planning for camping somewhere after near Blue Mountain Lakes Rd and…