Scouting around one day the first winter we moved here, we found what we later identified as Puttyroot Orchid leaves. They're easy to find in the winter, or at least easier than in the summer when they bloom. I thought so anyway, until we started trying to find them again.

We found lots of Cranefly Orchids (Tipularia discolor) instead.


Like the Puttyroots, the Cranefly Orchid leaves remain green throughout the winter. Sometimes they have a few bumps or none at all.


Most of the time they have several.


The underside of the leaf is purple.

The Cranefly Orchid is fairly common. I was happy to find them, but it wasn't what I'd been looking for.

We searched and searched in vain.

I couldn't find them in the area where I thought I'd seen them before. I was ready to give up. Then of course we found them somewhere else.


Several Puttyroot Orchids (Aplectrum hyemale) all together!


The leaf in winter feels dry like parchment.


The back side is green.

The blooms of these orchids are nothing to write home about, I suppose. They bloom in the summer, and this time I made note of their locations so I can find them again when the woods are dense.

There is always a Friday Ark over at The Modulator - go there for links to critter pictures of the week. And if you've got a blog, be sure to submit your photos too.

And then there's Caturday, a newish blog about - cats, what else! They were nice enough to include one of my recent pictures.

I know, I know, I need to update my blogroll! In the meantime be sure to check out the Firefly Forest Blog. Besides the great nature pics, I enjoyed the recent Light Trail Photographs:



And thanks so much to Gnumoon for letting me know about Pandora. You can create your own online radio stations, and "train" them to play what you like, based on your own recommendations. I'm currently building:

Karen's Alternative
Karen's Folk
Karen's Bluesy
Karen's Minimalism
Karen's Alt Country

and several more. You can build a station based on just one artist or song, or list several for an interesting mix.

There is a blog you should visit.


It's full of beautiful drawings.

By a very nice person


who is so creative.

Marilyn is The Toymaker. I absolutely love her drawings/paintings and think that at least 75% of all children's books should be illustrated by her.



Did I say children's books? I mean all books.


Plus, she has the cutest kid!



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P.S. She's got a website too. Lots of free downloadable paper toys.

And there's a Merchandise area... I just ordered the bunny t-shirt!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there will be a calendar in store for next year.

Another spike buck. My first reaction was admiration - he's so sleek, so handsome... On the other hand, he probably ate my fancy lettuce and half the trilliums in the woods.

That camera trigger has to be making a slight noise, because that's the second time a deer was looking directly at it.

This picture shows the capability of the camera much better than the first photos. In fact the scouting camera has more megapixels (3) than my regular camera (a measly 2.1).


The deer took a little tour of the mineral lick,


Then headed off into the sunrise. (The photos were taken at 6:39, 6:40, and 6:41 am respectively.)


Magnification of his spikes. I think that's definitely the devil who ate my tomatoes.

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Every time I try to type "scouting" it comes out "scounting" instead. Every time.

Sure, she looks cute. But you'd hate it too if you had to be trapped inside with her after she went into heat, and the vet couldn't see her until Thursday.

They're just too far away, and I still haven't found the time to invest in improving my digiscoping setup.

A pair of Hooded Mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus) made their first appearance of the season on Thanksgiving day, but then were absent until well into December. Now they're a regular fixture, and we wake up to several of them almost every morning.

Once it's light and we start moving around outside, the Mergansers get shy. They normally paddle to the far end of the pond first, but by the time the ducks, chickens, and dog are fed, the Mergansers have usually made themselves scarce. We've never seen them arrive in the afternoon, yet by the next morning they've usually returned. I have no idea if it's the same individuals or different ones. The number varies from day to day.



Our most exciting new yard bird, a Snipe (Gallinago gallinago)! Three of them swooped in late one afternoon before Christmas. Hubby yelled to bring the camera, and he ran for the scope. I only got off two bad shots before they rounded the bend and were out of sight.

We decided to leave them in peace in hopes that they'd stay a while, but by the next morning they were gone and have not returned.

For the past couple of years we've forgone exchanging Christmas presents, and bought something for the two of us. This year it was a game camera! It finally arrived, and we waited with bated breath for the first night's pictures.

Except there weren't any. It was pointed too high. So for the second night we lowered the angle, and by morning we had two pictures that were not a) Jasmine, or b) us.


3:56 AM: Coyote in a hurry.


5:03 AM: Star-struck spike buck.

We put out a mineral lick and some corn, to try to make the critters stop and pose. But we may need to move the camera to an area that's not quite so open, if the animals continue to stay so far from the flash area.


Close-up of the coyote.


Close-up of the deer.

Why is he looking directly into the camera, I wonder? I can't hear the camera trigger, but maybe he can.

I've wanted a camera like this since we first moved here. They say that there are no bears or mountain lions here anymore... we'll see!

The camera we got is the Cuddeback 3.0. The only downside is that the picture is taken about a second after the trigger. Still, that's a lot better than many of the competing models with 5 or 10 second triggers. And to get one faster (1/10 second) would have meant spending $1000, so...

I can't wait to see what all goes on at night when we're asleep!

