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Channel: Janet – Discovering Nature
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Leucistic Red-tail

We’ve seen this large, snowy white raptor several times nearby since around November. Naturally, I’ve thought it was a snowy owl. Last year snowies were on everyone’s radar because it was an irruption...

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Exhibit

My daughter and I have some art on display at the local library — pastels/paintings of hers, and photos of mine. It was fun to work together choosing pictures. Hers are of horses; mine are of nature....

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Spring Thaw

It was in the 60’s, the snow was melting, and the sun was out. We decided to head out and see what the woods looked like on such a welcome spring day. A stop at the vernal pool didn’t seem like it...

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Sights and sounds of spring

It was 27 degrees when we got up this morning, but the sky was blue and it was destined to warm up into the seventies. Who wouldn’t take a walk? Today it was more about sounds than sights: tiny...

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Walking

The eastern towhee was back in the lower meadow, calling out at the start of my early morning walk yesterday: “Drink your tea!” The robins were busy about their breakfast in the dewy grass. As I...

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Heroic ages

Thoreau wrote that morning brings back the heroic ages. I find that I’m much less eloquent about my morning walk the other day. I just enjoyed it. I liked the way the boardwalk zig-zagged mysteriously,...

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Brave blooms and a spring stream

They look like they’ve just arrived from someplace warmer, a small group of tourists looking hopefully around for accommodations. Then there’s this one, growing in a tiny stream. Bloom where you’re...

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Spring phoebe

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Random spring beauties

This flower is actually called “spring beauty.” Everything else in this post gets informally classed under the same heading… We’re drinking in the sights of the world waking up around here.  

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Touching nature

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Big leaf, small butterfly

For the first time in the 15 years we’ve lived here, sunflowers actually came up. Always before the chipmunks ate them when they were mere sprouts, but these are at least 12 feet tall and just starting...

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Revisiting Ferd’s Bog

One of the places I love to visit in the Adirondacks is Ferd’s Bog, a 50-acre tract of boreal forest surrounding a black spruce bog. I first visited it in 2011, and the bog was filled with pitcher...

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Monarch of the Kitchen

We named this monarch caterpillar Ted. I’ve been wanting to find one (or more) to observe the process of caterpillar-to-butterfly again; we didn’t do it last year, but for several years prior to that...

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A friend for Ted

My husband told us to bring home a big caterpillar to keep Ted company — so we wouldn’t have to maintain a fresh milkweed supply for long. Older Daughter and I brought home the biggest one we could...

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Bald Mountain

Another place we visited on our Adirondack vacation was Bald Mountain. It was a popular place the day we were there! There is a fire tower on the granite crest of the hill that you can climb to look...

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New caterpillar

Checking for monarch caterpillars, we discovered an unfamiliar one munching on goldenrod: I snapped the picture with my phone, then came home and searched my caterpillar guide and the internet to...

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Stages

Things are looking up around here. At least, caterpillars are. Two of our now seven monarchs have made their silk buttons and dropped into their J’s. I hope I’ll be able to see the chrysalis form for...

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Pathway ponderings

Older Daughter and I took a walk down a familiar trail the other day. It was midafternoon and there wasn’t much wildlife to be seen. But this woodpecker tree was one of several reminders that the...

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Metamorphosis

It’s an amazing thing to watch this process of caterpillar to butterfly. First they’re tiny… They eat, sleep, shed several times, and grow restless for the heights… …then fasten themselves to a good,...

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Mrs Hummer

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