How I Learned about Poison Ivy and Why They May Take Away My Junior Woodchuck Badge

It's been brought to my attention that I am dangerously close to missing the entire month of November here in the blogosphere.  Let me avoid that.  Why don't you pull up a chair, sit right down and let me tell you about the poison ivy and why I'm in danger of losing my Junior Woodchuck Badge.

A few years ago I spent several weeks going through the Mississippi State Master Naturalist course.  My Beloved often referred to the classes as my Junior Woodchuck classes.  In his mind I will never be a Master Naturalist but always be a Junior Woodchuck.  If you cast your mind back you may remember (and if you don't you will now know) that Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Donald Duck's young nephews belonged to the scouting organization, The Junior Woodchucks. 

Avid wikipedia researchers may even know that there was a sister organization to which Daisey's nieces belonged named The Junior Chickadees.  I'm glad the Finman didn't seem to remember that bit of trivia. 

As a child, I would have almost killed to get in the boy scouts with their campouts and hiking whereas the idea of girl scouts, cookies, and crafts could never really float my boat.  I find as an adult that I would much rather be a Woodchuck than a Chickadee.

Now, where was I?  I seem to have strayed from the point.

Oh yes, poison ivy. 

Always in the back of my mind there's been this thought, "I really should be able to identify poison ivy." 

I mean it's a bit embarrassing to have finished a class and gain a certificate and not be able to identify one of the most common nuisance plants.  Yet, every time I would sit down to try to get a handle on the whole poison ivy issue I would get bogged down with how different individual vines looked in photos or how the colors change throughout the season.

Fast forward to summer 2011 and our honeysuckle covered deck.  I noticed a new vine.  "Oh" I thought, "The last family that lived here must have planted that and I haven't noticed it before."  All summer I watched that vine grow.  It creeped over the top of the railing.  It twined its way in and out of the lattice work and its little areal roots began to take hold on anything they could latch onto.

They grew, creeped and expanded until this fall, mindful of The Finman's frustration with their overgrown state (I won't let him trim because I of course do it right and he doesn't) I started to tame the vine jungle.  How proud I was of how nicely everything looked, just lovely.

Days later when the first of the blisters began to trail along my arms and legs I thought, "I must have run into an ugly spider somewhere."  Over the next week as the reaction spread and mushroomed and itched unbearably, I was clueless as to how I'd had such an awful insect run-in.  I washed and vacuumed everything in the bedroom, pondered dread diseases, and eventually ended up at my Mother's house.

"What could this be?" I asked.  "It itches unbearably, and it's just getting worse and worse.  There are all these blisters, it's gross, there is oozing..."  She thought.  She didn't know.  We discussed other things.  Then, a light bulb flickered in her brain.  "Do you think, that it could be Poison Ivy?" she wondered.  "Poison Ivy" I countered, "I don't think so."

I went home, I considered.  I looked at pictures on the internet.  I thought, "I may actually have poison ivy".  How could I have poison ivy I wondered?  I spent a bit more time thinking.  Then, my light bulb finally if dimly flickered on, THE VINE.  The big creeping, twining vine currently living on the deck of my porch. Could it be?  It was so pretty, its leaves were turning a beautiful fall red.  It couldn't be, could it?

I took pictures and sent an email to my friend the county extension agent, a horticulturalist.  "Oh Stephanie, could you identify this for me?"  I didn't hear back.  Trying to be nonchalant I texted, "Hey did you get my email and pics?"  "Were you able to identify the photos?"  A text reply came, "Was one poison ivy?" 

Validation. 

I can now identify poison ivy.  Hopefully, I'll get to retain my Junior Woodchuck privileges.

This was the second vine I found.  I'd been admiring the lovely fall foliage from the window in my kitchen.  Who knew?

Fall Parade

What a surprise this morning to see this parade amble across the property,  an almost silent flock of wild turkey.

I must have seen a bit a movement out of the corner of my eye.  By the time I had my camera they were turning to the back of the house.  This saw me running out the backdoor, through the gate and dewey grass to get a peek.

They had a slow stroll along the edge of the woods, a stop in at the compost pile, and vanished into the sunflowers.  All the while they meandered with the quietest of gobble, gobbles.

Here is Papa Turkey.

It is difficult to see in this size photo but I truly didn't realize that they had so many colors.  If look closely, you'll see blue bars on some feathers and blue on his head.

Lovely fall surprise.

Pest Control, All You Can Eat Buffet

A Few Days Ago, Looking Out The Window:

"Oh look, that tufted titmouse just grabbed a caterpillar off the porch railing," I told The Finman.  "They've been falling out of the oak tree.  Oooh gross, look at that, caterpillar insides are gooey."