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Go to the Cuddeback photo gallery for some really great wildlife pics from Cuddeback owners. Mostly deer, but also elk, bears, bobcats, and even a wolverine! Judging from the number of new pictures added daily, a lot of people received Cuddebacks for Christmas.

Lorianne of Hoarded Ordinaries passed this meme along to me. I'll try to be less smarty-pants than normal with the answers.

Four jobs you've had in your life:
newspaper copygirl
cocktail waitress
traffic counter
electrical engineer

Four movies you could watch over and over:
Little Big Man (my favorite movie)
Paper Moon
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Bladerunner

Four places you've lived:
Alabama (small town)
the north of France
Alabama (big city)
Alabama (rural)
I must like it here.

Four TV shows you love to watch:
Southpark (not so much last year though)
Rome (a lot better than I thought it would be)
The Daily Show (I have a secret crush on Jon Stewart)
American Idol (starts back soon)
House (I still keep expecting Stephen Fry to walk in)
Monk (Just wish they'd make more than 2 or 3 a year)
Yes I know that's six.

Four places you've been on vacation:
I think my favorite four places have been:
Dauphin Island
Nova Scotia
Texas
El Salvador

Four websites you visit daily:
Bloglines
I think that's the only daily one.

Four of your favorite foods:
Nothing will ever attain the perfection of the broiled crab claws at The Sea House, a Dauphin Island restaurant that is no more.
The BBQ at the hole in the wall (downtown Bham - also now closed).
The perfect Philly Cheesesteak sandwich... I'm still looking for that.
Anything chocolate

Four places you'd rather be:
Nowhere.

Four albums you can't live without:
If all my CDs suddenly disappeared, the four artists I'd be apt to replace most quickly would be REM, John Wesley Harding, The Lilac Time (and/or Stephen Duffy) and Son Volt (and/or Jay Farrar). Or maybe Blue Rodeo.

Four to pass this meme along to:
I'd love to see answers from:
Floridacracker
Thingfish23
Hick
Ontario Wanderer

But don't play if you don't want to.

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(Note: edited to correct one of the links. Duh.)

I give up.

Online mushroom identification is geared towards two groups:
a) those who want to find wild mushrooms to eat, and
b) those who want to find wild mushrooms to get high.

Since I want to do neither, I spent an extremely frustrating hour trying to identify just the first fungus above.

The other day when I had the Calostoma species it was a lot easier. I remembered seeing something similar in my one slim mushroom field guide and was able to Google that and find its relatives.

So, online mushroom identification can be simple... if you already know what you have.

Otherwise, like me, you need to buy a book.

(There is the beautiful Rogers Mushrooms online, but I believe it's mainly geared towards Europe at present.)

This reminded me of a lady I spoke to on the garden hotline last summer. She could not be convinced that moss was the symptom, not the cause, of her lawn problems.


Sapsucker art.


Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata). Until finding that link when looking up the latin name, I didn't realize that the young trees were so smooth.


Camo bark: American Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis).


A mere two years ago, this fallen tree trunk was a major obstacle on the old logging road. Once it sagged and touched the ground, it disintegrated quickly.

Poor little gal.

It's been t-shirt weather here for the past week. Even in Alabama, 75 degree weather in January is just not right. (That's 24°C.)

The duck pictured standing on ice a few weeks ago is the one who started out black and turned "tweed". Now she's getting more and more white feathers and I'm interested to see if she'll become completely white in the end.

Another one of the formerly all-black ducks is starting to develop a few white feathers now too, so he may be headed down the same path.

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Note:
Before posting this entry, I decided to try doing a bit of research to see if this was a common phenomenon among black Indian Runner ducks. Now I'm suspecting that there may have been significant interbreeding with some Cayuga ducks, which apparently start out black and become more white-flecked as they age. (Scroll down to the photos at the bottom of that link.) Email me privately for the name of the mail-order hatchery we used, if you want to avoid receiving these alledged Indian Runner ducks!

Another note:
For anyone new to reading this blog - the ducks are just kept in this pen at night (for their safety), and are free to roam during the day.

I still don't know what posessed me to get three cats at the same time.


Ginger, entranced by the screensaver. Since being neutered, my best cuddle-buddy. The worst at getting into the trash. The biggest eater. The heaviest. The most easy-going. The softest.


Georgie. The most independent. If she could talk, she'd be saying, "I do what I want!" a lot. The sneakiest. The one who wants to kill and eat my parakeet. The friendliest, but the one who never wants to be picked up.


Dusty. Still shy with people, but a bold explorer. The quickest to pick up bad habits from the others. The smallest. The most mistrusting of the dog. The prettiest. Vocalizes the most.

We spent the evening at home, drinking champagne and watching the Independent Film Channel, which was showing an excellent Irish movie called Intermission.

I love that, to sit down and watch a movie that I've never heard of, and really enjoy it. I felt I needed subtitles at times though - some of the accents were difficult to understand. One of the comments I later read on the IMdB site said, "Kevin Smith meets Quentin Tarantino... in Ireland" and that sums it up pretty nicely.

Create your own Einstein scribbles here.

(Thanks to BeetleCat for the link.)