Sights on the Tuscarora Trail
Just a rough mix of the sights and sounds from two days of camping on the Tuscarora Trail in the Allegheny Mountains on the west side of the Shenandoah Valley in the George Washington National Forest.
Turkey vulture, this time a little easier to see.
I wish this picture was taken a second later when the vulture had passed the tree, but that’s life.
The campsite is at about 2500 feet, so the vultures and hawks enjoy soaring on the updrafts along the hill face below.
Tufted titmouse. Tiny little guy who played peekaboo with me while I was trying to take his picture.
Eastern Towhee. These seemed to be a flock that made a home around the campsite.
Another bird of prey that caused me some identification consternation and much flipping back and forth through my Peterson’s. But in the end, I’m going with red-tailed hawk.
What I originally thought was a wood thrush has turned out to be an ovenbird. Finally figuring out the source of the most ubiquitous song in the forest was relieving, though.
Eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly.
Perhaps my favorite picture of the whole trip. I believe this is a five-lined skink, peeking out of his little home in a crevice on the overhang. I had to sit for about thirty minutes waiting for him to pop his head out again so I could take his picture, but even the shutter sound from my camera was enough to send him diving back inside.
This one surprised me… moth? butterfly? Turns out it’s an underwing moth.
When I think caterpillar, this is the kind I imagine: eastern tent caterpillar (how ironic that I snapped his picture while he was crawling on my tent). Too bad it morphs into a pretty ugly-looking moth. His attempts at hitchhiking weren’t as successful as his genus-mate, pictured below.
Leia found him on my couch as I was about to go to sleep when I returned to my apartment. I put him in a little box and took him outside. I spent about an hour on various caterpillar-identification websites, but I couldn’t even find a likely candidate. He definitely had the legs and head of a caterpillar, not a worm, and could cling to the couch when I tried pulling him off. Photo was at night with my phone, so not the best quality.
Taken with my crummy telephoto, so it’s a bit foreshortened, but this is the view from the campsite looking southeast-ish, the town of (I think) Woodstock in the middle distance. The first ridge is Massanutten Mountain, which splits the central valley in two. The far, light-toned line of hills is the Blue Ridge, which is separated from Massanutten by the South Fork of the Shenandoah River and the Luray Valley. Jackson marched his army on this near-side of Massanutten from right-to-left on his way up the valley to what would be the Battle of Kernstown on 23 March 1862. Then in May, he took his army along the South Fork on the far side of the Massanutten to what would be the Battles of Front Royal and First Winchester. After his victories, he returned south along the Valley Pike (now about where Rt 11 is located) with Fremont pursuing him here and Banks in the Luray Valley.
Sounds around a campfire on a late-spring evening. First the towhees sing, and then the incessant songs of the whippoorwills take over. Best with headphones.
Listen to the spring rain as it taps on the tent. Best with headphones.