Insert your favorite blog post title here:

Posted on August 28, 2016 by Jay McLaughlin

28 August, 2016 Insert your favorite blog post title here:

Celebrating my 55th birthday with Evelyn at l’opossum in Richmond. Photo by our friend Ariel.

I turned 55 on Tuesday (8/23) and that picture is Evelyn and me at my birthday dinner at l’opossum in Oregon Hill in Richmond. Our friend Ariel joined us and took the picture with my phone. One of the blog post titles I considered and threw out (too dark) was how a friend of Ev’s refers to birthdays: “another orbit without an obit.” So, insert a title of your own. The original title of this post was Ace in the Hole after the 1980 song of that name by Paul Simon. Here’s a great line:

“Once I was crazy and my ace in the hole

Was that I knew that I was crazy

So I never lost my self-control”

But my mind’s been in other places so, insert your favorite blog post title. Possibly next week my mind will be more fertile. I recommend clicking on that “Ace in the Hole” link – it’s a terrific song.

I’ve gotten a couple of neat osprey pictures this week. Nothing award-winning, but I like it when they’re moving. This is one of the birds on my “normal route”; I pass two active nests every Wednesday. Since I photograph it so often I might call it my “boring route.” This one is from the WEAG nest:

Coming in for a landing

But – this week I got an osprey when I was hiking with the dogs at Pony Pasture! I was unfortunately pressed for time, which I never like to be when I’m hiking, but life does not always operate according to my personal schedule. I took several of the bird soaring, but I was fortunate to snap the shutter once as it “stooped.” “Stoop” is a noun (in this case) used with birds of prey. It is defined thus in birding.about.com: “Definition: (noun) The swift, steep dive of a hunting raptor.” This is a characteristic posture for many raptors as they stoop. When this happens above an unsuspecting fish, it often doesn’t end well for the fish. I took this picture standing at Half Moon Beach at Pony Pasture:

Osprey “stooping” or beginning its plunge toward the water for fish:

Ospreys and cormorants both eat fish. This is a true story, and I’m not kidding – I photographed this cormorant precisely one minute after I photographed the osprey:

Cormorant stoop. Not really, but they both folded their wings simultaneously:

It looks for all the world like the cormorant is imitating the osprey. If you know cormorants, you’ll know cormorants spend a lot of time standing like that and drying their wings. An osprey “goes over the top” in a stoop like the one in that picture and it only takes seconds. But cormorants just stand on rocks posing like that.

Also at Pony Pasture this week – this is so exciting every year – I’ve begun eating paw paws that are falling off the trees. If you find an undamaged paw paw on the ground and want to know if it’s ripe, pick it up. Test it for ripeness the same way you’d test a peach at your favorite peach store. If it’s too hard, it’s not ripe. If your thumb goes right through and gets all juicy it’ll taste awesome but it’s a bit too ripe. If it’s ripe, you’ll know it. Here are a couple before and after (before and after I ate them) pictures of pawpaws from this week.

Here’s one before I began eating it:

I was stooping above this pawpaw just before eating it

I was stooping above this lovely ripe pawpaw just before eating it

And here’s one after I gobbled a few delectable bites:

Yum!

I took this one this morning; it was from a long way off but I enjoyed it. The cardinal flowers (and most other flowers) are fading a bit as summer wanes, but this butterfly was a pretty addition:

Not my best work, but that’s a pretty late-summer image

The dogs faded as today’s hike progressed; only Mackey and Turner were lying down at this point. A few minutes later when I stopped, all three lay down – they had too much fun swimming back when we were at the water’s edge:

My posse

Just FYI, it’s a bit after 8:00 PM as I’m typing these words and Mackey and Turner are lying down again. Yuki lives at our friend’s house about halfway between here and Pony Pasture; I suspect he’s lying down too.

Now I need to lie down! Or in an hour or so anyway.

Have a great week,

Jay

Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James River, l'opossum, ospreys, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged Dogs, Flowers, Fun, james river, nature, Ospreys, outdoors, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles - human AND dog smiles! | Leave a comment

Best triathlon I’ve ever done – so far

Posted on August 21, 2016 by Jay McLaughlin

21 August, 2016 Best triathlon I’ve ever done – so far

My friend Megan took this picture and I used it without permission! I’m in the middle, my friend Andrew is wearing the dark shirt and my friend Pat (Megan’s husband) is the only one who decided to stand around in public not wearing a medal. He’s the only one of us who got a real medal – third place in his age group, and only missed second place by twenty seconds. Andrew’s and my medals are finisher’s medals; you just have to complete the course. Since I used this (and other photographs) without Megan’s permission, all proceeds from this blog post will be donated to the charity of her choice. Megan, I’ll let you know when I get the first royalty check:

Andrew, me, Pat – happy finishers. Thanks for taking the picture Megan!

I got to spend a summer Saturday morning outdoors swimming, biking and running with two of my closest friends – that’s all it takes to make a triathlon great. Plus check out the excellent bling from that race (I get the photo credit for this one):

Just for finishing! Isn’t that fantastic?

The official name of the race was the “Quantico Tri“; you can click that link and read about it should you be so inclined.

Megan also took this excellent picture of a C-17 Globemaster on final approach to land at Marine Corps Air Facility Quantico (MCAF, NYG):

C-17 landing at MCAF Quantico as the race began; photo credit to Megan – thank you! Again!

On the Boeing fact sheet for the C-17, it says it can “Take off from a 7,740-foot (2359.15-meter) airfield.” On the MCAF fact sheet for that airfield it says the runway is “Length 4,237 ft (1,291 m).” Which means that plane will run out of runway 3,503 feet (1,068 meters) before it takes off. Hmm.

