Raleigh Nature

March 2, 2009

March Mad Beauty

Filed under: About & reflection, Crabtree Creek, East Raleigh, Gems & Surprises, Greenways & Parks — Tags: , , , , , , — raleighnaturalist @ 11:13 pm

snowy-oakwood-trees_1_1

   A late snow and a schoolday off to blog about it!  It didn’t take long to find a snow paradise.  The Oakwood Inn’s block sported the lacy treetops above.  But I was headed to the greenway.  I decided to check out an old favorite – the east end of Buckeye Trail.

   This wonderful view is the edge of the meadow at Buckeye Trail’s east end off Milburnie.  Down this oldest section of Raleigh’s greenways is a vista that provoked one of the first thoughts that originated this project – and it was a book project long before I ever knew what a blog was.  The scene used to look like a cathedral of treetops – but the loss of a huge red oak several years ago changed the look.  What’s left is seen below.

   The missing tree was on the right, and when it was there, I was ready to write a book partly to tell people to come here and take a deep breath.  It is still a very nice section of greenway.  I got to see the baby beeches of a couple of posts ago in a new light, literally.  The gentle snow provided a chance to see water moving across the greenway: in a freshet, and being blocked by the asphalt.  The creek was medium high, which I documented with a current shot of my favorite log-sitting spot.  Once I had done that, I knew I should head over to Hodge Road and take shots of my water level standard spots, which I’m documenting over on the nature projects blog.

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The March snow was mighty pretty!

February 5, 2009

Midwinter Beech Luminaries

Filed under: Central Raleigh, Nature Lore — Tags: , , — raleighnaturalist @ 1:29 am

     At the easternmost tip of Raleigh’s greenways, Buckeye Trail at Milburnie Road, the young beeches, which keep their old leaves through the winter, look like luminaries spread through the flat lowland off this section of greenway. These pictures don’t really capture the effect – I’ll keep trying!

   This is close to the right time of day – right before dusk – and the dead of winter, but the eery quality involves the depth of their scattered penetration, evenly, through the slightly older but teenage pines…. and the perfectly flat lowland which nestles under Rollingwood where LongView Creek finds Crabtree.

     Midwinter is a great time to explore OFF the greenway, at least for poison ivy abhorrers like me.  The sewer cuts and fishing paths are available, and at this east end of Buckeye, the big beeches on the creek slopes have laid out startling off-white saplings to lighten up the dark winter texture of the woods.

December 14, 2008

Mistletoe Sightings

Filed under: Central Raleigh, East Raleigh, Nature Lore, Pecans & Mistletoe — Tags: , , — raleighnaturalist @ 8:19 pm
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     Mistletoe is common in the Southern Piedmont and has a strong herbal tradition as a medicine and as a holiday superstition and game.  This evergreen parasite is spread by bird defecation after eating mistletoe berries.  The latter link from the NC Museum of Natural Sciences tells us the name derives from the Anglo phrase for  ”dung-on-a-twig.” Three different species have a complex role in all this.  The species most commonly used as decoration, phoradendron flavescens, is a native of North America. In California, it is considered a parasitic pest.  Viscus album is the European species whose berries are poisonous and also useful as medicine.  The species in my pictures is Phoradendron leucarpum, oak mistletoe, considered less common and rare in Europe, but apparently it is Raleigh’s most common, and the one favored by European Druids for its alliance with the mighty oak.
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     Raleigh certainly has its share of oaks, and many of them in the area northwest of downtown sport the dusky green balls.  The spots inside the Beltline I best remember mistletoe are gone.  The planted median of Glenwood north of Peace Street used to have oaks that were full of prominent mistletoe, but I just today realized they have been replaced (quite some time ago – another geezer moment) with crepe myrtles, which are doubtless less trouble for the Progress Energy linemen.  But a large oak with a huge spread of mistletoe grows just across the street.  Mistletoe is not endangered: in fact I see it often in my travels, now that I have trained my eye to look for it.  But it does get harvested, and some  of what you see hanging in door jams is quite local indeed.
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     Where do you get yours? Maybe from Dan, who was set up on Person Street as I drove out to take mistletoe pics for this post.  I explained our coincidence, bought a big branch and chatted about mistletoe.  I mentioned the old strategy I’d seen out at my country cousins of shooting it down with a shotgun.
     “Yeah, but that messes it all up.  I got this here the hard way – thirty feet up.”  From his yard, he said, but there is mistletoe in some public areas around town.  Does much inside the beltline get picked each year?  Wondering, I say goodbye to Dan and head out in search of unharvested mistletoe.  First stop is the most hilarious spot for mistletoe to hang: the corner of Cook and Oakwood.  The irony of this clump presiding over a corner where women of the street often hawk their sad-eyed wares in broad daylight is just too great for me to forbear mentioning.
Mistletoe at Oakwood Cemetery

