Winter Hike - Orchids and Frozen Waterfalls

I was able to get out for a couple hours today between church services. I went to the only Nature Conservancy property in my area; Brush Creek Preserve with two goals:
1. To see how much of Southern West Virginia largest waterfall was frozen after a week of bitter cold.
2. To locate the globally rare shrub Canby’s mountain-lover. It is evergreen and I am hoping to locate it   
     while it is winter so that I can find it easier when it blooms. 
     
           The waterfall was about 75% frozen, I have seen it almost totally froze a few years ago. 
There were several smaller falls along the trail that were interesting as well.

Brush Creek Falls

The rest of the hike was just enjoying the day and keeping my eyes open for the Canby's. I saw several evergreen plants including this one. With help by Jim from "Jims Blog"  it is identified as    Tsuga canadensis or Canada hemlock. Jim is a great photographer of wildflowers and you can find his blog here or linked in the 'My Blogs List' to the right. I never found the Canby's so it seems that this summer I will be trekking into the hills and hollers of the Brush Creek Preserve rather than just on the path.

 Canada hemlock

I also found a cluster of Putty-Root, an interesting orchid with a winter leaf. When I find these, I always look for the Crane-fly orchid, which also has a winter leaf. I have yet to find it in winter or to see one in bloom. This cluster of Putty-Root had at least five plants and two seed capsule bearing stems from this summer, amazing after two feet of snow in October and several other heavy snows. 

Putty-Root Orchid

It was a great day and I enjoyed the hike immensely  I am looking forward to March and April when this same snow and ice coated preserve will be covered with many of my favorite wild flowers; Spring Beauty, a beautiful blue Hepatica, the best stand of Large Flowering Trillium anywhere, Purple Trillium, Trillium sulcatum,or Furrowed Wakerobin and many others.

Number One - A Dandelion

Well, the premise of The Big Year is to find, identify and photograph as many West Virginia Native Wildflowers as I can  in one year. This includes common, rare and those that have been here for ever and are good as native. I thought the first would be a Dandelion, in January and it is. They were introduced many years ago, some say as a food source for the imported honeybee; which is a nice tie-in to another part of this day. Some say the deeply toothed leaves earned its Old French name of dent-de-lion, tooth of a lion. Find many facts about this interesting, edible, hardy and obnoxious flower here. Reporting a dandelion as the first flower in a wildflower big year would be equivalent to a birder reporting a European Starling as his first bird of the year.

Common Dandelion (I'll be avoiding Latin Names) 

By the way; whats going on this winter? First there was two feet of snow in October, then several ice/snow storms in December and early January like normal. But today, it was sunny and 68 degrees. It's been milder and rainy for a few days so its no wonder the dandelions are trying to bloom and I found Daffodil heads several inches above ground and my honeybees were flying everywhere.

  I suppose this winter is like many past and future winters; mostly normal with a few odd weather days. (A nice day in January when you can get in a nice hike with the grandbabies will eliminate the shack nasties for a few days) But I worry about it throwing off the normal bloom time of wildflowers. Last year was extremely mild and most wildflowers in WV, and around the east coast, bloomed a couple of weeks early, causing me to miss a few. But I am looking forward to spring whenever it gets here; Blood Root, Trout Lilly, Trillium  even those almost microscopic flowers that I can see in the yard, but have never taken the time to properly identify

No Winter Blues

Was out and about today pruning fruit trees. I enjoy walking this time of year even though there are no wildflowers in bloom. Out of habit, I am always looking and I do see interesting things.
Today it was a vine, Clematis virginiana, a native Clematis commonly called Virgins Bower. Suffice it to say that rather than trying to explain that to the grand kids, we always call it Clematis.

           

This week, I also saw an interesting bird at my feeders. I posted to several forums and emailed to experts and the consensus is that it is probably a common Purple Finch that has a condition called leucism which is a pigment deficiency that causes either patches and blotches of white plumage or an overall buff coloration. This guys white belly and white collar made me think I had a displaced rarity that would bring birders flocking to my home; willing to pay for parking and buy coffee at exorbitant prices. Oh well, it was interesting to watch, but I cannot afford another consuming hobby; I already have wildflowers, arrowhead hunting and collecting, metal detecting, bottle hunting and collecting and who knows what else. Its like Mark Twain once said, "When your hobbies get in the way of your work - that's OK; but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves... well...”. Birds could do that for me, so could butterflies, dragonflies and many other things which I just try to stay informed about, but not obsessed.  

Leucistic Purple Finch

 

        

Jan 1, 2013

This is what my home has looked like for over a week after back to back snow and ice storms; and then today more freezing rain, sleet and then rain turned it into a miserable mess. 

So I spent the day researching Canby's Mountain-Lover; Pachystima Canbyi. I have pictures from a nearby area that I think is one of the Running Pines or Yews:

But, I got to thinking that maybe it was Canby's. So after a lot of searching and comparing, I feel like it is not Canby's. It is in the same area and I need to get there soon to locate it because it is evergreen and should be easy to spot now. 

Like the research but looking forward to Spring!!


 USDA web site for Canby's