A Late June Rewind

There's a stream not too far from home that I spend a lot of time on during the summer. It is one of the closest wild trout streams to me, and I have fished it quite frequently over the years. It's not This Place, but it's not too far away from it either. It has a popular delayed harvest section on the lower river, then a stretch of private land that separates the lower river from the wild trout waters above. Depending on where you go, you can find wild browns and rainbows in the main stem, and wild brook trout in a tributary. The majority of the time I fish the main branch of the creek, but I do occasionally make trips up the tributary in search of the beautiful speckled (brook) trout that call it home.

Wild Brown Trout

On this particular afternoon in late June, I left home with plans to fish the main creek. The forecast for  home was for high temperatures reaching into the nineties and a mountain escape seemed like the perfect way to spend a few hours. After a quick stop for a burger on the way, it was time to fish. When I arrived, I decided to head upstream a half mile or so from the lower boundary of the public water and start above a deep hole that is difficult to navigate around. Sometimes I start lower down and fight my way around this hole, but most of the better water is above it. Two of the biggest trout I've ever caught in this creek both came from this deep water even though most times I don't catch anything here. Those two trout are the reason that I do occasionally put in the effort to fish it.

Wild Rainbow Trout

Today however, I was feeling just a tad bit lazy and I didn't quite feel up to bushwhacking my way through a tangle of rhododendron or taking a swim to get above this pool. I decided to take the easy way out and parked at the next pull off above the swimming hole. After a short walk down the trail to the creek it was time to go fishing. To my surprise, the first pool yielded a pretty brown trout on the second or third cast. It usually takes me a few minutes to get into my fishing rhythm, and more times than not I feel like I spook trout wherever I first get into the stream in spite of trying to be stealthy with my approach. This time I must have managed to do something right, because that brown took the fly with no hesitation at all.

Wild Raspberries

After releasing the first trout of the day, I began slowly fishing my way up stream. The water wasn't drought low, but it was obvious that it was summer time. The higher flows of spring had slowed down, and the trout were concentrated in small deeper pockets and runs. I started the day fishing a size 12 Thunderhead dry fly, and this proved to be the only fly I would use all day. The fish were hitting this fly like it was the most delicious thing they had seen all day. There were none of the usual short strikes or refusal rises, and any fish that I missed were due solely to my slow reaction time or other errors on my part.

Wild Brown

I've noticed that as I get older, I tend to fish with more patience. When I first started fly fishing, I thought that the best way to approach a wild trout stream was to cover lots of water. A couple of casts to each likely spot, and then I would move on. Now I take the time to try to get a good presentation, and I find myself fishing more places that I used to walk through or by without a second glance. Yes, I catch trout in the obvious places, but its surprising just how many fish I catch in places that at first glance don't seem too promising. This is one of the many lessons that this stream has taught me over the years. I still cover water, but I wade a little more carefully and take my time, and as a result I feel like I catch more fish and don't wind up soaking wet nearly as often from a wading misstep. Slowing down has also allowed me to take in the beauty of my surroundings. Now I find myself taking pictures of more than just the fish I catch, and bringing more memories home on each trip.

Red Spots

On this trip, I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings quite as closely as I should have. I had just released a rainbow, and when I stood up I found myself face to face with a Northern water snake in a small poplar tree. We stared at each other from a distance of six inches or so, and once my heart started beating again after the initial shock I realized two things. First, that it wasn't a copperhead because it had round pupils instead of vertical, and that it didn't seem bothered by my presence in the least. It never moved, and I snapped a quick picture, apologized for bothering it, and eased my way on up stream. I did check each fallen tree that I had to cross much more carefully after this encounter, just to avoid any other surprises. The only thing I found on the trees was some interesting looking mushrooms and other fungi, but thankfully no more snakes.

