Things I Have Never Seen Before.

When a "Birder" sees a new bird that they have never seen before, they write it on their "Life List." Listing is VERY popular with the Birding crowd. It is not uncommon for a die hard birder to have Day Lists, Location Lists, Life Lists... lists lists lists :) Well, I am not big on writing stuff down - well, I guess, until now. Anyway, Kent and I wanted to take the dogs for a good walk this morning, so we shot up to the White House Greenway. This is a wonderful greenway, not tooooo popular, nice and wide, good bridges, creekside, nicely paved, and VERY importantly, pretty well shaded.

I had not anticipated that I would find any fodder for this blogging enterprise, but expect things when you least expect it. I did see three things that I have never seen before - So, add these to my Life List. LOL!!

We generally carry a phone with us when we walk, just in case there is an emergency, so that is what I had to use to take these pictures - please excuse the poor quality.


I am sure that most of you have seen this before, but for me it was a first... Baby Donkey. He was very cute hanging out with his momma.

Then we saw this VERY weird bug. I will have to check one of my insect field guides for this one. It was easily four inches long and pretty quick moving. The dogs were curious, but I was not likely to let them sniff. It's abdomen looked like it had pincers, as did its' head. Strange to the "n"th degree. Anyone able to keep me from looking this one up? Know what it is?

Then finally, there was this wonderful patch of literally thousands of little mushrooms. They were growing under a huge Tulip Poplar. There was no way to capture the immensity of the patch - it was one of those things that you just have to remember.

Fringetree

Native and fragrant, this beauty is a MUST HAVE ornamental!

Spring Time is Here!

Taking a quick run around the property, we found that many flowers have come up to welcome Spring.



A couple nice stands of Yellow Harlequin (Corydalis flavula) were a pleasant surprise; as was the finding that our patch of Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) has survived the hounds, and actually spread substantially - Yea! For some reason, our Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) is never as pink as it is "supposed" to be.



This early we always have very numerous Toadshade (Trillium sessile) one of the lesser appreciated Trillium, but since we have so many, we really like 'em. Our Cut-leaved Toothwort (Dentaria laciniata), seems to be more blue or pink than the true white that you find in the guides. By and large, though, our favorite of our true wildflowers is the Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). The large expanse carpeted by these delicate little flowers, is a joy to behold.