"There are caterpillars in the tree?" Finman asked.  "I didn't know there were caterpillars in the tree."


"That's because I didn't tell you there were caterpillars in the tree."  (The Finman likes to kill things.) 


"Now, we don't have to do anything and the birds have dinner.  See how nice and circular that is.  We don't need to do any killing at all."

(Poor Finman, he really does like to kill insect-ish things.)

I Didn't Need That Dill Anyway

This morning in the garden:

Black Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars indulging in a serious chow-down on my dill plants.  Colorful little guys and girls, aren't they?

I've survived the first week of the Summer Reading Program, not quite as easy as it sounds. So, happy weekend!  I'm sure we all deserve it.

Mockingbird Blue

It's garden season.  This means there is much too much to do outside for me to be inside computering.

I'm very excited about watching one of our mockingbird couples sit on these egglings.  Mom and Dad Mockingbird were kind enough to build this nest quite low so I should be able to sneak a few photos of their progress. Hopefully, they'll be safe.  It's a wild world out there.

Multiculturalism

Confronting Cultural Differences: Great White Egret,

and Pelican...

Thank goodness it's Friday!  Looking forward to Pizza and a Movie night with The Finman.

Photos: Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Inner Harbor, Sometime in December 2010.

Bird of Prey, Literally

This post is certainly not for the cuddly Precious Moments kind of nature lover.

Yesterday, this Cooper's Hawk and I had lunch together, in a manner of speaking. I was lunching at the picnic tables outside the library when he flew in. As he is about to have lunch and I was having lunch, I'll count it as dining together. The colors are muted so you may not notice at first that he has another smaller bird in his talons. I believe it's a Mourning Dove, though it's a little difficult to see. Apparently, Cooper's Hawks are very fond of Mourning Dove and will even take them out of their nests on occasion. Then, they just squeeze them a bit until they're uhm... dead. Sometimes, they've been known to hold prey under water until the prey drowns. The Cooper's Hawk is nothing if not efficient.

Don't you all wish you had this kind of lunch time excitement?

Butterfly Romance

I know it's hot outside. In fact, here in muggy coastal Mississippi, sitting under an oak tree at lunch it feels like we corner the market on hot. However, if you can manage the heat, this is one of my most favorite times of year.

The butterflies are a bumper crop this year. As they tumble and toss around on the wind in the library parking lot and at the tree line in my backyard they look like a fantastic moment in time captured by a silly Victorian romance. They are just too beautiful to ignore. In fact, as I watch them in flight, time seems to slow and then snap back into place as the butterflies flutter out of view.

Above, is evidence of my first sighting of a Red-Spotted Purple. The blue on this fellow often has it mistaken for a Pipevine Swallowtail. In fact, that was my first guess until I took a closer look. Isn't he beautiful?

So, if you haven't, take some time and look around. I know the butterflies aren't only cruising in my neck of the woods. What do you see where you live?

Oil and Water

I don''t think anyone will find it surprising that I'm very focused on oil at the moment. Specifically, the oil pumping into the Gulf of Mexico threatening nesting seabirds, countless wildlife and in a lesser comparison, my own way of life.

I don't live on the water, but the water is central to my daily life. Every weekday, on my commute I cross the mouth of the Singing River and drive by the port of Pascagoula. I almost absentmindedly note which NOAA ships are tied up in port. I watch seagulls and the occasional osprey wheel over the parking lot of the library at lunch, just blocks from the Gulf of Mexico. On the weekends, I often take my kayak to the National Seashore Park or load the Hound Dawg in the car for a walk on Ocean Springs beach. The water and family are what brought me to the coast of Mississippi.

With these things in mind, I've watched this BP engineered crises unfold in horror. As a Master Naturalist, I'm terrified for the ramifications to nesting shore birds, migrating birds, our local fisheries, and a fragile ecosystem still recovering from Hurricane Katrina.

I'm a pretty moderate person and I've never been able to generate the proper eco-worry generated angst toward offshore drilling that I've known is almost requisite for one concerned with and caring for the environment. I'm a pretty practical person and know that as we have a nation currently dependent on oil, then oil we must have and that means drilling somewhere. Sometimes, "somewhere" means in your own backyard.

However, in light of British Petroleum's cavalier and in my opinion reckless attitude about drilling a well to the depth of 18,000 feet 5,000 feet below the surface of the water without seemingly an even rudimentary contingency plan in case the unthinkable happened, I think my moderate position is changing. The Associated Press printed this statement about BP's plans:

"BP suggested in a 2009 exploration plan and environmental impact analysis for the well that an accident leading to a giant crude oil spill - and serious damage to beaches, fish and mammals - was unlikely, or virtually impossible.