Mistletoe at Oakwood Cemetery

     Heading out of downtown, I find nice groups at Harvey Street but none on Glenwood north of 5 Points.  Over on Wade, there are healthy stands at the SECU facility and on up that hill toward Oberlin.  The Canterbury/Banbury neighborhood has huge oaks, but many of them are Willow Oaks, and I saw almost no mistletoe there.  My schedule took me back toward home, and I saw the nice batches at the edge of Blount Street Commons.  This was a very partial and cursory inventory, but I plan to make this an annual post and develop a map of mistletoe sites in Raleigh (as I will for pecans, thus the name for my nature project blog).
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Suite101 Botanical info
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About.com’s mistletoe history
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NC Farms Selling Organic & Low-Spray Christmas Trees and Wreaths (and Mistletoe)
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Have a great holiday season!
 

November 1, 2008

Slow Fall at Dix

Filed under: green initiatives, Greenways & Parks, Nature Lore, Pecans & Mistletoe, South Raleigh, Southwest Raleigh — Tags: , , , , — raleighnaturalist @ 3:09 pm
 
 
 
 

 

Raleigh from Dix Hill

Raleigh from Dix Hill

 Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802-87) was perhaps the most famous and admired woman in America for much of the nineteenth century. Beginning in the early 1840s, she launched a personal crusade to persuade the various states to provide humane care and effective treatment for the mentally ill by funding specialized hospitals for that purpose.

     306 acres are left from a huge estate that was given over to the benefit of some of our neediest folks.  As the fall colors take their time this year decorating Raleigh’s skyline, so Dix Hill’s fate lingers in the slow balance of state decision.  Walk the big meadow with me and glimpse some early fall colors.

   We turn from downtown and look down at the gazebo and greenway path which runs along Rocky Branch as it follows its new, straightened course beside Western Boulevard.  On that walk we’ll see lots of elusive birds, wild grape, and some small spots of fall color.

     The campus has many historic buildings, massive white and red oaks that ring the meadow, a small grove of highly productive pecan trees, and one open slope that is the joys of all sledders.  Centennial Campus and the Farmer’s Market have already taken the lion’s share of what once was .  Now the state needs to let Raleigh’s long term interests take precedence over a short-time cash windfall.  The folks at Dix 306 are working hard to make that happen.  We should support them any way we can.

     Below is a trace of fall glory in midst of a glorious lingering summer.  Hopefully this image does not represent the sunset of hopes for the landscapes of Dix Hill.

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   I went on this walk partly because of Ashley Sue over at Green Grounded, who complimented me in anticipation of seeing fall colors on Raleigh Nature.  Below are clickable thumbnails of some other sightings at Jones lake off Sunnybrook, and then ending with my all time best fall picture, from the west Beltline.  Happy leafing!

                     

 

 

June 29, 2008

Maple Sequence and Snapper Loose!

Filed under: Nature Lore, turtles — Tags: , , — raleighnaturalist @ 10:46 pm

This post was originally published May 4, 2008.

Check this out.  I have been watching this particular red maple on Hardison Drive in Quail Hollow all spring.  What amazing red color from the early samsaras, which emerge and mature before the first spring leaves.  Cool shift through orange as the helicopter seeds slowly lose out to the foliage.

                 

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Snapper Loose!