Northern Water Snake

After the snake scare, I worked my way on up stream for another hour or so, catching several more brown trout and one more rainbow on the way. In the past, this stream has yielded many more rainbows than browns, but in several trips this spring and summer I've been catching quite a few more brown trout than rainbows. The overall size of the fish seem to be a little bigger too, and I imagine a wetter winter and spring have helped the fish out. There were a few years that rain was a little more scarce in these mountains and I think the extra water this year has made a difference.

Fungus on Fallen Tree

One of the things I love about trout fishing is that no two trips are the same, even going to a stream that I've fished for years. There's always some new experience like the snake to keep things interesting, and the streams themselves are always changing. I love the challenge of fooling fish with a fly, and I love the places fishing has taken me to. I'm sure I'll be back to this stream soon, and you can bet that I'll be keeping a close watch out for my friend in the tree.

- Joseph

This Place

I went fishing yesterday at this place that I would like to tell you about. It was a great day to be in the mountains, and one of the too infrequent trips that I got to make with my Uncle Greg. I know that sometimes I'm a little scarce with the details of where I fish, but this time I wanted to make an exception. This place is just too wonderful not to share. Sit back and let me tell you all about this place.

This Place

This place is a wonderful place to get away from the heat of a July day. It's not that hard to get to. Just drive a little further up the road, gaining elevation as you wind your way up the mountain. Cross over the Eastern Continental Divide, and under the Blue Ridge Parkway. Once you turn off the highway, follow the Forest Service gravel road as it leads you deeper into the mountains and farther from the black top. At the end, park the truck and walk past the locked gate and up the road until you find a spot to enter the river. As you make your way up the road, take the time to enjoy the rhododendron, bee balm, Turk's cap lily, and other wildflowers blooming along the way. Watch out for the stinging nettle though! Stinging nettle are one of the reasons I started wearing long pants to wet wade many years ago.

Turk's Cap Lily

After a short walk up the road, I entered the river. Greg and I decided to split up and each fish a section of river, then meet up in a couple hours and compare notes and decide if we wanted to move upstream, downstream, or head somewhere else entirely. After plans were made and a rendezvous point picked, Greg walked up river and I found a path down from the road to the river.

Budding Rhododendron

Let me tell you about the river at this place. It is a nice sized trout stream, big enough to hold lots of possibilities, but small enough to be able to read the water and pick out the majority of the good spots to fish. This river has always seemed to be clearer, and a little colder than some of the places I frequent, even in the heat of summer. The air is cooler up here at this place, and I hardly broke a sweat hiking in or out. The stream itself is very rocky, even for a mountain stream. There are impressive boulders strewn along it's length, and the rocks in the stream bed all seem to be tilted at different angles from each other. It can make for some interesting wading at times, especially if you aren't paying close enough attention to where your feet are. 

Wild Rainbow

Now that you've been introduced to the river, allow me to tell you about the fishing at this place. This place is not somewhere I would go if I wanted to catch a trout on every cast or two. This isn't that kind of place. This is the kind of place that you go if you want a nice day in a beautiful spot, and a stream full of wild rainbows, browns, and brook trout if you get high enough into the headwaters. This is the kind of place that can be a challenge to fish, with crystal clear water and spooky trout. It's the kind of place that you can fish all day with a size 12 Adams dry fly (I did yesterday) and expect to have success. It's also the kind of place where the trout seem a little bigger, fight a little harder, and can at times be pickier than some of the other wild streams I fish. 

Fungi

The trout in this place can also be particular, both about presentation and fly selection. I tried one of my go-to summer patterns that I catch a lot of fish on in other places, but these trout were having none of it. That particular pattern has calf tail wings and is a bulkier dry fly. Once I switched to the Adams with it's smaller profile, the fish seemed to approve. This is the kind of place that has plenty of deep pools that would be ideal for a dry-dropper rig or nymph fishing, but I seldom go subsurface here. I know I'm missing opportunities by staying on the surface, especially in the deeper pools, but the surface strikes were frequent enough yesterday to keep me from reaching for the nymph box. I fish it slowly and don't rush, but before I know it the two hours are up and it's time to check back in with Greg and see how his morning has gone. We meet up and compare notes, and decide to walk upstream from where we had been fishing and give it a couple more hours. We've both caught fish and want to continue on upstream.