The plan for theDeepwater Horizon well, filed with the federal Minerals Management Service, said repeatedly that it was 'unlikely that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur from the proposed activities.' "

In light of the "unlikely" now floating in on the tide, I'm not feeling in any way moderate. In fact, I'm gearing up to angry and as I've already stated, terrified. I'm worried for all those that depend on the health of the Gulf for their livelihoods, the shrimpers, fisherman, and tourism industry. I'm fearful for local wildlife. I'm concerned about my own way of life and I'm reminded again, that you can't mix oil and water.

A Photo Note: The above photo is from East Beach in Ocean Springs, taken in March of this year on a walk with the Hound Dawg.

In the Rafters

Had another startle today. After I returned home from the Easter feast with family I let the hound dawg out for a ramble. I then walked into the edge of the forest with the furry beast. I was soon left to my own devices as Copper had other places to explore. Abandoned, I turned to go back.

I stopped on the way out to examine a bright green bush that reminded me of the Elliot's Blueberry. In the dim forest light, I was thoughtlessly pulling branches towards me when I caught a glimpse of almost neon green in a brown tree trunk a couple of feet away. Turns out that although I'd been carefully watching where I put my feet I also should have been turning my eyes heavenward as I had an audience at head height only a few feet away.

Thus, my introduction to the Northern Rough Greensnake. I haven't visited a cardiologist since I moved to Mississippi but I think that it may be time to find one again. I'm not sure my heart can handle many more of these harmless in your face nature adventures. The description says these fellows are arboreal. You think?

You will notice however, that my startle wasn't quite enough to keep me from running up to the car where I'd left my camera.

Another Reason I LOVE My Job

I'm a bit behind with the spring blogging. I've been (and actually am) under the weather or as they said in West Texas, I'm feelin' puny. However, mere puniness could not keep me away from the field trip our library director organized last week, a ride on the McCoy Brother's Swamp and River Tour out of the Pascagoula River Audubon Center. If you're ever down in south Mississippi and you're more interested in nature than casinos then this is definitely a must do.

The river is just beginning to wake up from winter and the swamps aren't the lush green they will be in just a few weeks but the wildlife was really magnificent. The photo above shows a mother osprey protecting her nest.

Here another female flies from the nest she is working on, see the red maple in "bloom";


A Double-Crested Cormorant, they winter here. This is my first view of a cormorant;


AND, One BIG DADDY of a 'Gator, smiling for the tourists;


The photos aren't quite as sharp as I'd like as it was a dreary day and I'm not satisfied with the lens I had with me, but it was a great afternoon to be out on the river. There was so much to see.

Good Snakes Are Still Snakes, Or Why I Don't Always Want My Instinct to Be Right

Last weekend, I got a start on a project I intended to work on over the winter, clearing brush at the edge of our forest and around the blackberries. The former property owners had a size-able area where they apparently threw logs, tree branches, etc. This was worrisome because the discard/grown over brush pile is next to the where the blackberries grow. Blackberries on their own tend to be overgrown and brushy. So, the entire created habitat seemed the perfect home to animals of the slithering nature. In other words, it seemed SSSSSNAKEY..... ICK!

Now here's a bit of little known trivia. In a former life (just five years or so ago but it feels like a lifetime) I had a little part time job helping at a small zoo with some education classes. Even though, I'm personally quite nervous with snakey snakes, there were snakes I had to show for reptile classes. As I was working with children, and truly didn't want to scar them for life, I dredged up the fortitude to actually put my hand into the cages, pick up the snakes, and show them off to the children. (I never would have thought I had it in me. The things we do for money.) Surprisingly, I didn't hate it. It wasn't comfortable, but I didn't hate it.

The problem is that in real life, the same non-threatening, good for the planet reptiles are enough to send me into cardiac arrest. I mean my heart really gets a work out when I stumble upon them in their own habitat, i.e. THE WILD.

This happened this afternoon. I decided to put in time continuing on with the brush and grabbed my gloves and the wheelbarrow with my tools and headed down to that part of the yard. As I reached the cultivator into a pile of branches I saw one suspiciously loopy coily branch right in the center of the pile. Apart from nearly stopping my heart, this called for an immediate suspension of activity so I could go get my camera. I've found it's a lot easier to identify a photo of a snake than the memory of a snake. This is especially so when you're a bit snake phobic.