Pat and Andrew started out in the first swim wave (they’re fast swimmers) at 7:00 AM. The second wave waded out and began swimming at 7:05 AM. I was in the third wave; I was standing there in the beautiful Potomac River when that giant plane roared low, low, low over our heads just before landing. The total thrust from those four giant Pratt and Whitney turbofan engines is 161,760 pounds; it was loud. Think about all the different ways you could start a Saturday morning. I was standing chest deep in the Potomac River with dozens of enthusiastic triathletes, watching the sun come up while an enormous four-engined military jet thundered over my head. See how a triathlon can be more than just a triathlon? See the unusual, unplannable, unforeseeable things that happen that make triathlon such a singular experience? Thirty years I’ve been in this sport, there’s always something new.

Speaking of something new – I got new glasses (Ryan Vision Center) and a new bird feeder (Wild Birds Unlimited) on Monday. I put the feeder up outside my front window that evening. The next morning would have been the 80th birthday of my late father, the person who helped me become a birder. I’ve fed birds at this house since I bought it fifteen years ago and I have never seen a goldfinch on this street. I looked out of my office window at my new feeder and on Dad’s birthday saw this for the first time since I’ve lived here:

First ever Westbury Drive goldfinch visits on what would have been my late father’s 80th birthday. Superb.

Goldfinches are a daily occurrence now – I am amazed and gratified every time I look up from my computer and see one (or more) outside my window.

Next week is my birthday, and Ev made a special dinner tonight and we garnished it with nasturtiums (so delicious) from our yard:

Delicious & colorful pre-birthday dinner garnish from our yard. Thanks Evie!

Speaking of flowers from our yard – remember, this is the middle of August – look what Ev is still coaxing from the soil of our yard; these are from our dining room table:

Beautiful roses from our yard

Still plenty of ospreys in Richmond – I’m not sure any have left. This isn’t brilliant but I took this Wednesday:

It’s possible this osprey just got out of the water. A fishing trip.

I saw an animal at the river this week I don’t see very often. I think this is a Southern Leopard Frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus). If that is incorrect and any of my loyal readers want to correct me, please don’t hesitate. Comments section or call or email:

Southern Leopard Frog

I’m not as hesitant on this one. Evelyn has verified it’s the Virginia Native Plant Society’s 1991 Flower of the Year, the Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis):

Cardinal flower in a swampy spot at Pony Pasture

Enough for this week! I’d love to do more but I’ve packed about three regular weekends into this one normal sized weekends and I need to get some sleep! Come back next week!

All best,

Jay

Posted in Birds, Dogs, Endurance, Flowers, Fun, James River, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged Endurance, Flowers, Fun, james river, nature, Ospreys, outdoors, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Roses, Smiles - human AND dog smiles! | 2 Comments

Found a few $$$ in the park

Posted on August 14, 2016 by Jay McLaughlin

14 August, 2016 Found a few $$$ in the park

When I say “a few $$$” I of course mean a few bucks, this guy being the biggest (so far):

Handsome young six point whitetail buck in Pony Pasture

This youngster was hanging out with him:

Possibly a younger sibling; I took this in the same “session.”

The bigger of the two (top picture) was waiting by the side of the trail for his family (possibly friends) to come out and join him:

Family crossing the trail; the larger buck is in the bushes on the right, looking back.

In the decades I’ve hiked at Pony Pasture, in the thousands of hikes I’ve taken, in the thousands of pictures I’ve taken, before 2016 I have photographed precisely one (1) buck. I took this picture in 2013. I suspect this is the father of these youngsters:

Picture taken 2013. I’m guessing this is the father of most deer in Pony Pasture.

I’ve mismanaged my time (yet again) and it’s late and I have to be up ultra-early tomorrow so I’m going to cut this post short (yet again). A few pictures then I’ll sign off – it’s late!

Earlier this evening I got – by surprise – my first Red-tail of the week, just across the street, but I was in a hurry and I’ll spare you the junky image. I won’t spare you this image of an osprey I took near Fulton Bank off Chippenham Parkway Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday (unlike today) was not sweltering. I believe this bird was calling; this is an unusual pose. It wasn’t panting. There were multiple birds on that nest still, but I’m only including this solo:

This was a noisy osprey:

I park at West End Assembly of God (WEAG) and walk down the side of Parham Road to photograph another osprey nest. There were birds there but the images I got were sub-marginal so, again, I’ll spare you. As I walked I looked down and there was a variety of ground cover I’d never seen (and I’ve seen a lot of ground cover) creeping from under the guard rail. I should have put something there for scale; this was a large flower, larger than a fifty-cent piece. Graceful and the color is pleasing:

Isn't that an attractive flower? Very modest and demure. And graceful.

Isn’t this an attractive flower? Very modest and demure. And graceful.

I took Mackey and Turner and Yuki for a walk at Pony Pasture this morning; it was so hot. Yuki and Mackey swam enthusiastically; Turner doesn’t care as much for water. I did take a few flying insect pictures. The first is an obvious butterfly; the second is either a butterfly or a moth. If any faithful readers care to enlighten me, I will enlighten others by way of this blog. Katie and Kim, you’re my most reliable identifiers; don’t be shy. But anyone else who knows, please chime in. The first is a conventional butterfly:

Pretty butterfly today:

And the second I am eager to learn what it is. I believe it’s not uncommon; I see a lot of these:

Attractive insect.

That’s it for this week – one of these weeks I’ll put up a blog post with substance.

Until next week, all best,

Jay

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I have a friend who, reliably, week in and week out, thanks me for the nature photography I share on my blog. I appreciate that, and I’m glad people get to see this. But the reason I put this up (my purpose) is not so much to educate people about nature. This is the internet; if you want to educate yourself about nature, there are unlimited great ways to learn about nature. My intention is more to say “Look what’s out there! This stuff is so cool, and it’s all around us, all the time! Go take a look!” Because it’s neat to see it on here. And I am here to tell you, seeing this stuff with the A/C cranking is awesome. But I hope seeing this stuff arouses people’s curiosity and interest enough they’ll go out and see for themselves. Because the breeze and the sun and the mosquitoes and the flowers and the heat and the deer and the poison ivy and the leaves and the sky and the running water – looking at this stuff on a computer is not real life. Going out there and seeing it for yourself – that’s real life. At some point in your life, maybe the best you’ll be able to do is see this stuff on a computer. But if you can get out there now and walk through a spiderweb or two, by all means do it. And have a terrific week!

