Palling Around with Red Wolves

Skulker in the hillside shrubbery

This week, we are getting the room & room at the YMCA, which we weren't getting as the Blue Ridge Assembly YMCA was still gearing up for the summer season. So this morning we treked down to breakfast in the giant dining hall. We dined with three sisters from Alabama who are a hoot. They are long time volunteers here. After a breakfast of French toast, eggs & grits - yes you heard me... grits! When in Rome, you know? I skipped off to my stint as Barista at the Eureka Cafe (Proudly Serving Starbucks).  After my shift it was back up to the cabin. 

There was a sudden burst of song, that was so loud it seemed to come from the kitchen. Ran outside to spy a little Carolina Wren in the shrubbery a bit uphill. I played one calling on my iPhone and the wren responded a bit. Then, when I gave up and went back inside, the little devil flew into the Rhododendron just out side the front door and sang up a storm.

♪Oh, dem golden slippers...!♪

Wish I'd recorded that little guy on a camcorder. I heard more birds this morning than I saw, because the day is a bit overcast and the birds seem more secretive, though I don't know if the weather is the cause of it. After my first day or so, it dawned on me the chickadees here are kind of dinky. Just a bit tinier than the Black-capped Chickadees of northern states I'm more familiar with. That means I'm definitely seeing a species I've only seen once before - drum roll please - Carolina Chickadees.

A wee CAROLINA Chickadee!

At noon, we went to lunch in the cafeteria. Afterwards Ila worked her first shift this afternoon, I went for a slow drive around the campus, starting at the very tippy top of the hill behind the Younts Hall.

Diving Broad-winged Hawk

I heard and saw all the usual birds I see from the cabin, including a soaring Broad-winged Hawk.












Though I had my ears set on 'Warbler' mode, I only heard Black-throated Green Warblers calling. Exploring one corner of the Y grounds I found an acre pond, on which floated one drake Blue-winged Teal, a Mallard Drake & a couple of Canada Geese. That adds one new bird - the Teal - to my North Carolina state bird list.

Blue-winged Teal Drake

After Ila worked her shift, I picked her up and we had five hours before her next shift. I pushed for us to visit the Nature Center in Ashville. I took my binocs and big lens camera so I could stroll the grounds and bird.

Ila headed for the Asheville Nature Center entrance

When we got there, it turned out I was, um... mistaken about the 'nature' of the Nature Center'. It is not a botanical gardens of native trees and walkways where Northern Cardinals sing and Magnolias bloom - it is a tiny, zoo. I haven't been to any zoo in about a decade and wouldn't have gone to the Nature Center, had I know its true identity.

cute walkway on the way to the animal exhibits

Eventually I decided to stop whining about the dearth of birdies and go to see the rare Red Wolves on display. I saw the rangy, not-as-red-as-one-might-think beasts. I thought back to when I got to traverse the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge a couple of years ago, where I hoped to spot  wild Red Wolves, but of course, no dice; that is one rare beastie.

One of several Red Wolves on display

Gray/Timber Wolf in another exhibit

There were also nice Gray Wolves, Red and Gray Foxes to admire. Particularly loved the Red Fox - always loved those little buggers - used to draw red foxes exclusively in kindergarten, and my teacher complained to my mother about it; thought I ought to be drawing boring things like humans, houses and trees. Ha!

 

There were many Appalachian reptiles & amphibians on display at the center. I thought this one, an Eastern Mud Turtle was particularly creepy looking. Can't get past the fleshy chin whiskers.

Eastern Mud Turtle

After our short visit to the Nature Center we headed back to the Y. You know we only have one more day left of volunteering here before we'll  be off north for two mystery stops before we return to California. Neither Ila nor myself can wait to be on the road again.

Some Interesting Southern Juju

As I dug into my breakfast yesterday I had my eyes on patio bird feeder and trees. I spotted something huge flying and got excited - a HAWK!  As the bird flew over my cabin, and I snatched up my camera and raced outside. The bird had a broad white band on its tail & it landed in a tree just behind the cabin. Yay! A Broad-winged Hawk!

Looking grumpy from being harassed by the small fry

It sat in a tree, and moved a few times because every annoying little bird on Black Mountain came out to harass it. I got a couple of shots of it in the tree, but almost immediately it took off, bless its pinfeathers, it landed in front the cabin, in a great position for me to get a shot or two. When it flew off it had a long branch in its bill. I imagine it is into nest building, so it can have lots of lovely babies and will feed them with lots and lots of annoying little birdies. Revenge is sweet.

