Geek out with me about critters and plants on a mountaintop in Virginia. More of what I’m learning as I try to bring native plants back on 200 acres of old farmland, and stories from my encounters on the mountain.

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In this issue

• First things first

• A sharp-eyed reader’s find

• Field notes: What’s in the pond? And what’s that climbing up my neck?!

• Signs of life: good news/bad news

• Questions for YOU

• Recommended reading: info/inspo

• The Official Mountain Poodle

First things first: the book plug…

A sharp-eyed reader’s amazing find

After reading my comments about woodcocks in the first issue of this newsletter, Bruce Jones, of the inspiring Jones Nature Preserve in Virginia, sent me this incredible photo. (Thank you, Bruce, for allowing me to share it!) He was bush-hogging* a field when he came across three adult woodcocks and two nests with eggs. This is an unusual find, because nesting woodcocks tend to be private and secretive, for good reason (to avoid predators). Their nests are well-hidden in tall, dense vegetation. Bush-hogging revealed the nests, luckily without damaging them.

*For those who are unfamiliar, bush-hogging is a method of mowing using a tractor and a special attachment that can deal with much taller and tougher vegetation than a normal lawnmower. It’s often used as a tool to keep a field, or a meadow, from becoming too shrubby.

Field Notes

What’s that in the pond?

There’s a tiny, shallow spring-fed pool on the mountain. Every year I start watching it in early spring, and I’m eventually rewarded by the sight of a gazillion tadpoles. There are different types of egg masses in the pond, and I’m often not sure which tadpoles came from which eggs. Frog egg masses look like clumps of bubbles, and toad egg masses look like long squiggly worms. And salamander egg masses are encased in a transparent, protective jelly.

These whitish blobs could be salamander egg masses:

I recently saw my first actual adult salamander in the pool. I wanted to know what species it was, so I reached out to the naturalist communities on Bluesky and at iNaturalist and learned that it’s an eastern newt. More specifically, it’s the adult stage of the red-spotted newt, which is a type of eastern newt. I realize the animal in this photo is neither red nor notably spotted, but there’s an in-between stage, like a teenage period, where it is notably red and spotted. Its color is a signal to predators that it doesn’t taste good. When it reaches maturity, it becomes this more sedate unflashy-looking adult. (Relatable.)

If it makes it to adulthood, this newt can live as long as 15 years in the wild, which seems like a long time, and the toxin secreted through its skin probably helps. (Glad I didn’t try picking it up.)

Am I the only one who can’t hear the word “newt” without instantly recalling a scene from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which a mob is accusing a woman of being a witch?

What’s that climbing up my neck??

I was driving on the highway when I felt something brush against my neck. Oh, just the wind in my hair, right? But the windows were closed… I reflexively reached for my hair and felt something crawling there that was not the traffic. I swiveled my head around, as if I could see my own neck, and flicked off the offending insect. I caught a glimpse of transparent wings. It landed somewhere in back, which didn’t stop me from repeatedly glancing around and up and down, and that’s the only time I’ve been grateful for a 20-minute backup on the highway.

I was glad it wasn’t a tick, but what was it?

After I reached my destination, I found this hitchhiker sitting calmly on a piece of cardboard in the back seat. 

It was too small to be a carpenter bee or a bumble bee, and it wasn’t the right color for a honeybee—which probably would have stung me (unless it was a male—males don’t have stingers). I guessed it was one of many solitary native bee species.

There are 4,000 species of native bees in North America, and 98% of them are solitary, meaning they don’t live in huge hives, and, unlike honeybees (which are nonnative), they aren’t aggressive.

I wasn’t sure what kind of bee it was, so I took to iNaturalist once again. It was identified as a miner bee (probably in the genus Andrena, but there's more than one genus of miner bees). I’ve seen these on the mountain—or, I’ve seen their homes. The miner bee lives in a hole in dry ground that looks sort of like an anthill. Usually there are several of these holes near each other, so even though they’re solitary bees, they like having neighbors. Sometimes they’ll swarm around directly above their nests to sort of look organized and threatening, but trust me, they’re not.

Miner bees pollinate food plants like cranberries, asparagus, persimmon, and blackberries, as well as native wildflowers like wild bergamot and Carolina rose. Some species are generalists—meaning they’ll pollinate all sorts of different kinds of plants, while others are specialists, meaning they can only use one type of plant.

Does anyone know what species of miner bee this could be?

Miner bees are known to be “friendly.” Which is probably why it didn’t seem freaked out by me (unlike my reaction to it), and it tolerated being carried around on that piece of cardboard until I found a suitable spot of earth where I could set it down.