Turns out, that as I thought, this was a harmless little fellow (or fellowette), a simple Black Racer. After I had my camera, I gently (with the cultivator) moved a branch obscuring my view. The write-ups say that when a black racer is startled he will either flee quickly or bite. My snake didn't do either of those things but I think this may be explained by the temperature dropping this evening and him being a bit sluggish. I did some work nearby for a few minutes and when I looked over the snakey was gone.

So, turns out the brush pile by the blackberries is indeed sssssnakey...

Snake Identification Help: The University of Georgia has a nice page about Black Racers. Also, the Florida Museum of Natural History has a really helpful Layman's Identification Key. This is specific to Florida snakes but as snakes are no respecter of governmental boundaries it works pretty well for south Mississippi too. Last but not least (well in the case, kind of least), Mississippi State University Extension has an online identification tool. I mention it because it IS specific to south Mississippi but I have to be honest and say that I think the Florida one is better and that the Mississippi tool needs a little refining. I haven't had a lot of luck with it.

Elliot's Blueberry, And Why You Should Just Bury Things

These pink blossoms are one of the first signs of spring in my little corner. They quietly announce that winter is coming to an end and spring really is about to burst forth. I noticed these last year but didn't "do" anything about them. "Do," as in research.

The last two weeks they've been just gorgeous. My mother, a plant genius was over last week but she didn't have any insight. So, I hit the books and then the internet for an identification.

Turns out, I wish I'd bothered to find out last year. These blossoms belong to an Elliot's Blueberry or some call it a Huckleberry and others a Mayberry. Apart, from offering the promise of spring, these little blossoms are getting set to produce a tasty little berry.




I have three bushes of the Elliot's Blueberry ringing the yard at the edge of the forest. You can believe that this year, I'm going to be watching a little more closely to see what happens and to see if I can beat out the wildlife for a taste. Floridata, a great little site that I stumbled across, started by a fellow over in Florida, has a wonderful page on Elliot's Blueberry.

As to burying things, I mentioned burying things in the title and meant it in a very literal not figurative sense. When a certain hound dawg finds a dead thing in the yard and you, who have a natural disinclination towards dead things, finally through trickery and cajoling manage to separate the dead thing from the hound dawg's mouth and then announce your plan of burying the small dead thing, know that you should follow your first instinct. Because, if you listen to the person that says, "Really, burying it? That seems like overkill. Just throw it into the forest to decompose" it's a pretty sure thing that while you are on your back at the edge of the forest taking photos of pink and white blossoms against a blue sky, hound dawg will rediscover said dead thing. Only now, the dead thing is three or four days more dead than it was the first time. ICK!

Nature Moment

I really enjoy people bringing me things they've found in nature to identify. Generally speaking, I don't know what they are.

Thankfully, I'm not the type of naturalist that worries because I'm not a walking nature guide. Otherwise, I'd spend A LOT of time on the defensive. I hope that after a few more years(20 or 30 or so) I'll have researched so many things that some of it will stick and I WILL be a walking nature guide. Of course, by that point my mind will start to go and I'll start back at the beginning. What a viscous circle.

A couple of weeks ago, my "local" brother asked my mother to ask me about a pod type thing he'd found on a tree. My mother brought me a sample. After seeing it, I remembered glimpsing the same sort of thing in my yard while walking the Hound Dawg in the mornings. Sure enough I went home and found the same type of casing.

I assumed it was a cocoon, (even though, I did harbor thoughts of an invasion of very small aliens) it is quite large, two inches and perhaps a bit more. After researching, I believe this to be the cocoon of a Polyphemus Moth, a large Silk Moth found in much of the US but present and active along the coast most of the year. The resulting moth can reach up to five and half inches in wingspan. For more information, Bill Oehlke has an informative page HERE.

One of the most interesting things to me in my research was that the moth has no mouth parts. They rely on the stored energy from eating during their caterpillar stage. This of course, is why I love people to bring me things. It gives me a reason to research and I always have more to learn.

Great Blue Lunch

I found a nice little salt marsh on my lunchtime walk today. I was so excited to see this Great Blue Heron fishing alongside some Snowy Egrets.

I mean "ridiculously, I'm pretty sure it's not normal" excited. I mean almost late getting back from lunch excited. Excited.

I've never actually been able to take a photo of a Great Blue before. I've been in my kayak or as happened last week when one flew over on my visit to the La Pointe Krebs House I was juggling phone and camera and missed it entirely.

Yep, I was excited.

I don't think Great Blue was excited. I don't think Great Blue even noticed me.