We are moving!

The NatureBlog is moving! The website location will stay the same, but the content is about to change. We are in the midst of moving to a new area.

I will no longer post about our backyard happenings in Athens, Georgia, but instead will have all new posts about our new backyard in Cary, North Carolina.

Here is a picture of our new backyard:

So far we have heard some different bird species, and have seen many plant species that we did not have in our Athens backyard.

I will not be posting for a few weeks as we move and get settled in, but I will be posting all about all the new nature we find starting in January. So stay tuned!

So what's in your compost?

I found this cool post about compost creatures. They took one cup of compost from a backyard compost bin and found 14 different species living in it! I am going to give this a try next spring, take a cup and see just what is living in the compost in my backyard.


To read the post see this link.

To learn more about composting see this link.

We pause for a moment to take in the Autumn colors...

Robins and more robins

This morning I found a flock of American Robins in the backyard. During the fall and winter robins get together and travel in large flocks. It is a lot of fun to see a large flock descend on the backyard, crowding in the bird bath, eating what is left of the pokeweed berries, fighting with the resident Mockingbird.

On Journey North’s website they have a great way to distinguish a winter/migrant robin from a spring robin:

Winter and migratory behaviors include:

• Feeding in flocks
• Eating fruit
• Flying in flocks
• Getting along peacefully

Spring behaviors include:

• Running on lawns
• Eating worms
• Singing
• Territorial battles
• Carrying nesting materials

To learn more about Journey North’s Spring Robin program, see this site.

First Freeze

Brrr..

Had our first freeze today, the low this morning was 32.1 degrees! There was a light frost covering the backyard, which means that the grasses and herbaceous plants will begin to die back, but have you ever wondered why some plants do not freeze?

Well, there are two main reasons why some plants stay green all winter and never freeze. Some plants such as Pine trees do not have a lot of water, so they cannot freeze. Other plants can make their own “anti-freeze” protein which protects their cell walls and plant tissue from being crushed by ice crystals.

Other perennial plants (plants that live for 2 years or more) go dormant during the winter. Herbaceous plants completely die back above ground, leaving only roots below ground. Woody plants drop their leaves. While dormant, they are not moving water and nutrients through their system, so when it freezes, they are protected.

To learn more about winter plant adaptations see this link.

Harbinger of Cooler Weather

We had a White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) in our backyard yesterday. They are a winter resident in Georgia, spending the spring and summer in Canada and fall and winter in the Eastern US. They always arrive every year right before a very cold weather and this year was no exception. It was 37 degrees out this morning!

Unlike most sparrows, the White-throated Sparrow is easy to identify. It has a white throat as its name implies, as well as a white eyebrow-stripe with a dot of yellow at the bill.

They also have one of my favorite bird songs. They sound just like a human whistling. To hear their song see this link. Some say it sounds like they are singing "Oh Sweet Canada Canada Canada".



To learn more about the White-throated Sparrow see this link.

Dendroica coronata

The Yellow-rumped Warblers (Dendroica coronata) are here! They are one of the last migratory birds to arrive in our area and since they are a winter resident, we will see a lot of them over the next few months.

They are easily identified by their conspicuous yellow rump.

A favorite food of this particular warbler are wax myrtle berries, so you will often see them foraging in the wax myrtle bushes. In fact they were once called Myrtle Warblers.

To learn more about yellow-rumped warblers see this link. To hear their song see this link.

Fall Asters

I attended the Perennial Symposium held at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia last week. Since we are in the midst of the worst drought on record, all of the talks were focused on drought tolerant plants. One perennial group in particular was discussed at length due to its hardiness and drought tolerance: the Aster family.

Right now there are many beautiful asters in full bloom despite the lack of water. This includes Goldenrod (solidago), White Aster (ericoides), and Ironweed (Vernonia). Not only are they nice to look at, they provide nectar for many insects including butterflies. Other asters such as Sunflowers (Helianthus) and Coneflowers (Echinacea ) provide seeds for birds.


To learn more about drought tolerant plants see this link. To learn more about native asters see this link.

It's raining!

So far we have received 0.7 inches today! That is huge for our area. We are currently going through the worst drought on record. There are strict outdoor water bans in our county, and they are talking about possibly putting us on rations starting at the end on November, it is that bad.

But today we are getting some rain!

Here is a map of the current drought areas in the U.S., and as you can see Athens falls into the Exceptional Drought category, well past the Extreme. We have always thought of ourselves as conservative when it comes to water use, but this drought has definitely got us thinking of even more creative ways to conserve water. To learn about some really easy ways you can conserve water in your own home see this link.

Small Green Moth

This weekend we brought one of our couches outside to clean. When we went to bring it back inside we noticed a small, beautifully colored moth had taken a liking to it. The greenish blue color of the moth almost perfectly matched the greenish blue color on the couch!

After a search on the internet, we were able to identify the moth to the family Noctuidae. This family has over 35,000 known species of moths! Most moths in this family are nocturnal, active only at night, which explains why this particular moth was taking a nap on our couch.

To learn more about Noctuid moths see this link. To see the amazing diveristy of this family see this link.