Sunday, May 20, 2018

Mt. Rogers Naturalist Rally



I attended the Mt. Rogers Naturalist Rally in southwest Virginia. Before the rally, my friend and I hiked from Elks Garden to the Lewis Fork Wilderness Area. The photo above shows how spring is about two weeks behind where I live.


We were excited by seeing a carpet of white flowers....


At a distance, it looked like snow but....


actually it was fringed phacelia.


We also saw quite a few trout lilies in bloom. 



 On Friday evening we have a dinner and talk. Our speaker this year, Allen Boynton, talked about endangered populations of vertebrates in southern Blue ridge:

  •  northern flying squirrel: lives at higher elevations as opposed to the southern like we have around here).
  •  hellbender salamander: silt in waterways bad for young.
  • bog turtle: loss of wetlands is main driver of endangerment.
  • Virginia big eared bat
He recommended that we contact our representatives in congress about sponsoring "The Recovering America's Wildlife Act" which would help to protect endangered wildlife.  For more reference, click on this website

Birding at Grindstone Campground

As I like to do at each rally, I chose to attend the session with the speaker which was birding.  I also wanted to check out the campground.   We saw and heard many birds including blue-eyed and red-eyed vireos, chestnut-sided warbler (my favorite), Canada warbler, yellow bellied sapsucker, yellow-rumped warbler, veery, wood thrush, and catbirds. We heard and saw a wood thrush. Everyone was so appreciative of their songs while I realized I hear them all the time at our home in the woods.   Above the horse campground, we saw blackburnian warblers (both male and female) as well as heard ovenbirds.  Dark-eyed juncos were here even though they have left our lower elevations.

Red Spruce Ecology Hike

On Whitetop Mountain, we went on a walk with ecologist and forester Austin Thomas who discussed why red spruce are found mostly here because of the high elevation. 


The dark forest was very cool.


At the edge of the forest was an area where spruce trees were beginning to colonize.  This is a research site now with naturalists helping to collect data to determine the health of the forest.



1 comment:

  1. I see your blog daily, it is crispy to study.
    Your blog is very useful for me & i like so much...
    Thanks for sharing the good information!
    starbet สมัครกับเรา

    ReplyDelete