- Glory in the Morning. all pictures by John Dancy-Jones
All pictures click to enlarge
It has been a slow year at Raleigh Nature, squeezed by my Meniere’s Syndrome, classroom teaching, other online interests, and gardening. Here are some nice images from 2010, some with notes on the separate posts I would liked to have written with them. Thanks for checking in and we’ll keep plugging. Have a great one!
- snowy trees on White Oak Road, December 2010
The snowy holidays were great fun and a white Christmas seemed like an enticing treat from the Climate Change Coming. We are still working on raising food year round at the Person Street urban homestead and the chickens have been a spectacular success and my best excuse for not being out in Raleigh nature.
Esperanza, our combless Aracauna, with her friends, out for a stroll
Fall pond at Oak View Park
I am truly grateful for Get To Know a Park, since I would rather concentrate on out of the way places, but there are still plenty of park rows to hoe. Besides Oak View, there is a small new one on Honeycutt Road, and little gems like Hymettus Woods at Wade and Dixie. One of my biggest regrets of 2010 is not getting over to the new section of greenway emerging by the beltline on House Creek, where I have been specifically invited by a reader (lo siento 😦 )
Fall colors at Oak View
- boulders in Cemetery Branch at Brookside Drive
Cemetery Branch
- Crabtree on east Buckeye Trail
There is always a lot of nature lore to explore, and 2010 was no exception.
woad blue mold after heavy rains
Raleigh Swamp mallard hen
sunlit slider on Middle Crabtree
my TFA science classroom's pet box turtle
Oakwood hawk with a diappointingly invisible captured squirrel
- biggest gall yet!
snapper in the Wilmington creek beside Dorian's apartment
There is a lot I would like to cover from my travels outside Raleigh as well. The Maine post went well, but my mountain traveling has been heavy, and there is always just sooo much to tell.
Boulders on 64 in western NC
rock sculpture at UNC-A's Botanical Garden
ballon from rest stop on 40
Bass Harbor, Maine
There are so many things happening with parks and green amenities in Raleigh. I had hoped to write about the beginnings of the Neuse River trail, which starts at Fall Dam and eventually hits Anderson Point, the river’s intersection with Crabtree. This wonderful, under-used park has been the source of many a stimulating walk and deserves multiple posts. Halfway down that trail (where it joins the existing one) is Raleigh Beach and the Milburnie Dam, which is up for possible removal. Now THIS topic I would have preferred to address at Raleigh Public Record, and I may yet (the project is on a back-burner currently).
- Milburnie Dam
raccon midden at Milburnie Dam (hat for scale)
Happy New Year and here’s hoping again for an invasive species page, a record trees map and more straight street pieces in 2011 – and if we’re lucky, Marsh Creek Part II ! Love, John
raleighnaturalist
The Raleigh Naturalist 
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