My neighbor, the Eastern Phoebe

Looking around I then saw a little female Purple Finch. The little Eastern Phoebe that hangs around the cabin was present too. I noted the Eastern Phoebe may be nesting across from me, in the cabin's gutters, on the corner. They like platform nesting and what better little platform than a nice sheltered gutter with an eve over it?






A couple of days ago in the cabin, I heard what sounded like a high pitched squeaking wheel that needed oiling and knew there was a Black & White Warbler around. I went outside, and briefly played its call on my iPhone and the bird hurried over to peer curiously at me. Now it is a daily treat as it squeaks and squeaks near the cabin. 

Black & White Warbler, singing it's 'squeaky wheel' song

Today Ila and I painted in the Yonts building which is a dormitory for seasonals who work at the Blue Ridge Assembly YMCA. Our job for today, and tomorrow is to paint bright white dorm room walls a dingy, dirty diaper brown. Each room had a lovely pecan wood paneling, which Ila and I paint over with a sort of drab olive paint. In other words we converting somewhat bright rooms into depressing cells. We wondered who decided on the paint choices, but we weren't consulted on the issue so we obediently paint away.

We finished up for the day around 2PM and came back to the cabin. Dave, a YMCA employee who acted as our supervisor for our painting assignments dropped by. He showed us photos of his children, who turned out to be a pretty pair of dogs, a Lab and a cute brown Boxer mix.

I decided to return the favor and show Dave some of my birdie photos of the past week. I turned on my laptop, but it froze on the opening screen. I turned the laptop on and off maybe a half dozen times, but it refused to start up, freezing up on the first screen. Perplexed and annoyed I grabbed my Canon 60D and pulled up this morning's hawk photos to show Dave. Almost immediately the camera screen went black. I turned it on again, and again it just died, weird as I'd put in a fully charged battery after photographing the hawk this morning. So, I fetched a second freshly charged battery, which also promptly died. Puzzled, I gave up.

We chatted with Dave and the room grew warm as it was in the 80s today. I got up and started to raise the lower windows to get a cross ventilation breeze going. Finally I reached a window on the far wall, and lifted it - WHAM - and it crashed right back down! The glass cracked in front my eyes, forming a big oval crack & making a 3 feet wide solid circle of glass. It popped out of the main glass pane, but did not fall - it just hung in its glass matrix, poised as if to keep me guessing.

Later when Dave took off, I asked Ila if she noticed how nothing worked when Dave was around. I mean, as soon as he left my laptop and all of my electronics started right up again, no problems. She had noticed was as intrigued about it as I was.

As the afternoon drew on, Ila was bored so she drove us into Black Mountain for a little shopping.  We hit the yarn store and I got some goodies at the local hardware store, including an inexpensive DVD of Disney's Song of the South. Shhh! That title is not supposed to be available in the United States! When I saw it you could have knocked me over with 2 choruses of Zip A Dee Do Dah, whatever the heck that is.

 

a view of downtown Black Mountain, North Carolina

Birding AND window shopping!

Another view of Black Mountain

As we walked around the little downtown, I realized I was exhausted; no clue why. I didn't exactly exert myself at work today, but tired I was. Maybe it was the temperatures which were in the 80s or maybe I was just weary in general. I only wanted to go back to the cabin and lay around. I was surprised when Ila confessed she was just as exhausted as I was. Maybe electronics aren't all that can experience an energy drained, eh?

Up the Chimney Rock

Had a totally busy day off today. Began by attempting to visit the Biltmore Estates but once there, decided we didn't want to spend the $59 each necessary to access that hallowed ground. We did see a quick movie on the Biltmore in the ticketing building, that didn't tempt us, and then we moved on.





Next we headed over to the Asheville Visitor Center, where we bought tickets for a trolley tour of Asheville at what now seemed a bargain price - comparatively - just $19.  Must admit, I am now in 'full to the jowls' mode for history of southern cities, so only intermittently paid any attention to our tour guide with his North Carolina accent. The trolley took us up one street and down another, many places we'd driven through on our own last week. I enjoyed myself, sitting in the back row of the trolley, enjoying the cool Spring breeze & birding along our route.
 

After our trolley tour of Asheville we peaky, so we headed to  "Piggies" BBQ. On the tour we learned it was a great place for BBQ so we dined there. Our verdict, as out-of-towners was 'just tolerable'.  On the plus side, I learned all about the southern staple called  'Hush Puppies'; round, deep fried cornmeal balls. Perhaps as there are no noisy dogs about to lob the greasy dough balls at, I fail to get the point of them and left most of mine behind on the plate as the flavor didn't seem worth the heart-attack-on-a-plate calories or fat content. Sorry south - If it's is any consolation, I loved the BBQ at Cheddar's Restaurant where we took ate several meals this past week.