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Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James River, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged Dogs, Flowers, Fun, james river, nature, Ospreys, outdoors, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles - human AND dog smiles!, whitetail deer | Leave a comment

Most people are nice

Posted on August 7, 2016 by Jay McLaughlin

7 August, 2016 Most people are nice

Photo credit - Lee Parker (beard, orange helmet)

Triple-selfie credit – Lee Parker (beard, orange helmet)

This is me with my friend Lee and his son Owen at the 2016 Anthem Moonlight Ride yesterday evening. Before we left Lee fixed dinner for the three of us and we hung out and discussed our strategy. Little did we know there would be a one hour delay due to lightning and a heavy downpour! But it cooled things down considerably for our ride.

Also – I’ll insert here – Lee’s father and Owen’s grandfather is a blog follower – and he put a note on a recent post that I haven’t yet responded to! So I’ll use my bully pulpit and respond right here – he’ll understand – and next time I’ll respond directly! I put up a post in July called Owls yawn – whoo, whoo, whoo even knew? Bob made a very nice comment about my photography and suggested I submit some to the Virginia Wildlife photography contest. I already had a photo published in Virginia Wildlife! And of course I put it in this blog! You can see it again at this post from November 9, 2014, Greenspace.

I drafted (in my head) this blog post several days ago. I’ve been reading about anger and acrimony in our country and I just never see it – ever. I know it exists (or at least I read that it exists) but I don’t see it.

Here – apropos of nothing so far in this post – is a picture of a young whitetail buck. I clicked the shutter at 2:14 PM today, and he was resting about twelve feet from the trail in Pony Pasture near Charlie’s Bridge:

I saw two bucks at Pony Pasture today! Only got a photograph of one though.

And about seventy-five feet before that, I’d been clicking my shutter futilely at another small buck, similar in size and antler development. I’ve only seen one buck before this in all my years at Pony Pasture, and that one was an absolute monster – I suspect he’s the father of these guys. And today I saw two. That is just amazing. I don’t know enough about whitetail deer to confidently forecast how long these youngsters will stay in this area. But I’ll keep watching, and I’ll get better pictures.

The first picture on this post (top of the page) was taken just after the Moonlight Ride and I saw hundreds of people – there may have been thousands – and they were all nice. Same thing at the grocery store, the gym, most restaurants, coffee shops, work, the park, when I ride my bike, when I walk my dogs, in my neighborhood, nearly everywhere I go. My guess is around 85% of people are nice most of the time. I see and experience this – constantly – but I never hear about it. So, your mileage may vary, as they say, but if other people are meeting lots of mean people they aren’t telling me about it. So it’s my unshakable conviction that most people are nice.

At Pony Pasture on Tuesday I saw, for the first time I can recall, a Marbled Salamander (Ambystoma opacum). I believe this is a male, because their crossbands are white and the female’s are silvery-gray:

Marbled Salamander male at Pony Pasture

The dogs found him. They were real fascinated with something on the ground, they had their heads down and tails wagging, they find great stuff. That was a good catch.

Less good catch – but a good catch nonetheless – was I photographed three ospreys on the nest near Stony Point on Wednesday. The light was just awful, but three large raptors on a nest is always a good catch. There were two when I got there, and while I was looking for a better angle, a third one swooped in. Again, the light is miserable, but among majestic sights in birding it’s hard to top a large raptor flaring its wings for a landing:

Osprey flares for a landing

Here’s another imperfect picture from Pony Pasture this morning, but it’s brighter. I’ve been hearing goldfinches at the field for around a month but only seeing them on the far side. Today they were on the same side we were and I got a moderate picture of two on the same plant:

Two goldfinches in bright contrast with the green leaves

And while I’m on the subject of brightly colored birds, I was surprised to find myself Thursday morning, as I wrote to my friend Kim “standing in the midst of a large, noisy, swirly, boisterous flock of Prothonotary warblers.” I wrote that I “didn’t know this was an August thing” because I’d only ever seen Prothonotaries in April and May. Kim is more expert about things flying and hopping and crawling and swimming around Pony Pasture than I’ll ever be, and she wrote back that “Everybody has kids getting big and getting ready to migrate – some are starting already! 🙂” Here’s the image I got:

Summer Prothonotary Warblers at Pony Pasture

Part of the beauty of being a fifty-two week a year hiker at Pony Pasture is you can mark the seasons by the plants and animals that are out at different times of the year. Buffleheads – a signature duck at Pony Pasture in winter – there are probably none within a thousand miles in August. But fat chance photographing a spiderweb when there’s ice on the edge of the river. Strictly a summer phenomenon, and even then you’re lucky. This symmetry is so precise it almost doesn’t even look natural!:

Look at that precision. How do they even do that? How did evolution select for that?

Seven pictures so far in this post, and with the possible exception of the spiderweb, all are able to move for themselves. I’ll close with a more firmly rooted beauty, another treasure that’ll be long gone when the buffleheads skid on to the river in two months:

Lots of color in this post – very cheerful and fun!

I’ll be back next week! More than likely! I’ve tacked a short blurb about my opinion of most people on the end of this post. I hope you meet some nice people this week! I expect you will. All best,

Jay

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Most People are Nice

I don’t watch television news but I read the New York Times constantly and regularly tune my car radio to National Public Radio. And I hear a lot, lot, lot about people who aren’t being nice. I’m sure they’re nice people, but what is often reported in those two news sources is not nice.