 So last week my high school teacher assistant, Randall, a senior helping with my 6th grade science class, brings in a turtle.  Except this turtle made my day, entertained almost my entire school population, and impressed the heck out of us all.  He was huge!  For a 6th grade classroom, anyway.  My students of all ages were in awe as I lifted him from the back and displayed the gaping, snapping mouth and long sharp claws.  By day’s end I had little claw marks all over my hands. On the other hand, this snapper was weary and disgusted.  I promised Randall I would find a nice spot to release him. (Randall had hooked him by the leg with a casting line and hauled him out of the lake in his backyard, where he certainly was not expected back). I though of Blue Jay Point, where I have released ailing box turtles and morose sliders.  I thought of Lassiter Mill, where I have seen, just as I mentioned in the recent post on that subject, animal control officers release unwanted specimens.  This was a big, dangerous turtle ( though they do get over twice this size), and I decided I wanted an undeveloped stretch of water.  Crabtree on the east end of Buckeye Trail was the obvious solution.  Snapper could climb up the bank into the Marsh Creek marsh by Yonkers Road, or float on down to Anderson Point and find the Neuse River, with lots of side choices along the way.

So I wrestled him back into his tub one last time and drove to Milburnie Road and parked.  As I got out, a small peculiar lady with four young children came ambling down the road.  I spoke to them and explained I was a science teacher who could share something interesting if they had a minute.  The kids were appropriately aghast and entertained, but Mom had other ideas.

” You don’t mean you going to turn that turtle loose!  You can give that turtle to me.  I’d love to have it.”

Now even if it wouldn’t have been crazy to give a strong, heavy, dangerous reptile to a small woman with four small kids, I knew exactly why she wanted it, and I was having no part of it.

“You just want to cook this turtle!  I’m going to turn it loose like I promised Randall.”

 And the woman just wouldn’t let go of the idea that I might give her this turtle.  She wanted it badly.  She and her kids watched as I started off down the greenway, lugging the tub.  They started on down Milburnie, but were clearly watching through the trees.  So rather than turning him loose in the small tributary right next to Milburnie, as I had planned, I heaved and puffed with the tub all the way down to Crabtree.  I set him on the grass and took these photos.  Then I slid him down the bank and took the video linked below.

I was right proud of myself as a Baby Boomer teacher who has embraced the 21st century, because I was able to show my students ( and especially Randall) this video post on Pecans & Mistletoe, my nature projects blog, the very next day.  They didn’t have to trust my account, they could watch this turtle go into Crabtree.  Hope you enjoy it as well.

 Snapper Loose! video

Lots to Lose – Lots to Save

Filed under: East Raleigh, Nature Lore, Pecans & Mistletoe — Tags: , , — raleighnaturalist @ 8:53 pm

This post was originally published Feb. 24, 2008.

This meadow off Sunnybrook is surely doomed, but it is sure fun to browse for now.  I have seen deer and gray foxes, lots of butterflies and a wonderful diversity of plant communities that range themselves around the various landscapes contained on this old farm.  It is the remnants of the very large farm bisected by the eastern stretch of the Beltline and displayed in all its historicity at Oak View County Park right across the highway.  This privately owned portion contains two ponds, one large enough to be called Jones Lake, an abandoned farmhouse, and a small grove of pecan trees.  The main pond is dammed at an unusually deep cut into sandstone that makes for an imposing ravine just below the dam, which then delivers the water to Crabtree, close by.  You can walk from the Sunnybrook meadow down a hill to the pipeline cut that parallels the beltline, and follow that water all the way to the pumping station , to see where those teenagers flung their Dad’s sports car over the guard rail, and you can see the memorials left at the site, which is still slightly blackened and scarred from the conflagration. This floodplain zone is wet and full of animal tracks.  The soil is sandy and obviously derived from the sandstone bowl which helps form Jones Lake. Or you can walk across the top of the dam, jump past the ravine, and walk around to the upper pond near Poole Road.  Here you see the pecans and the upland plants that are taking over from them.  Whatever subdivision gets created here will surely make some benefit out of the water holes and the many mature trees.  You would hope, at least.  I also used to park on Poole Road just past the fire station and walk in from that direction, but that end, between the upper pond and Poole, is now already under construction.  The clear cut for that part is not promising.  See below.

                    

The meadow ends at the slope down to the creek that drains Jones Lake.

              The upper pond and pecan grove.

And the clearcut.

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