Swallowtail Butterflies

This time it was my turn to walk upstream, and I tried to make sure and give Greg plenty of room to fish. As I walked, I took the time to observe the environment around me, seeing plenty of bee balm (thank you Greg for identifying it for me), Turk's cap lily, and rhododendron blooming. One of the stranger things about this place is that it seems like I always find some type of funky fungi growing on the trees. This time I saw two different types, and both were on live trees. This place is full of surprises, and it seems like every trip up here reveals something new. As I made my way back down to the river, I came upon a large group of Eastern Black Swallowtail butterflies, with a few Eastern Tiger Swallowtails mixed in. They were beside the river drinking at a small pool of water. I saw both species of butterfly all up and down the river today, along with some smaller butterflies that I couldn't identify. I didn't see any insects hatching on the stream, but from the size of trout that this place produces I feel certain that they are finding something to eat. 

Wild Brown

Once I made it back down to the river, I continued on upstream through a stretch that seemed to be shallower than the previous stretch I'd fished. There were still plenty of small pockets that were deep enough to hold fish, and I did catch a couple as I made my way farther up stream. I had quite a few refusals and short strikes, and a few of the fish I hooked managed to throw the hook after a second or two. The trout in this place seem to be wizards when it comes to escaping, or at least they did yesterday. Once again time seemed to slip by just as quickly as the waters of this place, and before I knew it I was heading back down the road to meet up with Greg and head back home. I didn't catch any of the brook trout that this place sometimes gives up, but I did manage a couple brown trout and several pretty rainbows. Several Adams were donated to various rocks and rhododendron, and now I will be back at the tying desk replacing them, anticipating my next trip to this place.

Bee Balm

There, just as I promised, are all the details about where I fished yesterday. There are also a lot more pictures from yesterday's trip to this place on the NC Outdoor Ramblings Facebook page. As far as the name and location of this place? Sorry, my lips are sealed.

- Joseph

Lessons Learned From A Year of Trout Fishing

At the beginning of 2018, I set myself a goal. You could call this a New Year's Resolution, but I chose instead to consider it a personal challenge. I knew for me, New Year's resolutions tended to last a couple of weeks at most, and I wanted this to be a much more permanent type of goal. My goal, challenge, resolution, or whatever you would like to call it, was to fish more. Specifically, I wanted to spend more time fly fishing for trout (and other species of  course). I decided to set a goal to catch at least one trout a month by fly fishing. As much as I love fishing for all types of fish, I chose trout because I figured that smallmouth bass or other species of fish would be even less likely to bite a fly in the winter than trout.

*The Trout of 2018

I know you may be wondering why someone has to set themselves a goal of fishing more. Please allow me to try to explain my thought process behind the one trout a month challenge. It didn't come about due to a  lack of fishing, but rather from a lack of the things that go along with fishing for me. I came to realize that as much as I love to fish, tie flies, and write about it on this blog, there was a distinct lack of writing and fly tying going on. 

It was nobody's fault but mine, and I wanted especially to start writing blog posts again on a regular basis. The fishing would hopefully provide me some inspiration to write again, along with spending time at the desk tying flies to replace the ones lost on the fishing trips. This quest for a trout a month was going to be the cure for writers block and get the creative juices flowing for both writing and fly tying. At least that's what I thought at the time. 

Snow on the Stream

I had never taken the time to figure out our trout fisheries other than during the warm months from March or April through about November. I would put up the fly rods about the time that deer season came around, and sometimes it was after the end of turkey season in May before my thoughts turned back to fishing. There were occasional trips when the urge hit to go wet a line, but overall the majority of my fishing revolved around the seasons that I'd grown up fishing in, especially summer when school was out and fishing time was easy to come by. I love to hunt, and the purpose of this goal of mine was not to replace hunting with fishing, but rather to see if I could squeeze a little bit of fishing in even during hunting seasons. 