I am neither deaf nor naïve or young – I know there are mean people. I’ve met plenty, and I’ve been mean myself. But most of the time, most of us are nice. I wish that were a headline in the NYT or on NPR or CNN more often. I hope it’s a headline in your life most of the time.

Have a great week!

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Posted in Birds, Endurance, Flowers, Fun, James River, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged buffleheads, Dogs, Endurance, Flowers, Fun, james river, nature, Ospreys, outdoors, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, smile, whitetail deer | Leave a comment

AVOID BORING PEOPLE

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Jay McLaughlin

31 July, 2016 AVOID BORING PEOPLE

There is no such thing as boring when you hike with this pack, as I did at Pony Pasture this morning:

Yuki in front, then Turner, Mackey, Lola and Luna. The first three are males, the other two are females.

I was feeling smug when I ordered this book. I found it in the attic recently. Look carefully at this picture. Then scroll to the bottom of this post to see the lesson in humility I learned. According to my Amazon account I bought it in November of 2007.

AVOID BORING PEOPLE
James D. Watson, 2007

Meanwhile – ever mindful that the potential for boredom always lurks on the near horizon – I photographed this bright green fly on our trashcan this week:

It’s hard to like flies. But this is an attractive animal.

If you’re of a certain vintage, that picture may call to mind this 1970 classic by Sesame Street’s inimitable Oscar the Grouch singing I Love Trash. It only lasts two minutes; it’s a very, very good use of that brief part of your life.

The original title of this post (before I found that book in the attic this week) was Definition of a nerd. Here’s the dictionary I consulted:

The American Heritage Dictionary – Fifth Edition

And here’s the definition:

I started thinking about my own nerdy behavior when a Red-tail landed on a light tower across the street for the first time in several months. My enthusiasm was startling even to me; I immediately thought you are such a nerd! But I couldn’t resist a couple of pictures, even though I have hundreds of similar shots from last year. I’m just always enraptured by raptors:

Young Red-tail on the lights in right field at DS Freeman HS

It’s a youngster. Here’s one of it crying, I suspect in forlorn hope its parents will bring it one more mouse or chipmunk. I also suspect that now that it’s full-on summer, its parents are encouraging it to catch its own mice and chipmunks. Which, if it wants to obey its evolutionary mandate and pass its DNA to a new generation, it will:

I believe this is a young Red-tail, crying for food. I’m not positive, but I think so. It fits with the data.

I had a terrific hike (see first picture today) at Pony Pasture this morning with my dogs Mackey (black) and Turner (brown with pointy ears). We also brought along our regular Sunday morning hiking buddy Yuki (all white). And today we had unexpected guests (but old friends) Lola (brown with floppy ears) and Luna (black and white). I’m solidly in the more-is-better camp when it comes to dogs, but five is about my limit as a solo dog walker. It helps if you have two like Mackey and Yuki in the group; you can practically think about what you want them to do and they do it – they’re easy keepers. Turner’s improving all the time, but he thinks Pony Pasture is no place for whitetail deer, and believes it’s his responsibility to chase them all out. Maybe he’ll calm down. When he’s nine or ten. Three handsome boys and two pretty girls, stopping at the edge of the river for a dip or a sip, depending on which dog it is:

Mackey, Turner, Luna, Lola, Yuki

When they all bunch up on this narrow walkway, it’s easy to get the impression I have some control over them – they look so organized. Be assured nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is this is after an hour of hot hiking and they’re considerably less wild than when they first get out of the car. When their leashes look like black nylon spaghetti:

Don’t they look well-organized? Fat chance. Never trust a photograph.

These have been blooming on the edge of the James River at Pony Pasture for a week or more. Evelyn tells me this is a hibiscus. My dictionary (on my Mac, it just says “Dictionary Version 2.2.1”) says this about hibiscus: “…a plant of the mallow family, grown in warm climates for its large brightly colored flowers…”

There’s always just so much life down there, especially at this time of year:

I think this is a Marsh mallow. There is just so much activity there.

This is some lovely variety of hibiscus. There is just so much activity there.

I spotted a nice looking damselfly this week too – not a blue fronted dancer or an ebony jewelwing!:

I know not everyone loves insects. But it’s difficult to see this as anything other than lovely.

There are still plenty of pawpaws at the river – more every day – but I’ve posted plenty of pictures already. When they’re edible – very soon – I’ll post another one. Maybe a week from today!

Have a great week (and don’t forget to look at the bottom of this post),

Jay (and Mackey, Turner, Yuki, Lola and Luna. And Dash! (our cat, not shown in this blog post))

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I was, as noted earlier, feeling a bit smug when I ordered that book – I come and go on feeling smug. My goal is to never feel smug but I still catch myself from time to time. I thought “ahh, James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA, I’ll bet he knows how to avoid boring people.” I didn’t know – I’m so happy about that now – that this was the whole title until I began reading it – see the reflected word in the middle? It changes everything:

See the third word? AFTER "boring" and BEFORE "people"?

AVOID BORING OTHER PEOPLE

It’s really a book about avoiding being a boring person. Always a humbling message for a person like me who often needs humbling.