Next after a brisk round of  'where do you want to go next?', 'I don't know, where do you want to go?', I pushed for a visit to Chimney Rock State Park - good choice. The route there wound along a pleasant country road. As we sped down the road both of us caught sight of a woman - she was dressed in shabby old clothing, that would have been familiar in 2013, as easily as 1913 or come to that, 1813. She stepped out of a small cabin, no more than 500 square feet to it - as caught up in time as it's occupant. I muttered some explitive under my breath, just as Ila was muttering something similar.  That woman was stuck in my mind and Ila's all day. I think that glimpse of that woman's life is as close as I'll ever come toward proving Einstein's theories on time travel.

Soon we reached the tiny town of Chimney Rock and in the center of the main drag found the park entrance. It wound up hill to a big parking lot, at the end of which was a towering spiral of rock, on top of which we could see the namesake chimney rock. It kind of looks like something else too, but happily it was the name Chimney that stuck.

Chimney Rock from below

The top of Chimney Rock

To the left of the gift shop above we found a daunting tunnel, cut through solid rock.

Looking back to the tunnel entrance

At the end of the nearly 200 ft tunnel, is an elevator

The rocky walls would make anyone with claustrophobia go ballistic. There were informative signs along the rock path to let you know you were surrounded by Henderson Gneiss (a rock type). My first thought was how long ago must the tunnel have been put in to avoid the b'jillion environmental impact statements that must be necessary to complete these days, to destroy/burrow into natural bedrock. I think the tunnel was put in way before the place became a state park. 

At the end of the tunnel was an elevator! I would not have hated to have to walk up the 26 stories the elevator traversed. The elevator was operated by a twenty year old guy whom I bet was a bit claustrophobic himself after a bit. He - and the elevator - took us up to where we exited the elevator into another gift shop. Crossing the gift shop, I stepped out onto a patio and a long walkway.

26 stories UP!

I looked over the edge to see where we had come up from and thanked heavens I don't have the least trace of acrophobia. I decided as long as I came up so far, I might as well climb the final forty-odd steps up to the top of the Chimney Rock overlook.

The climb up to the Apex of Chimney Rock

The View from the Top - Lure Lake in the distance

It was an impressive & sweeping view from the top of Chimney Rock. I spent maybe ten or fifteen minutes up top of Chimney Rock, taking photos of the scenery & assisting other tourists in getting pictures of themselves against the backdrop of what seemed to be all of Appalachia.

Chimney Rock platform up top

View from the Chimney Rock stairs

GAK! There are stairs to the top of Chimney Rock after all!

When I was done taking in the views from atop Chimney Rock, I decided I might as well dig into a nice cup of Blue Bunny Ice Cream that was sold in the sky high gift shop. While I ate my ice cream on the patio, I watched a Black Vulture - only the second I've seen on this entire trip - circling the sky. It is fun getting to look down on a bird one normally only sees up above.

How often does one get to look down on a vulture in flight?

Puffing up his red pouch for 'the ladies'

I wasn't quite done with my yummy butter pecan treat when I noted there was something a bit unusual, slinking about on a pine tree above my head. Lizard! Not just any lizard, but an Anole - lots of them. They're the little 'chameleons' I used to buy at Ringling Brother's Circus for pets when I was a kid. I've seen wild Anoles in Florida and had no idea they occur as far north as North Carolina.

As I tossed my ice cream cup into a bin, I spotted a bird flashing up into the lizard tree, but it was gone before I could get more than a glimpse of it. Rats! 


I'd been hearing a bird calls all the time we were in Chimney Rock Park. I could make out the calls of the usual American Robins, and the ever-present 'Peter! Peter! Peter!' of the Tufted Titmouses. There was one call though that I couldn't quite place - then it hit me - The Mikado! I was hearing the Spring song of the Black-throated Green Warbler, which always sounds to me like the opening notes of Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado. I now had my long lens at the ready and was not too disappointed.

A curious Black-throated Green Warbler

Awww! This fellow sang for me, but his perch was too shady for much of a shot

I chased after Black-throated Green Warblers for a good bit before Ila and I decided to head in the general direction of home - downhill. Along the way we stopped briefly at a 'Grady's Animal Den', a place for scout troups and other kiddie groups to gather for instruction. I found out Grady himself is a lovely & fat woodchuck who dwells at the cabin with several of his fellow woodland creatures on display.

On the way out of Chimney Rock Park I was teased by an elusive Eastern Bluebird that momentarily sat on a road post. I also spotted a small flock of ground feeding Chipping Sparrows. I listed the birds in eBird. Was disappointed I couldn't find any Blue Jays or Thrushes at all. Oh well. I should be happy for finding the lovely little Mikado soloists.