One of the first lessons I learned from this quest was that variety really is the spice of life. During deer season, I did spend most of my outdoor time in a stand deer hunting. The occasional fishing trip helped to break up the days of sitting in a stand, especially when deer activity was slow. A trip to the stream seemed to get me excited to go hunting again, and by the same token several days spent in the woods deer hunting sitting still helped me appreciate the ever changing environment of a mountain stream. The wildlife is different, the scenery is different, and the methods are different, but both activities provide me with a deep connection to the outdoors. Sitting in a stand watching the woods come awake at daylight, or slowly working my way up a mountain stream trying to locate fish without spooking them cause me to slow down and really take in where I am and what is around me.

*Cold Weather Fishing

The next lesson I learned from a year spent trout fishing is how to appreciate how difficult fooling a fish into eating some fur and feathers tied to a hook can be. I've will never consider myself an expert fly fisherman or anything close to an expert, but I've had decent success catching fish over the years. However, most of this has been due to fishing the same times of year with the same few fly patterns and techniques. In the summer, one of my favorite ways to fish is to take an attractor dry fly pattern like a Thunderhead and fish the wild trout waters. Most of the time, this is fairly shallow water with small pools and pockets and sparse, varied insect hatches. Matching the hatch takes a back seat to presentation and stealth. If you can approach a pool without spooking the fish and make a good presentation, most of the time these trout aren't too picky about the fly pattern. This is still my favorite way to catch trout, just because to me nothing beats the thrill of seeing a fish come up and eat a fly. 

The dry fly takes of summer were a long way off when I began my quest. It was January and there was snow on the ground from a few days before. I knew that early in the year my favorite wild trout streams would be very difficult if not impossible to fish because the cold temperatures would have the fish sheltering in the few deep spots available. In order to make my quest attainable, I decided to start the year fishing the delayed harvest section at a local state park. This stream has wild trout farther up in the headwaters and tributaries, but the lower stretch is stocked in October, November, March, April, and May with catch and release regulations in effect from October 1 until the first Saturday in June. It also is a little flatter and slower moving than the upper river, and has quite a few deeper holes that I thought may be a good place to find fish. 

Wild Rainbow

The next few lessons I learned came when I ventured out in the snow in January to try to fool a trout. I was able to find a few fish, and they were in the deeper pools. The surprise came when I couldn't seem to get anything to eat. I tried fly after fly, added weight to get my nymphs deeper, and switched flies several times. During all this, I could see the fish holding close to the bottom. They weren't spooked, but they were definitely not interested in moving to take a fly. Finally, I tied on a heavily weighted golden stonefly nymph and worked on presenting the fly so that it sank to the level of the fish by the time it drifted over their lie.The water was extremely clear, and I chose to just watch the fly rather than use an indicator after a few attempts showed me that the fly wasn't getting deep enough with an indicator on the leader. After several casts and corrections, I manged to get a drag free drift with the fly almost hitting a trout in the nose. To my surprise and delight, the trout opened its mouth and ate the fly. It never moved until I set the hook, and I'm convinced that the only reason it ate at all was because the fly was right in front of it and it didn't have to move to eat it. I took a few things away from this trip. I learned that an indicator is helpful at times when I'm nymph fishing, but it's not always necessary or even the right choice. I learned that trout in extremely cold water in the winter are not going to be likely to move much, if at all, for a fly. Finally, I learned that getting a fly down to where the fish are will increase my success, especially if the trout are lethargic and not willing to move for a fly.

Brook Trout

Over the course of 2018, I continued to fish at least once or twice a month. Another lesson that I should have learned long ago that was reiterated to me was not to procrastinate. There were a few months when continuing the one fish a month challenge came down to the last day or two of the month, and a single fish. There's a fine line between success and failure, and not just in fishing. The times when I waited to fish until the end of the month brought this home to me, especially the time when I had to fish back to back days because I got skunked and had one day left in the month. I didn't mind at all having to fish two days in a row, but it did remind me that if you have a goal, don't take it for granted. 