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Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James River, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged avoid boring people, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James D. Watson, james river, nature, outdoors, Pony Pasture, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, Smiles - human AND dog smiles! | 2 Comments

SSDW – “Same Stuff, Different Week”

Posted on July 24, 2016 by Jay McLaughlin

24 July, 2016 SSDW – “Same Stuff, Different Week”

If you’re bored with mundane outdoor photography from central Virginia, especially Barred Owls and Ospreys, today’s blog entry is SSDW. That being said, I was fortunate to get a decent picture of a large mammal at Pony Pasture Thursday around lunchtime:

Peaceful gaze from a Whitetail Deer at Pony Pasture

Speaking of whitetail deer in Virginia, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries published a fascinating Virginia Deer Management Plan last year. It’s a ten year long plan, begun last year, to address the problems and benefits of our state’s large whitetail deer population. I find it interesting; perhaps you will too:

Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2015-2024

As you’re aware (painfully aware, possibly) if you’ve seen this blog at all, Barred Owls (Strix varia) have been abundant at Pony Pasture this year since Spring. Earlier in the year when they were younger and less mobile, you were practically guaranteed a look at one if you knew the right spots. Now the trees are leafy and the owls are ranging farther up and down the creek, but there are still quite a few in the park. I took the deer picture (above) in the Wetlands at 11:56 AM on Tuesday. Thirty-eight minutes later, at 12:34, Mackey and Turner and I had almost made it back to the parking lot when this gorgeous specimen swooped over our heads and perched on a vine:

Yet another handsome owl at Pony Pasture

Yet another handsome Barred Owl at Pony Pasture

I was in nearly the same spot Thursday when I saw this one on a branch, looking back. This is within hearing distance of the parking lot. It’s not a brilliant image but if you look on the right side near the top, there’s a male Northern Cardinal (if you see a Cardinal in Virginia, it’s a Northern Cardinal) looking through the leaves:

Barred Owl on the left, Cardinal on the right

The more time you spend at Pony Pasture, the more it reveals itself to you. If you do a bit of research it will really reveal itself to you. The host plant for Zebra Swallowtails (Protographium marcellus) is the Pawpaw (Asimina triloba). The pawpaw is probably the most widespread understory tree in Pony Pasture. I call this picture “symbiosis”:

Symbiosis – a Zebra Swallowtail on its host plant, a Pawpaw

Pawpaw fruit will be everywhere (and edible) at Pony Pasture very soon – within a couple of weeks. If you’re curious about pawpaws – they’re fascinating – you can click the link above, which goes to the Virginia Tech Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation page for pawpaws. But as my research progressed I found an informative site called the Blue Ridge Discovery Center. That site had the nicest piece of writing I’ve yet found on this subject. You can read it here at Connections: The Pawpaw Tree and the Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly.

We had dinner with an out-of-town friend this evening and I’m running late so I’m going to wrap this up. These rabbits were in our front yard on Tuesday – Evelyn’s birthday!:

Young cottontail rabbits munching on the fresh grass in the morning

Yesterday it was so hot – I am not making this up – the ospreys were panting!:

Panting ospreys. You just know it has to be hot in that nest.

It’s amazing, but Evelyn has our gardenias looking and smelling divine, even in this other-than-divine weather. This was the same day those ospreys were panting:

If you’re going to pant, it’s good to do it with your nose in a gardenia.

This was the same day too, just early in the morning. The Red Maple in our front yard glows in the morning, before the heat rises to full force:

There is no question this Red Maple is thriving. That is a thing of beauty.

This dragonfly was at the river this morning when Mackey and Turner and Yuki and I were hiking. Today I actually sent it in to bugguide.net for identification but haven’t yet heard back. Next week! But here it is:

All dragonflies are elegant and graceful

Here’s a tiny cluster of pawpaws I photographed this morning. I believe they’ll be edible this week or next:

These will be edible really soon!

Have a great week! It’s cool and shady at the river!

All best,

Jay

Posted in Birds, Flowers, Fun, James River, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged Flowers, Fun, Gardenias, james river, nature, Ospreys, outdoors, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles - human AND dog smiles!, whitetail deer | 1 Comment

Owls yawn – whoo, whoo, whoo even knew?

Posted on July 17, 2016 by Jay McLaughlin

17 July, 2016 Owls yawn – whoo, whoo, whoo even knew?

Owls yawn – did you even know that? I took this picture Tuesday afternoon at Pony Pasture:

Barred Owl (Strix varia) yawns in the afternoon heat at Pony Pasture

All the time I’ve spent outdoors in my life, it never occurred to me that owls yawn. Why would it? That’s why we say “learn something new every day.” There’s so much stuff you don’t even think of.

Another thing about that is, this owl was young – still one of the youngsters who has been growing up beside that creek this spring and early summer. And I’m sure it had just eaten, and it was hot and humid, and of course it felt sleepy. Just like a person would. And it yawned. Incredible.

When I was pulling into the parking lot at Pony Pasture this morning – with five dogs! – an osprey was hovering high around mid-river. We hike down a ways before we even get to the river’s edge so the parking lot was the last time we saw it. But the nest near West End Assembly of God (WEAG) is still quite active. This adult had just brought a fish back to the nest:

Osprey with a mid-day meal

That nest is west of Parham Road and north of the river. There’s another active nest east of the road and south of the river just across from Stony Point Fashion Park. It’s behind the parking lot of Fulton Bank, on a powerline tower overlooking Chippenham Parkway. There were ospreys on it Wednesday but the light wasn’t good and it’s a hard angle to shoot.

An easy angle to shoot is down at about knee level in my backyard – at this come-from-nowhere gladiola that grew without warning in the center of our dog-pummeled grass:

The background is unspectacular but that gladiola is breathtaking

That’s a “volunteer,” a.k.a. “Any plant that the gardener didn’t put in, and is not a weed”. I read four common ways that volunteer plants come up (you can read them too if you click that link) but I simply cannot imagine how that beauty appeared in that otherwise-forlorn spot. It’s not near anything else, and it’s unimaginable there was ever a garden at that spot at some point in the past. It’s a delightful and lovely mystery. And they bloom just in time for Evelyn’s birthday, which is this week! I’d run it over with the lawnmower every year before she got here – I never imagined it would bloom at all. It’s a great reward for doing nothing more than not-killing a plant.

At the other end of the plant care spectrum are these gardenias, which Evelyn has spent countless hours caring for. This one was a little faded (Evelyn was out of town this weekend) but the light is pretty. And a thing about gardenias is, they smell delicious practically until they turn into mulch. It’s a beautiful plant:

I think every flower secretly wishes it was a gardenia. They are simply without parallel.