Which brings me to another fact about native plants that I wish I’d known sooner:

Native plants provide the most nutritious meals for native wildlife and insects, compared with nonnative plants. The miner bee is one of the first bees to emerge in early spring, and it’s pretty hungry after a winter of hibernation. If you plant early-blooming native plants in your yard, you’re feeding those early pollinators exactly what they need—a meal that will give them the energy to produce the next generation of bees.

Signs of Life

The good news:

Dogbane, aka apocynum cannabinum, a native plant related to milkweed, is growing in the meadow.

• Similar to milkweed, it’s toxic, which keeps the number of predators down.

• A few insects can tolerate the toxins, including the caterpillars of several native moth species that lay their eggs on the plant.

• Like milkweed, its seeds are released from pods, and they’re attached to fluff that’s carried by the wind, helping the plants spread.

• While milkweed pods are sort of dumpling-shaped, dogbane seed pods resemble skinny bean pods.

Another common name for dogbane is “Indian hemp.” Native Americans used the plant for its fiber, to make items like rope, clothing, and baskets. I recently met a visual artist, Aimee Lee, who uses fiber from plants like dogbane and milkweed to make paper through an incredibly labor-intensive process, applying traditional Korean methods of paper-making, and then uses the paper to produce gorgeous and striking works of art.

This winter, we bush-hogged quite a few fields on the mountain. Now, dogbane has shot up in many of those fields to the extent that it’s currently dominating parts of the meadow. It almost looks like it was planted intentionally in neat rows, but I promise it was not. I’m not surprised to see it, because it was already here, but I’m a little surprised to see so much of it.

This is both good news and bad news, actually, because when you have one plant that dominates, biodiversity can suffer—a greater variety of native plants supports a greater variety of wildlife.

Dogbane grows quickly, but other plants will come up over the next couple of months, so the balance will probably shift again. If there’s anything I can predict about this meadow, it’s that it will keep changing.

At least dogbane is a native plant. In a place with no shortage of aggressive nonnative weeds, if there’s going to be a plant that dominates, I definitely prefer a native plant, because it will serve the needs of native species.

Speaking of aggressive weeds…

The bad news:

Garlic mustard is back!

Unfortunately, it’s garlic mustard time on the mountain. This plant is extremely invasive and especially good at filling up a forest floor and pushing out native plants in the understory. But you’ll see it in lots of other places, too, roadsides, lawn edges, and in the middle of a meadow.

Deer and rabbits are not interested in this plant; it’s too stinky. It has no natural predators in North America. But you can eat it. (Be my guest.)

The plant develops over a period of two years. In its first year, it’s easy to overlook, because it only gets around 6” tall. In its second year, it shoots up to 4 feet tall when you’re not looking and then it taps you on the shoulder, sticks out its tongue, and dashes off. Just kidding. Actually, it flowers, and then forms seedpods that eventually explode, sending seeds several feet away from the plant. A single plant can produce 800 seeds. And it releases a chemical into the ground that keeps other plants from growing around it, a feature known as allelopathy. That’s how it expands, easily forming clusters.

I spent a couple of hours pulling the stuff on an unusually hot day in April. (Why? Why is it always so hot on the days I have time to pull weeds?) I collected half a lawn bag full. Penn State Extension says it’s okay to pull it and not get the whole root—unlike many other plants, it won’t grow back from a broken root.

But don’t leave it on the ground after you pull it, because it will continue to flower and go to seed! Bag it and throw it away (don’t compost it).

What’s growing, flying, and crawling in your neck of the woods?

Tell me where you are and what you see right now, in a park near where you live, or in your own yard or window box. Send me a photo if you like.

And let me know what you’d like to see in this space!

Recommended Reading

For inspiration

I’m looking forward to checking out novelist Amy Tan’s new book about birdwatching—yes, birdwatching! Tan’s The Backyard Bird Chronicles, which the Los Angeles Times calls “delightful,” follows her developing interest in birds and nature in her yard during stressful and turbulent times. The book incorporates artwork by the author, and includes a foreword by David Allen Sibley. (See below for more on Sibley.)

For information

David Allen Sibley’s The Sibley Guide to Birds is a gorgeous and definitive bird guide that I’ve treasured for more than 20 years. (There is now an updated 2nd edition.) The illustrations are so exacting that a birding novice (ie, me) can use them to identify birds, even the “little brown jobbers”—in the words of an ornithologist who led a bird walk I was on—meaning, all those sparrows.

 The Official Mountain Poodle

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Thanks for joining me on the mountain!

Until next month—

Paula W.

Bad Naturalist: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop

Coming in January 2025 from Timber Press/Hachette Book Group