I experimented with quite a few new fly patterns as well over the course of the year. I distinctly remember fishing once on a delayed harvest stream that had seen a lot of angling pressure. I couldn't get a strike on any of my usual go-to patterns, and finally switched to a much smaller nymph than I would usually fish. Several fish later, I realized that I tend to have a few fly patterns that I use all the time instead of trying to match the fly to the situation. Since that day, if fishing is tough I'm much quicker to try a different pattern, size, color, or type. Some days it has made the difference between success and failure. 

*Wet Wading in Warm Weather

Along with all the fishing lessons I learned, I had a lot of fun. I've been tying more flies and learning to tie new patterns. I've spent more time outdoors doing the things I love, and finally the writer's block seems to have been cured. I had so much fun during 2018 doing the one trout a month quest that I've continued it this year. So far as of the time I'm writing this in July I've managed to keep the streak going. I do think that as long as I'm able and life allows it, I want to keep trying to catch trout all twelve months of the year. It has gone beyond just a challenge to myself to see if I could do it, and turned into an appreciation for the challenge of fly fishing and all that comes with it. I realize that quite a few of the lessons I've learned are things that any good fly fisherman should already know. I'm just one of those hard headed individuals that has to try things themselves in order for it to sink in. I know this has been a long post, and if you've read down this far I would like to say thank you for reading my ramblings. I've been doing a fair amount of fishing and fly tying lately, and I plan to have several new posts up on this blog soon.

- Joseph

* Credit for these photos to my wife Trina

Salty Memories Part 5 - Fish Everywhere, But No Fishing!

Three years ago, I wrote a series of blog posts titled Salty Memories about my memories of Oak Island, NC and the good times I enjoyed down there with family and friends. These posts were inspired by a return to Oak Island after being away for a few years. If you haven't had a chance to read these, please take the time to check them out here: Salty Memories Part 1 - The Beginnings, Salty Memories Part 2 - The Pier Years, and Salty Memories Part 3 - Time and Tide. These three posts provide the background to this new series of posts about my most recent trip. 

This post is the start of the current trip: Salty Memories Part 4 - Familiar Places with New Faces. The following post will pick up where Part 4 left off. 

- Joseph

Trina and I on the Southport-Fort Fisher Ferry

I'm getting closer to talking about the fishing at Oak Island, I promise. This post will definitely contain a lot more fish than the last one, they just won't be on a hook. One of our traditions on almost every visit to Oak Island with my family growing up was to take the ferry from Southport over to Fort Fisher and visit the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. This was always one of the highlights of any trip to the beach for me, because the natural world has always fascinated me. I loved being able to see all the different fish and animals that were around the beach, especially the ones that I had never seen before while fishing. 

Lorikeets

The trip to the aquarium always begins with catching the ferry from Southport over to Fort Fisher. This is an adventure in itself, as you never know what you might see while crossing the Cape Fear River. On this last trip, we saw pelicans diving on schools of bait fish, a dolphin jumping, and several species of shore birds. Once we arrived at the dock, it was a short drive to the aquarium itself. Before we entered the main aquarium building, Trina and I decided to check out the new lorikeet exhibit right outside. This was a small extra charge, but we got to enter an aviary with lorikeets and lorries, and also got the opportunity to feed a few with nectar provided by the staff. It was a neat experience to get close to these bright, colorful birds and well worth the few extra bucks for admission. 

Feeding a lorikeet

The aquarium itself has changed over the years since I first started visiting, with the biggest change being the first exhibit area where you enter the aquarium. This area is now set up to represent the freshwater areas and swamps of the Cape Fear River basin, compete with bobwhite quail, box turtles, several species of fish, and alligators! The star of the alligator exhibit is an albino alligator named Luna. Trina and I saw Luna on a visit here about eight years ago, so it was interesting to see how much she had grown. Also, it was fun to see how our niece Addyson reacted to the fish tanks. She would walk up to each one and point at the fish and watch them swimming. I think we may have a future fisherwoman in the making!