Brief entry this week – things have been busy. Looking forward to next week! I hope your week has been great and next week is even better. All best,

Jay

Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James River, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged barred owl, gardenia, gladiola, Osprey | 4 Comments

Credit where credit is due

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Jay McLaughlin

10 July, 2016 Credit where credit is due

[I added a segment to the end of this post that strays a bit from my normal content. It’s worth your attention.]

My friend Ethan gets the credit for finding the subject for this first picture. He’s the best wildlife spotter I’ve ever hiked with, and he pointed out this Barred Owl hiding in the shadows at Pony Pasture Tuesday afternoon long before I could figure out where it was:

Ethan’s sharp eyes picked this one out of the canopy – it wasn’t making a peep!

Evelyn gets the credit for growing and photographing this gardenia in our backyard – the first one ever to bloom there. All of our gardenias thus far have been from our east-facing front garden. There was no bloom on this bush when we went to sleep last night, but it emerged not long after sunrise this morning. There are dozens more about to burst into fragrant and graceful bloom. And it’s the middle of July!:

Ev’s photograph of the fresh gardenia she coaxed into bloom behind our house this morning:

Here’s a plant I’ve more often seen in mid-July. It doesn’t smell as good as a gardenia (nothing smells as good as a gardenia). But look at the sun shining through these pawpaw leaves at Pony Pasture earlier today:

Somebody forgot to turn the light switch off.

This is the fruit from a pawpaw. These are early and they’re small. If you’d touched them they would have had the consistency of an unripe peach, unyielding. I’ve never bitten into an unripe pawpaw but I’m sure you’d spit it out right away. Probably around this time next month – maybe mid-August – they will grow to the size of Idaho potatoes. I just read from a credible source that the pawpaw is “…the largest edible native fruit of North America.” And they will be so sweet and delicious I guarantee they will rival any fruit you have ever tasted. The “sweet spot” for a pawpaw is brief – it’s fully ripe when it falls from the branch. And bruising begins when it thuds on the forest floor. But nearly every creature in Pony Pasture will be eating them either just before they fall or just after they hit the ground – if you take a bite of one, you’ll find out why:

Immature pawpaw fruit.

Yuki (white) and Mackey (black) and Turner love (you’re aware) hiking at the river whatever is growing or not growing there. I’ve never seen how they respond to pawpaws. But I know all three of them well, and it’s a safe bet only Turner will like eating them – he is an omnivore in the fullest sense of the word:

Yuki (white) Mackey (black) Turner (none of the above)

Photography during the week has been fun too – good light. I was at a friend’s house in Bon Air Wednesday and saw this:

Fungus are everywhere (that’s an iPhone 6+).

Moments later I drove north across the Willey Bridge and saw ospreys on both sides of the James River and on both sides of the Chippenham Parkway (State Route 150). 2016 is a huge year for ospreys in Richmond. This is an adult “talking” loudly at the edge of a nest on a power line just west of the parkway near the West End Assembly of God (WEAG):

“Personality goes a long way.” – Jules, Pulp Fiction, 1994

Not long ago youngest brother Shane was a Virginia Tech Scholar of the week. In their write-up they said Shane has been involved in “driving safety research for more than 15 years.” If Shane has a mantra for safe driving, it’s “don’t look down.” As a mildly obsessive raptor watcher I spend a lot of time looking up because, to paraphrase the late Willie Sutton, “that’s where the raptors are.” I’ve been driving past Patterson Avenue Family Practice at 9600 Patterson Avenue since long before it had that name (it was a Ukrop’s in the 1980’s and I shopped there every week) and never seen a hawk there. Until yesterday when I was driving home from a bike ride and looked up and saw this:

Red-tail on a weathervane

Enough! But keep reading! And come back a week from today!

All best,

Jay

===========

I hope this won’t be interpreted as straying from my policy of “NO POLITICS, NO ADVERTISING, NO RELIGION.” But the news I consume is sometimes referred to as “the liberal media,” which in my case means The New York Times and NPR. A man named Nicholas Kristof is my favorite NYTimes writer and I follow him on social media as well. He is often reflective of my own sentiment. I looked on his Facebook page just before I put up this post and this was his opening sentence: “At a time of national pain, nature helps to soothe and provide perspective.” I feel better after I take a walk at the river – 100% of the time. No matter how I feel when I drive into that parking lot, I feel better when I drive back out. Nobody who has been killed by a police officer will be less dead. No police officer who has been killed by a murderer will be less dead. No political campaign will be less shrill. But my head will be clearer and my thoughts less agitated and my mind more open. And my life will continue from a better place than it was an hour earlier. I’ll be convinced the world is getting better, slowly but surely, because it is. It’s happened nearly every Sunday for the past twenty-five years. You should try it – yours will too.

Have a great week,

Jay

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Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James River, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged Dogs, Flowers, Fun, Gardenias, james river, nature, Ospreys, outdoors, People, Pony Pasture, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers | Leave a comment

Happy THIRD of July!

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Jay McLaughlin

3 July, 2016 Happy THIRD of July!

The original title of this post was “Mostly pictures, redux.” Neither title is attention-grabbing, oh well.

I put up a blog post in December of 2012 called “Mostly pictures.” In high school in the late 1970’s I read a 1971 book by John Updike called Rabbit Redux. Here’s a great explanation of the word from the Wikipedia entry about Rabbit Redux:

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Meaning and use of ‘redux’[edit]

Redux means “brought back, restored” (from the Latin reducere – bring back).[4] […]

The book’s popularity resulted in a rise in the use of the word “redux” in popular discourse. In Rabbit at Rest, Rabbit notices: a story…in the Sarasota paper a week or so ago, headlined Circus Redux. He hates that word, you see it everywhere, and he doesn’t know how to pronounce it. Like arbitrageur and perestroika.[5]

Updike pronounced the word “ray-dooks.”

