Mid-Springtime 2025 Along the Haw River in NC

The Piedmont region of NC is relatively flat so it is somewhat surprising to find deep gullies common perpendicular to the river floodplain.  The origin of these gullies is not “natural” in the sense that they seem to be a direct result of erosion caused by poor farming practices more than 100 years ago.  Contour plowing was unknown as a method to minimize the loss of topsoil due to erosion.  Most of the tree cover had been cut and rain runoff was too rapid for the soil to resist.  This gully behind our house is an example which has now been revegetated by a wonderful forest of mixed large pines and hardwoods.  The aging and dying pines are a remnant of the widescale cutting of the previous forest and grew up in an open sunny environment.  The enhanced runoff into rivers and streams also caused the erosion of stream courses as illustrated by this strange array of tree roots along Morgan Creek.

Erosion on an entirely different geological scale can be recognized by the occurrence of wonderful white quartz rocks lying all over the terrain.  Quartz is metamorphosed sandstone probably formed many miles deep in the earth.  Millions of years of erosion of feldspar resulted in the extensive red clay soils of this area but quartz as silica is much more resistant to erosion and has persisted and been exposed on the surface.  Our relatively short human lifespan in relation to geological time leads us to believe that conditions are constant which of course is far from the truth.  These beautiful quartz rocks remind us of amazing changes in earth history.

An animal that can modify the environment to improve its survival is the beaver.  Although this can be viewed in a beneficial ecological light in a stream/ meadow environment, river dwelling beavers living in the banks may not be so acceptable when they kill or damage trees.  I see many examples where beavers have gnawed the bark from the base of large trees including strangely enough this huge loblolly pine.  I see no evidence that such large trees are felled by the beavers so possibly the bark is simply being eaten.  The problem may be that unnaturally large populations of deer are removing most of the saplings that beavers might more often feed on.  Indeed beavers sometimes eat non native privet, a good thing since privet is a huge problem in river floodplains.

One of the strangest flowers in the floodplain is the paw paw.  The plant is poisonous and not eaten by deer and is thus flourishing.  It blooms quite early (April 5 in this case), and is pollinated by flies attracted to a rotten meat odor.  In contrast, wild phlox is a more traditional flower whose bluish color attracts bumblebees which fly on cool days.  These large bees cannot access the nectar at the base of the slender corolla tube and often bite the base to steal the sugary fluid.   In contrast, painted buckeye, another poisonous shrub that is not eaten by deer, has flowers that are attractive to hummingbirds recently arrived from the tropics.  Dogwoods are in full and glorious bloom in late March and early April.  Their actual flowers are tiny and are mainly of interest for the red fruits to come in the Fall which will attract many northern thrushes migrating to the tropics.  A rarely seen small tree is the hop tree or wafer ash whose leaves are eten by caterpillars of the giant swallowtail.

Insects are gradually becoming more numerous.  I came across one of my favorites- the six spotted tiger beetle ( https://entomology.umn.edu/six-spotted-tiger-beetle ).  This tiny ferocious predator is an absolutely brilliant metallic green color except this one is blue!  Presumably the hue is a structural color due to refraction and the low light in this shady spot results in a blue rather than green color.  The most common butterfly now is the Carolina satyr and this mating pair is doing their part to reproduce the species!  They  will be laying eggs on grasses in moist woodlands.  The presence of eye spots may be a means of minimizing the effects of attacks by birds.

I was visiting my son’s family in Durham near the Duke campus and was surprised to find this copperhead snake DOR (dead on road)  Apparently this venomous snake is quite common in that neighborhood and thrives in the dense cover and wet valleys nearby..  Most people would be more accepting of the presence of box turtles in their yards.  This male has very distinct annual growth rings on its carapace; box turtles can live in excess of 50 years if they can stay off highways and survive their early years.  The ventral plastron is concave indicative of the male’s need to mate with the female under the difficult physical conditions imposed by the shell.  An amusing poem deals with this situation (  https://allpoetry.com/The-Turtle ).  I came across a less often seen musk turtle basking precariously on a limb over the Haw River.

Although much bird migration is now complete in late April, some remnants remain.  I had a beautiful hermit thrush at my bird bath on April 19.  It should be leaving very soon to migrate to the nearby mountains to breed.  The two bird houses in my backyard are occupied and have eggs already.  A pair of Carolina chickadees have six wonderful eggs in a nest made of moss and hair.  Our bluebird pair has five blue eggs in a nest of pine straw.  You might ask why are bluebird eggs blue?  Of course the parents have blue feathers but the egg color should mainly be related to camouflage.  But since bluebirds are hole nesters, the eggs are not easily visible to predators.  In this case bluebirds are related to  thrushes such as robins that nest in open nests also have blue eggs.  So one explanation is that egg color is a trait derived from their ancestry.

This is a wonderful time of year in which our senses are overwhelmed by bird song, wonderful flowers and prolific growth of leaves, shrubs and grass.  It is challenging to learn the names of this incredible life all around us but just enjoy it in any case.