She kept saying "Fish!"

Once we went through the Cape Fear exhibit, we came to the part of the aquarium that I can remember from my very young days, where there are all kinds of exhibits of marine animals and fish. We stopped by the touch pool, took a look at a loggerhead sea turtle, and saw many many different varieties of fish, lobsters, jellyfish, and other water dwellers. One thing that has always been interesting to me about this particular aquarium is their focus on species that are found in and around southeastern North Carolina. Just about all of the habitats in the exhibits are designed to simulate habitats found in coastal North Carolina, such as wrecks and artificial reefs or pier pilings. 

Fort Fisher Aquarium

We also took the time to take in a presentation on fishing basics, which covered things like license requirements and regulations along with identifying organisms that are fish versus crustaceans and other water dwellers. I thought it was a well put together introduction to fishing for anybody that wasn't too familiar with fishing but might like to give it a try. Somehow along the way I got talked into trying the hurricane simulator, which exposed you to winds up to about 75 miles an hour. It wasn't too bad, but then again it only lasted for a couple minutes. I can't imagine being in a full force category four or five hurricane, the simulator was as close as I ever hope to get. 

Luna

After a full morning at the aquarium, we drove from Fort Fisher up through Kure Beach and Carolina Beach. After a stop for doughnuts at Britt's Doughnuts in Carolina Beach, (a first for us, but highly recommended), it was back to the dock to board the ferry for the return trip to Southport. I did fish early in the morning before we went to the aquarium, but the majority of this day was spent looking at fish that were off limits, even though I have my coastal fishing license. It was a fun trip, and a nice continuation of a tradition that started with my family when I was very young. I have a lot of memories of Southport and Fort Fisher, and this trip only added to the wonderful store of them. I was glad to get to share another special place with family that had never been there, and I think they enjoyed the trip as much as I did. 

I'd like to catch one this size!

Thank you for rambling along with me on this trip. The next post should wrap up this installment of the Salty Memories series, at least until the next time I am able to make it down to the coast. Part six will be all about fish that can actually be fished for. Until then, thanks for stopping by and reading my ramblings!

- Joseph

The Neighbors

We have some strange neighbors around our house. Some of them like to steal the pears and apples from our small backyard orchard. Others are pretty slow at getting around. There's one neighbor that we normally see only after dark. Some are noisy, and others hardly make a sound. Several of the neighbors like to fly, while some love climbing trees. Others are perfectly content to stay on the ground. Some of the neighbors ensure that our garden produces every year, while others help themselves to the harvest without being invited. Some can be a real pain, especially if you make them mad. Another one likes to hang out around our carport and enclosed porch. One of the neighbors even decided to move in and build a house in one of our ferns!

Now I'm sure you've all figured out by now that I didn't decide to write a blog post talking all about our human neighbors, all of whom are fine folks that we are fortunate to live near. No, this post is all about our neighbors from the animal kingdom. For some reason, the past several days have been great ones for wildlife watching around our house. Thanks to modern technology, and the ever-present iPhone, I now have a camera handy and accessible when the opportunity arises to take a picture of one of the neighbors. At the same time, I'll go ahead and apologize if some of the pictures in this post are not of the very best quality. Most of the pictures were taken while I was outside doing something else, and often they were situations where I had to snap a picture quickly or not at all. With that being said, allow me to introduce some of the neighbors.

The Pear Thieves

Doe Under the Pear Tree

 These neighbors are fond of pears, but also green beans, tomatoes, sweet potato vines, and almost anything else that I attempted to grow in the garden this year. The only things that they left me were my peppers, and they even nibbled on the tops of those! Ever since we moved in to our house, we have seen deer fairly frequently. Sometimes we will see them at night in the headlights as we're pulling into the driveway. This time of year however, the old pear and apple trees in the back yard tend to draw them out during daylight hours. They also conducted regular nocturnal raids on our garden this year. In years past we've had a little bit of damage from deer, but this year they wiped the garden out. If anyone has any effective methods for keeping deer out of a garden, I would love to hear them!

