You Verklempt me.

More from the New River Birding and Nature Festival!!!

Remember the last scene in Jerry McGuire?

"You.....complete....me."

If you don't remember it, just think back to before Tom Cruise went bat-shit crazy permanently.

Well, it's a good segue into my post tonight.

Muddlety Magic:
So, Saturday of the festival was Muddlety, my absolute favorite trip of all.  For a refresher on my first day at Muddlety back in 2009, go here.  Seriously.  Go read that post.  You'll understand the title of this post better.




This time around, we got Julie as our guide (plus Rudy, who comes up in a later post) and Geoff Heeter. Click here for an interview with Geoff.

The weather was fantastic.  The group was fantastic.  The guides were fantastic.  The birds were fantastic.
I guess you can see a theme here, right?
Blah blah blah.
It's hard sometimes to really convey the wonderment of this place.  It's not only birdy, it's also full of butterflies and very cool flora, and if you're lucky you might get a bear.  Bear.  BEar.  BEAr.  BEAR!!
:)


I was yet again verklempt.  Choked with emotion, holding back tears all day.  This special place just rips me apart on the inside, and as it goes through me, sews me up again into something new.
I warned Beth R. that I would be a mess, and she warned me that she would be a mess.
And she gave the quote of the day:  "YOU VERKLEMPT ME."



Let's run through some photos.  And you may notice a lack of bird photos.  Well, I'm still working on my new camera.  There are too many settings.  And the camera has a higher IQ than I do.




We couldn't have asked for a better day.



Geoff Heeter, our host with the most.
(This is his Serious Birder face.  I was so shocked to see him actually being serious, I had to get a photo of it)



Rudy, who is nearly 7 feet tall, avoids Warbler Neck all together by just laying down....



Nina, down alongside the road, as usual.  :)



Beth G., with a big bus and a big lens.



I like lichen.




Can't remember which Azure this is....





Beth Russell has spent five years trying to get a look at a Cerulean Warbler.  Here, Julie is trying to call one in....
And finally, down the road.....we got it.

When we got back on the bus, I made Beth do the Life Bird Wiggle, which she did...with some extra "White Girl From Philly" Flare:






We flushed a turkey from her nest along a hill side, so Doug and Julie hopped up the rocks to take photos of the thirteen eggs, well hidden in the brush.




Where lunch is served.




British Soldier Lichen (and a bit of deer fur stuck to it)



Everyone jumped out of the bus to take photos of this...a pile of coyote scat covered in butterflies.
If you don't know about why butterflies do this...the males need certain minerals to complete their reproduction cycles, and this is why you will find hordes of them at puddles of mud and piles of poop.


Slow motion video of the butterflies getting their tasty on:



The largest Tulip Popular tree in West Virginia:

Geoff loves this tree.



Laura loves this tree.



I love this tree.
We all love this tree.

I love this place.

Small moments

Late summer drones on for me...the girls are back to school, but the bird action (now that I have some time to get out and watch them) is still quiet.  Babies are grown, the fall exodus not yet begun....

I take what I can get, though.  Small moments of magic. 



I found a flower whose stamens are minuscule Pixie Stix.

(Please click on this to see it larger...)


Glowing Morning Glory.




Did not know an inchworm was also noodling his way through the thistle blooms alongside the skipper.
(This skipper was the size of a quarter.)





A delicate, tiny white flower in the underbrush...



So small and fragile-looking, I held my breath as I took its picture.



Watched water striders' shadows chase them under the water.



I found water so clear, it held the sky inside.



Just the right patch of shade gave me a star.



Stumbled across a bird finally, a solitary sandpiper eating a small fish.



A small moment that was huge for me....
I've always wanted to see this.  A damselfly freshly emerged from its nymph skin. 



Zero defining marks.  Just opalescent translucence.

I've never held a dragonfly or damselfly.  They are too smart, too fast for that.  I've always wanted to, but never had the chance.

And then he climbed onto my fingernail. 

Killing time

Geoff has been writing a corporate history for a company headquartered in Versailles, Ohio. He has been visiting there off and on gathering interviews with past and present employees, and this time we all went along for the ride.
Versailles, Ohio (that's "ver-sails", not "Vair-sigh") is a quiet and tiny town on the western edge of the state. One hotel, one gas station, no Starbucks....you get the picture. Geoff talked me into the trip by telling me all about the "nature places" and his non-birding opinion that the place would be "birdy".

We arrived in the early morning on Monday and as Geoff headed off to do his job, the girls and I headed to a nearby reserve to kill time.


Stillwater Prairie Reserve:

It's 380 acres of prairie loveliness. Full of native Ohio wildflowers, it's a butterfly and dragonfly heaven. With two ponds and a wetland, it's a frog and bird paradise.
Let's go to the photos:


Milkweed was everywhere. More than I have ever seen in one place. Common, swamp, spider milkweed...all full of juicy milk and crawling with milkweed bugs and beetles. And earwigs. And other things I couldn't identify.






Dragonflies and damselflies were everywhere. Pond hawks, widow skimmers, Carolina saddlebags, halloween pennants.





Butterflies were everywhere. Monarchs too busy to land and pose, tiger swallowtails, small sulphurs, tiny blues, clouds of cabbage whites, and this red-spotted purple.


Two ponds in the reserve gave Isabelle many chances to catch frogs (one of her favorite past times).
This peeper landed on Lorelei's shirt, and tried to escape through the "portal."



I was in Native Paradise.
Yellow coneflower, purple coneflower, bee balm as far as the eye can see....adding that to the copious amounts of milkweed, and it was all I could do NOT to strip down and roll through it all naked.



Bird-wise, it was quiet, as expected in mid-summer.
But this kingbird was close enough for the girls to hear its beak "snap" as it zoomed back and forth from its branch to flycatch.



Non-sequiter:
We left the prairie to get some lunch (and returned back TO the prairie after eating) and while driving through the next town, Isabelle say this sign on the post office and MADE ME take a photo:


"Mommy....it's a Puh-Just Office!" (giggles ensue)

Love is a butterfly

In the cage of a heart,
Love is a butterfly


A beautiful wisp of light.



Seeking only to grow
And to burst from darkness into the sun,
looked upon by all.


To taste and to feel,
Taking to the space between, as a prayer.


Here for a time, hoping for forever,
When even forever is not enough.


And if loss tears its wings,

Its flight continues on...

The weekend (i.e...your thumb can make a good comparison object)

For all my complaining about heat, I do like Summer. Lots of time spent outdoors, critters to encounter.

First critter:
The biggest tick I have ever seen, which I plucked off my brother's dog:


Oh, man, that is so gross. I did a full body shiver after I flung it into the weeds.

(My thumb for comparison)

Next, a great spangled frittilary that I enticed onto my fingers:

(You can see pollen on my fingernails!)


Taking my camera's life into dangerous hands....a macro shot of Storm the barn owl:

"Dude. I don't know what that is in my face, but I will totally kill it if you bring it any closer."

Frozen critters:

Ever wondered what the food freezers look like at RAPTOR? Well, here ya go.

A former critter...the hugest screech owl pellet I have seen:

(Thumb for comparison)
They are usually the size of a large marble.

Another former critter...I am addicted to pellet-pulling:

Great horned owl pellet and bones



Rat vertebra. Looks like a set of brass knuckles.

Isabelle became a Brownie yesterday:

(I hate that I have to cover up the Troup numbers...but you know there are pervs out there.)


I'm proud that Isabelle stuck with this throughout the school year.
I think she's proud of herself, too.