Blog

As I head up the Zigzag Trail, I find myself shuffling through a colorful mosaic of bigleaf maple leaves.

The other day, I saw what I thought was a moth flutter past and land on a tree. What I found sitting on the bark, though, was a caddisfly, which is neither a moth nor a fly. 

The other evening I watched a Barred Owl zigzagging down the Creek Trail corridor hunting for food. It would sit on a perch about 10-20 feet off the ground and scan the area with its eyes and ears. When it zeroed in on its potential prey, it silently drifted out over the meadow and pounced.

At Mount Pisgah, Phyciodes mylitta have a fairly long adult season, flying into late summer and at least into mid-October. They spend the winter as late-stage larvae, and apparently they wiggle out to bask on sunny winter days. So look near thistles for small, bristly black caterpillars in the coming months. 

Bushtits are busily moving about the landscape in small foraging flocks. It is common to see around 20 in a group, and I have counted as many as 40 together.