The sun was warm and welcome in the holler today -- nice for me and my critters, but can't help thinking about fellow Tennesseans who are enduring floods in the western part of the state. Talk about life cycles: at about the same time last year, Nashville was flooding.
The rain we got in the holler was plentiful but just brought the creeks up a little and gave all the plant beings some needed water. Of course, I will probably have to mow the lane this weekend because it's get harder to do the holler walk with so much green hanging over into the gravel tracks.
One of the first things I saw today was a pair of pearl crescent butterflies mating among the daisy fleabanes. Further down the lane I saw two common buckeye butterflies mating. I also saw a red-spotted purple close enough to identify it. I thought I saw one a couple of days ago but couldn't get close enough to be sure.
While I was photographing a little pinkish-white flower I still can't identify, I happened to notice a scorpionfly on some leaves nearby:
Scorpionfly, 5 May 2011. [photo credit: cathie bird]
Down where the holler opens up into my neighbor's field on Terry Creek, I found some wild stonecrop blooming (photo posted on another blog) and some yellow wood sorrel:
Yellow wood sorrel (Oxalis stricta), 5 May 2011. [Photo credit: cathie bird]
And a final plant note -- I was able to identify the mint family species I've been seeing all over the hollow as lyre-leaved sage. Here's a photo I got of some yesterday:
Lyre-leaved sage (Salvia lyrata), 4 May, 2011. [Photo credit: cathie bird]
Once again, I heard plenty of birds, but it's getting harder and harder to see them as trees leaf out...another good reason to learn who sings what. I did see and hear both an eastern pewee and a yellow-breasted chat.
To end today's holler walk on an exciting note, I had to extract a piece of twig that my Border collie, Shadow, got wedged between his teeth, across the roof of his mouth. I knew he was trying to get something out, but it was hard to see because the bark and the dark roof of his little Border collie mouth were about the same color. I finally noticed it because it was a pretty straight piece of twig against the curvier ridges of his palate.
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