Great Blue Heron Came for Breakfast!





Great Blue Heron visits my yard!


Looking out my window on Monday morning I just happened spot a large blue/gray bird walking along my upper backyard. I had to look twice because his head was almost as high as my bird feeder that was set in the ground at approximately 3' high!  I've seen this Great Blue Heron once before during one of his visits, but I didn't happen to have my camera nearby. If you were wondering what this amazing bird was doing in my yard? You guessed it - He was looking to eat my pond fish for breakfast!!

Luckily, the first time I saw him in my yard last year doing exactly the same thing, I put a black netting over the pond to protect my poor unsuspecting fish! I solved the one problem of keeping the herons out, but created another one by keeping the frogs in or out depending upon where they were when I put the netting up! So a few adjustments had to be made after several frogs needed rescuing from the net! It took a little time, but we've all become used to it.





Great Blue Heron keeping an eye on our fish pond!



            This big guy is just amazing to see in a backyard setting - with a height of 39"-52" and a wingspan of 5', he looked so large and out of place!  When he noticed that I had spotted him, he flew up to a branch at the edge of the lawn and patiently watched as I took pictures of him.

  Notice his lower chest feathers which look a bit shaggy - I believe he is an adult since the juveniles are not supposed to have this yet.  His long neck has a pinkish hue to it with a black and white streak down the center of it. His face is mostly white with a black cap on his head. His long thin legs and dagger-like beak are very long and yellowish in color - perfect for fishing!

Although his diet is mainly of fish, they also eat amphibians, and occasionally small mammals and birds. Crustaceans are also on his menu!

Common Yellowthroat-Geothlypis trichas

(Picture from wikipedia)

  

On the same day I saw the Great Blue Heron, I also had this cute little guy show up at my pond! I have never seen a Conmmon Yellowthroat in my yard before, so I was very excited to have both birds show up on the same day!! Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera this time to take a picture so this picture is from wikipedia. They are so beautiful I just had to show a picture! The female doesn't have the black mask, but the males look lide little bandits!

They are much smaller in size than the Great Blue Heron, measuring in at 4 1/2" - 6" ht.

They are in the wood warbler family and have a charming song.

They love to eat insects, which I could definitely use in my garden!



Blooming along my woodland path this week are my beautiful purple native woodland phlox. I also have a pale pink variety. They are wonderful creeping plants that bloom with their flowers raised above their leaves!

Bishop's Cap - Mitella diphylla

Saxifrage family (Saxifragaceae)

This small unassuming plant can easily be overlooked, even when it  flowers, However, if you take

 a moment to look closer, you will be delighted with the

 magical little white flowers with fringed edges!



Variegated Solomon's Seal

Gorgeous graceful plants that have beautiful emerald
 green leaves with white edged variegation. The waxy white bells dangle in pairs off of red petioles. I started with one plant I purchased from a local nursery at least 24 years ago. I now have quite a few plants that have colonized in several different areas along my path. They are always a delight to see! 



We have used large logs for seating along our woodland path.

Another huge branch from an oak tree fell onto our stonewall and damaged several

 of our smaller trees. It was so large we decided to leave this large section to use as a bench

 along our woodland path.

Remember to take a break during your day

and enjoy the nature that surrounds you!!

 See You Next Week!!

Tracey :-)

A Yellow Sea of Poppies! -Woodland Walk Wednesday

Yellow Celandine Poppies & Virginia Blues have filled

 my little patch of Heaven with a golden yellow glow!

It's hard to capture how magical
my woodland garden path looks at this moment!  
During this time of year, in my little patch of Heaven,
 the woods are aglow with hundreds of Celandine Poppies!
These beautiful yellow wildflowers are in full bloom!

While the poppies are dominating the woods
right now, there are many other native wildflowers mixed in and gorgeous in their own right. 



 Bleeding Hearts, White Foamflowers, and Blue Violets



!

Pink Bleeding Hearts

 Allegany Foamflower

Some of the flowers along the path aren't so obvious!

They make you search to find their flowers!  Right now, its the Wild Ginger plants, and soon it will be the Mayapples!

Wild Ginger patch along the path.

Their heart shaped leaves hide little maroon flowers. 

This is the maroon flower of the wild ginger plant.

 There is only one flower per plant, 

it is small and close to the ground.....

 very hard to find unless you know where to look for it!

Although I like to plant new wildflowers where I think they will thrive and be happy, I often find they will eventually move
 where they want through seeds or roots!! 

Mayapples pushing up through the mulch along the woodland path.
Notorious for spreading aggressively by roots, these will have to be moved
 or they will be trampled.