=====

So if, like me, you don’t know how to pronounce that word, take heart – we’re not alone.

First of the “mostly pictures” for this week. I know I’ve posted a lot of gardenia pictures recently, I hope you haven’t tired of them. Before this year I was at one time aware of and ignorant of gardenias. If you have one thriving next to your front stoop, you will be ignorant no more. When it comes to flowers that smell good, there are gardenias, and then every other good smelling flower. Lilacs, peonies, hyacinths, roses – they all smell wonderful and they’re all my favorite, but they simply are not even in the conversation with a gardenia when it comes to fragrance. Or elegant good looks. No less important is the fact I took this picture today – that’s a flower blooming in Richmond in July. Evelyn’s put a lot of hard work into this:

There is not a plant in this world as fragrant as a gardenia

She also has these delicious (they’re edible and faintly peppery tasting) nasturtiums glowing cheerfully within a camera-strap’s length of the gardenia; this picture also taken today:

Beautiful and delicious!

My dad’s favorite color – he would have loved nasturtiums. He probably already did; I just don’t recall talking with him about them.

She has our hydrangeas in full bloom, and brought some in to brighten our home (it’s dreary outside!):

July is the best time of year

Ditto for our roses!

It’s amazing all this actually comes from our yard.

I was fortunate to spend some time outdoors this week (all time I spend outdoors is fortunate) and of course photographed the ospreys near West End Assembly of God (WEAG). There’s a lot of activity around the nest, including two adults and at least one juvenile. The juvenile won’t be juvenile much longer. I’m not certain when they head south; I wasn’t as aware last year. Always something new to learn.

I believe this is the female perched to the right of the nest. See between her “shoulder blades” that sort of sunken dark area in her breast? That’s her “crop,” where raptors (and some other birds) store food before they digest it. If it was full, it would look like she’d swallowed a tennis ball. I see it all the time. But she’s hungry; that sunken chest is the body shape of every hungry raptor. Woe to an unsuspecting fish very soon:

Makes me hungry just looking at her. She’ll be eating soon.

This is zoomed back a bit; one of her offspring is sitting on the nest. There may be more than one but I never saw two at once so I can’t say for certain:

An osprey parent (right) and a young osprey (on the nest)

The male was very active and came in for a visit. Here’s the power line with him on the left and her on the right with the nest in the middle:

Ospreys left, right, and in middle (hidden by nest)

Evelyn and I also went out to eat this week at Perly’s, a downtown Richmond treasure. We headed over to the Virginia War Memorial after dinner. The War Memorial sits on a hill looking east down the river:

Beautiful view looking east past downtown Richmond

Summer clouds are the prettiest; these big puffy shapes won’t form in a winter sky. The photo above was taken facing east, toward Williamsburg, Virginia Beach and the Atlantic Ocean. I rotated almost precisely 90º left and photographed these puffy white bulges of cumulus piling up in the north. If you’re interested in weather at all (even if you’re not), we don’t get bad weather from the north or the west here in Richmond. When the weather is coming unraveled in our area, it’s blowing up from the south or coming in from the east:

Every bit as beautiful as a gardenia, just w/o the lovely smell. And less symmetry.

Every bit as beautiful as a gardenia, just w/o the lovely smell. And with less symmetry.

In 2015 I was fastidious cataloging “Every living thing” at Pony Pasture. You can click on that “Every living thing” link; I did relatively well, photographing about fifty different species each of Pony Pasture Flora and Pony Pasture Fauna. But I never identified this dragonfly! I’ll figure it out this week; the people at BugGuide.Net are a treasure. And they’re so friendly and helpful it’s like having a really smart neighbor who will correctly answer any insect-related question you can think of, at any time of the day, on any day of the year. I know libraries and bookstores and books are really superb – very few people enjoy reading more than I do; I don’t even own a television – but BugGuide.net is unbeatable. For this week, just enjoy:

Every dragonfly is gorgeous.

I stumbled across two more pictures I can’t resist using. This mockingbird enjoyed the evening at the War Memorial with us:

A French speaker might say a mockingbird has a certain “je ne sais quoi”

The other I thought was a Blue-fronted Dancer (Argia apicalis) but again I’ve lost my certainty! A year ago I knew all of these! How quickly we (I) forget. The background’s not beautiful here; tree bark or paw paw leaves are much more attractive. Please add a comment (or email or facebook message) with a correct identification of this lovely animal:

Possibly a Blue-fronted Dancer

I’m coming up with more ideas to write about every day, and more structure. But talk is cheap! Hopefully next week. Two local authors have given me feedback; all I need to do is write! I had dinner last night with Evie’s and my friend Joel Elston, author of The Bench. Later this summer I’m getting together with my friend Weldon Bradshaw, author of My Dance with Grace. Next week…

Have a Happy Independence Day! Or if you’re not from the U.S.A., have an excellent Fourth of July anyway!

All best,

Jay

Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James River, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged clouds, cumulus, Flowers, Fun, james river, nature, Northern mockingbird, Ospreys, outdoors, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Roses, smile | 2 Comments

A folding bike, a flashback and a foreshadowing

Posted on June 26, 2016 by Jay McLaughlin

26 June, 2016 A folding bike, a flashback and a foreshadowing

The story referred to in the title is at the bottom of this post.

Speaking of posts – the is the 243rd post on this blog since it began five years ago. Look back through a few old ones if you have some time – there are a few beauties. Pick a month or a season you enjoy and have a look around.

