Sunflower Fields

These photos were taken in Granville County yesterday. This field in particular has rotated crops from year to year. Last year they planted tobacco in the first time in many many years. This year they have planted sunflowers for wildlife. Sunflowers attract a diversity of wildlife, including Gold Finches, Doves, quail, turkeys and numerous song birds.
The most amazing aspect of Sunflowers are the patterns which they create, though I guess you can find this amazement throughout all of nature. What makes Sunflowers stand out would be the colors, designs and large scale (compared to other flowers).

Robin Fish (Lepomis auritus)

These Fish (Lepomis auritus) were caught on Little Fishing Creek at Medoc on Sunday. Common names for this fish include robin, redbreast sunfish, redbelly, yellowbelly sunfish, bream. I pulled some of the Fish Details off the Wildlife Resources Commission Website. These details include:

Identification
One of the brightest-colored sunfish, the redbreast has green-to yellow-brown sides with reddish spots and a reddish-orange belly. It has bluish streaks on its cheeks and around the eyes. The most distinguishing characteristic of this species is a long, narrow (no wider than the eye) extension of the gill cover. These flaps may exceed a length of 1 inch and are entirely black.

Habitat & Habits
Redbreast sunfish inhabit freshwaters of eastern North America from southern Canada to Florida. Redbreast sunfish are found throughout North Carolina, except for cold mountain waters. Their diet is probably the most varied of all the sunfishes. They eat bottom-dwelling insect larvae, snails, clams, shrimp, crayfish and small fish.

Good Places to Find
Redbresasted sunfish frequently concentrate around boulders, logs, aquatic vegetation or tree roots. They take any type of small natural bait, spinners, spoons, plugs, artificial flies and popping bugs. Use a lightweight line (under 4 lbs.), a thin, small bobber and small hooks. Unlike other sunfish, redbreast can be caught at night, using a wide variety of lures and baits.

Redbreast sunfish are found in most of North Carolina’s major river systems with sparse populations found in the Chowan and Pasquotank rivers. As you move west across the state, populations increase until you get to the Little Tennessee, Savannah and Hiwassee rivers where the populations drop off once again. There is excellent fishing for redbreast throughout the center of the state — just find a stream with some good cover and running water and you should locate some redbreast. The Tar River from Granville County through Edgecombe County is an excellent place to start.

Summer Thunderstorm

It has final rained! Today Louisburg received about 2.5" in about an hour. I am sure now the Tar is Muddy Muddy and has gone up a good few feet. These are some photos I took while waiting for the rain to let up.

Tobacco's Blooming

Butterfly Weed & Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle

This flower is called Butterfly-weed/Pleurisy-Root (Asclepias tuberosa Linnaeus), which is commonly found along road sides and on edges of fields. This wildflower can also can be planted in yards as a drought resistant flower that blooms for most of the summer. The insect on the flower is a Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle (Labidomera clivicollos). This photo was taken yesterday (6/17/09) in Granville County, NC.

Transitional Landscapes

Transitional Landscapes

I am in the woods often, and I often run across old cultural remains. These artifacts help me understand the particular landscape a bit more. Typical artifacts I find in the woods include, old vehicles, house foundations, old homesteads, fire ring, barbwire fences, bottles and trash, and simple Native American tools.
Before I go out to a property I usually look at an aerial map, contour map, and other topographic data, but understanding a property isn't complete until an on site visit is conducted. An old barbwire can tell you where the old property boundary use to be. Fences didn't fence the cattle out of streams, just kept the cattle on ones property. Another common finding in the woods are large piles of dirt and maybe some plastic mixed in. This is from the old ways of farming, mainly tobacco farming. A large percentage of this area was in tobacco production, and the old practice was to kill everything off, cover with plastic, scrap away, and replant.

It's interesting to understand the history and seeing the recovery or transition. I really enjoy going into a developed hardwood forest that at
one time was a homestead or a tobacco field. Nature is an amazing phenomenon.

RAIN RAIN

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY, COME AGAIN ANOTHER DAY