The beauty of the natural garden
 is finding a balance between keeping some structure, but also allowing the plants to find new places to settle -

like nature itself. 

Surprised by a yellow violet nestled in between the rocks
 at the top of a wall. Violets are the free spirits of the native garden!
They can pop up anywhere- but I love them and happy
 to see them most anywhere. They are a host plant and source
 of food to many butterflies and insects. There are
 certain varieties that are much less invasive
 than the common purple and white varieties.

White Trillium- It's taken me years to finally have a variety of Trilliums
growing through out my woodland garden.
The deer love to eat these!

Jacob's Ladder 

I'll end this walk with a picture of the Red-Bellied

 Woodpecker. He was busy hammering away on the tree limb above me while I was busy taking pictures for this weeks walk.  I'm so fortunate to have many different woodpeckers take up residence in our woods! I've learned through the years how to tell them apart by their call. The Red-Bellied Woodpecker has a loud chu-urr, chu-urr, chu-urro. You can find out more about this bird by clicking on  the link Red-Bellied Woodpecker below.

Red-Bellied Woodpecker - He's about 10", has a barred

 black and white back and upper wings, with a striking red crown,

 nape and lores. This little drummer is a male.

  If you look closely, they have pale red-bellies!

  

Until next week!!

Tracey :-)

Woodland Walk Wednesdays - Early Spring Hepaticas

There is nothing more wonderful than taking a walk in the woods and discovering a beautiful wildflower blooming along the path! These gorgeous blue Hepaticas (hepatica americana) with their dainty creamy white stamens are such a treat to see blooming just as the snowdrops are beginning to fade.

There are two common species of hepaticas that are distinguished by the shape of their three-lobed leaves. On my woodland path, I have both the sharp-lobed hepaticas and the round-lobed hepaticas. They bloom in a range of whites, pinks, purples and blues. The pictures show the round lobed hepaticas, which in my garden, bloom a little earlier than the sharp lobed hepaticas.

When we moved into our home many years ago, it was a far cry from the house we dreamed of, but, it was our little slice of heaven on a pretty wooded 3/4 acre lot.  Being avid hikers, we decided to carve out several paths through our woods so we could enjoy hiking through our property everyday if we wanted!  With a little thought as to where we wanted to enter into the woods and exit, we began clearing a path with a machete. We let several interesting areas like the large rock we could sit on, the two mature black walnut trees that grow within a few feet of each other, and the wild raspberry patch guide the direction of where the path would go.

We had one of our local tree services come and deliver wood chips for the path. Many times they are happy to deliver it for free if they are working in the area. It isn't aged mulch or finely shredded, it's the chipped trees that they just cut down. Not great for garden beds near the house or foundation, but perfect for a woodland path or beds where you don't mind looking at it until it ages to a nice grey or brown.

It was a lot of work moving 16 cubic yds. of woodchips from the driveway, up a steep hill, across the lawn, and into the woods, one wheel barrel at a time! But it was so worth it!  We enjoy our woodland path almost every day and all our dogs have loved it too! 

My goal was to keep the beautiful natural woods we had, but enhance them with more of our native wildflowers, trees and shrubs.  I had been collecting wildflowers for several years in a little garden I had at the cottage we rented. When we moved, I dug them up and brought them all with me!

This is when my adventure began!

I really learned a tremendous amount about wildflower gardening and would love to share some of this with you. If you're interested, join me each wednesday to learn more about how I developed our woodland path, tips on how to garden with native wildflowers, and see what's blooming along our path! 

 I would love to hear from you! Feel free to jump in and share any tips, ideas or questions you may have!

Happy Gardening!
Tracey

  

Happy May Day!

May is spectacular! Shooting Stars, Trilliums, Wild Phlox, Violets, Mayapples, Bleeding Hearts, these are only a few of my spring flowers blooming! I have been photographing many of them and will be sharing some with you.

Virginia Blue Bells

I have a beautiful woodland path that I started the day we moved into our home 24 years ago! Being a hiker most of my life I wanted to be able to walk through a path everyday finding surprises at every glance!

Wildflowers are amazing and I decided to only incorporate plants that would be found in our natural woodland here in NJ and the surrounding area. I quickly found out that wildflowers are extremely picky about their habitat, and through alot of reading and experimenting I finally have a beautiful path that blooms from February through November. Some of my favorite flowers that are in bloom now are Virginia Blue Bells and a Violet called 'Freckles'. I have freckles too, so this quickly became one of my favorites!

Violet 'Freckles'