If you were in central Virginia two weeks ago, chances are your power was knocked out, at least for a few hours. For a few days in some cases, but Dominion Power had multiple crews on round the clock from in and out of state, and the work they did was exceptional, especially considering the extent and severity of the damage. If you’re not from around here, you may not have heard we had damaging winds on the evening of Thursday, June 16. I was walking the dogs the evening of Monday (June 20) when I took this picture of work trucks parked at Douglas S. Freeman High School, probably not more than two hundred yards from my house:

Dominion Power trucks and more, to the rescue during our recent power outage

This week (beginning Monday, 20 June, the first official day of summer), things have returned generally to normal. The Barred Owl fledglings my friend Ethan and I have been watching are gaining strength and moving farther from their nest. We walked a long way down the trail at Pony Pasture Tuesday afternoon before we could get in position to take this picture:

Adolescent Barred Owl, under the canopy at Pony Pasture

I don’t know how “real” nature photographers do it, but we snap our first pictures from far away then creep forward. A well-known bit of advice for photographers is “get closer” so we get a picture first – then get closer. When you’re photographing flowers, that’s easy. But if you’re photographing a bird or a deer or a dragonfly or a raccoon or a squirrel or a rabbit, you keep pressing that button and hoping for the best. Frogs, turtles, snakes, anything that moves when it chooses, there is always luck involved. I see adult Barred Owls at Pony Pasture all year long; I have never seen any other owl there. This one let us get close. I call this one – I apologize for my lack of originality – “Things are looking up”:

Things are looking up

The light is unfavorable when you’re pointing your camera up under the leafy canopy in Pony Pasture; my talents as a photographer do not extend to photographing backlit subjects. But it feels like such a gift to get this close to these wonderful animals. I keep doing it as long as they’ll let me. This one let Ethan and me creep up until we were standing directly beneath it. Quite literally; if it had chosen that moment to relieve itself, it would have landed on us. Look at these talons:

Yikes

My friend Kim has forgotten more about owls than I’ll ever know, and she assures me these guys will be around until at least August. But they’re not easy to find and I always feel like every picture I take is my last. This is the last picture we took before the mosquitoes drove us off. The owl never left – and we were directly under it, not more than six feet away. From underneath:

Aren’t they incredible? I never get tired of this.

I drive past Discovery United Methodist Church on Gayton Road some mornings; it’s on high ground and has a cross on top, a combination apparently irresistible to Red-tailed hawks. Watch the crosses on churches as you drive around town – Red-tails love them:

There are always hawks sitting on top of churches!

I didn’t move from that spot – I was leaning against my car in the parking lot – when I turned my camera and photographed this mockingbird holding a recently deceased insect in its bill:

Mockingbird eating an insect in the church parking lot.

I read that mockingbirds benefit from being near human habitations where they grab insects of freshly cut lawns. The birds that descend on my lawn after I cut it are almost invariably robins with a few starlings thrown in, but we’re not short on mockingbirds here either.

This morning (Sunday, 26 June) Mackey and Turner and Yuki joined me for a saunter at Pony Pasture. My favorite picture was this dragonfly across from the wetlands. I think it’s a Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis) but I always love to have my mistakes corrected – don’t by shy – it’s how I learn:

Blue Dasher (I think)

This is not a mistake – it’s a gardenia blooming just outside our open front window – you should smell it – and I clicked the shutter at 5:23 PM today:

One of many gardenias blooming outside our open living room window:

That’s all the writing and photography I’m going to include for this part of this week’s blog post. The title refers to the brief story I relate below. I thought I had a picture of the bike I’m writing about, but I can’t locate it. I may find it and include it next week. I hope you’ll come back anyway! And I hope you have an excellent week!

All best,

Jay

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A folding bike, a flashback and a foreshadowing

The handlebars came off my bike while I was going really fast downhill. This was around forty years ago, when I was in my early teens. Call it 1975; that couldn’t be more than a year or two off. I didn’t ride then like I do now – or swim – but I did both, a lot. The bicycle I had then was a folding bike – it was blue, and I remember buying it with my dad. I’m not sure just why we bought a folding bike, but I loved having it and rode it everywhere. On this occasion I’d ridden it from our house on Braddock Road to now-defunct Oakview pool. The pool was around three-quarters of a mile from our house. Work your way up a long hill to get to the pool, and fly down on the way home.

I remember being in the bike shop with my dad when we bought it, and I remember the smell. Rubber tires – you could really smell rubber tires. And chain oil. I loved it then and I love it now, although you have to find a small bike shop with lots of bikes to really get that smell.

In addition to having a latch and hinge mid-frame so you could fold the bike in half for storage and hauling, the bike had quick release handlebars. And I’d been at the pool one day and was coming down the hill at top speed when the handlebars released – quickly. I’m not good at riding with no hands now and I wasn’t any better then. I don’t remember hitting the ground. If there were bicycle helmets then, I’d never seen one. And you’d better believe if my dad had thought I’d needed one to keep me safe, I’d have been wearing it. But so it goes.

I don’t even remember what happened. I was probably in a little shock. I do know I didn’t break any limbs and I didn’t need any stitches and my bike was still rideable. With the handlebars securely fastened.

At that age, a bicycle equaled freedom, and it never occurred to me to not want to ride. I’m pretty certain I walked it the rest of the way home that day, but I’m equally certain I rode it back to the pool that week. Foreshadowing the more significant bike wreck I’d survive in 1988.

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Posted in Birds, Dogs, Flowers, Fun, James River, People, Pony Pasture, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Tagged Dogs, Flowers, Fun, james river, nature, Northern mockingbird, outdoors, Pony Pasture, Red-tailed hawks, Rivers, smile, Smiles - human AND dog smiles! | Leave a comment

NEWFAZE

Insert your favorite blog post title here:

Best triathlon I’ve ever done – so far

Found a few $$$ in the park

Most people are nice

AVOID BORING PEOPLE

SSDW – “Same Stuff, Different Week”

Virginia Deer Management Plan, 2015-2024

Owls yawn – whoo, whoo, whoo even knew?

Credit where credit is due

Happy THIRD of July!

Meaning and use of ‘redux’[edit]

A folding bike, a flashback and a foreshadowing

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