The Pollinators

Bumble Bee on Zinnia

This next neighbor is always a welcome sight in the garden. Bumble bees and honey bees are a fairly common sight around our house, and since the garden has past its prime now they have moved from the garden to my wife's flower beds. I'm always happy to see healthy populations of pollinators, even though I do have a healthy respect for their stings. Most of the time, however, we tend to get along pretty well. I try not to disturb them, and they stay busy moving from one bloom to another. 

The Slow Poke

Eastern Box Turtle

This neighbor tends to be fairly slow getting around. Even though he sometimes likes to sample the cantaloupe in the garden, he's a fairly easygoing neighbor. He's also the state reptile of North Carolina, and the only land turtle we have in our state. This eastern box turtle, (or one of his relatives) is a fairly infrequent visitor to our yard. Yesterday was the first time I've seen him this year, but chances are he could have been around when I wasn't there to see him. A quick bit of research showed me that box turtles are extremely long lived reptiles, and this makes me wonder if this is the same turtle I sometimes saw around our house (my grandparents' house then) when I was a young boy. Either way, I don't mind sacrificing the occasional bite from the garden if it'll help keep this slow moving neighbor around.

The Short-Lived Neighbor

Luna Moth

This next neighbor was photographed just by chance. As a young boy, I used to say that I wanted to be an entomologist when I grew up. I wound up an agriculture teacher instead, but somewhere deep down that fascination with bugs stayed with me. Maybe that's why I get such a thrill out of fly fishing for trout? All those stream insects to identify and match! Anyway, back to the subject at hand, I still enjoy seeing and identifying insects, even when they're not potential trout food. I can remember when I was young seeing a luna moth at my other grandparents' house one night, and being thrilled at seeing an insect that I had never seen before. I've only seen a few of these in the years since, possibly because the adults only live about a week and are mainly nocturnal. I was working in the yard yesterday when I just happened to spot this one on one of our pecan trees. They're big, impressive moths and I had to stop and take a picture. Somewhere inside, that little five year old entomologist was smiling from ear to ear!

The Nighttime Noisemakers

Katydid on Hosta

For some reason, I've been seeing a fair number of these nocturnal neighbors during the day. However, every night I go to bed hearing their serenades outside the window. This must be a good year for katydids, because they do seem to be everywhere. These are another insect that reminds me of childhood, spending the night at my grandparents' house and sleeping with the windows open. Without fail, the katydids always provided a concert after the sun went down.

The Home Builder

This next neighbor is a next door neighbor, in this case living right next to our door. I'm not 100% confident on my bird identification, but as near as I can tell this nest belongs to a house sparrow. She is camera shy and doesn't want to hang around long enough to get a picture, but I did very carefully take a picture of the nest and eggs today. She always flies off the nest but only to the nearest perch, a crepe myrtle just a few feet away from our carport. It will be fun watching her and seeing her raise her babies. 

The Short Tempered Neighbors

Wasps on the Nest

These neighbors are the kind of neighbor most people avoid. They tend to build along the underside of our front porch roof, in the carport, and on the window sills. Every summer there are several wasp nests around our house, and as much as I try to have a live and let live attitude when it comes to the neighbors, these usually wind up getting evicted when they get too close to home. The only problem is it seems like when I get rid of a nest, a new one takes its place rather quickly. Evidently our house must be prime real estate for wasps!

The Camera Shy Neighbors

There are several more neighbors that didn't want to have their picture made for this blog post. We have an American toad that hangs out around our driveway at night. There is a five-lined skink that sometimes sneaks into our screen porch, and tends to give my wife a surprise from time to time. The yard is home to several gray squirrels, who love our pecan trees, and the last few days it seems the back yard is where the local crows are holding their morning meeting. With the exception of the damaged garden, I enjoy having all these neighbors around. For the most part, we all get along fairly well. 

- Joseph