A double H day!

That’s heat and humidity.  Oh my goodness, snow in Arizona, but high temps and thick air here in Mississippi.  Before I take you on our early morning hike through the savannah, I want to thank all of you commenters for your suggestions about my tire situation.  I certainly will seek a second opinion, and DAVE really gave me a good suggestion about not letting the mechanic at the new place know what I had been told previously.  I’m not sure I’ll get that done tomorrow, as this morning two more volunteers pulled in.  I told them I’d show them the ropes tomorrow.    I’ve got about three weeks before I leave, so I’ve got some time to work this out.  The tires are not in danger of exploding or anything.

 

I wanted to take Emma for a good walk before the temps got too high today, so we did the Dees trail around 8:00. 

On our way to the trailhead, I noticed that one of the birdhouses was missing from the purple martin condo.  I can’t remember if there were actually six of them there to start with or only five.  At any rate, I found one of the gourds on the ground.  It was broken in with pieces lying on top of the nest.  We haven’t had any high winds recently, so I don’t know what could have caused this gourd to fall down.  The hook that attaches it to the arm seemed to be fully intact.  That’s too bad.  Now what’s that pair of martins going to do?  Could some super glue come to the rescue?  Only if there’s a way to get the gourd back up without taking down or disturbing the other nests to my way of thinking.  Hmmm… the plot thickens.

 

Remember all those pitcher plant blossoms I posted last week?  Well, today I was hoping to find the actual ‘pitchers’ forming.

I was not disappointed.  Pitcher plants have their own unique way of capturing insects.  The pitcher is actually a modified leaf that can hold water.  Insects are attracted to nectar produced at the rim and on the inside of the pitcher.  As the insect crawls into the pitcher to get more nectar, it is trapped by downward-pointing hairs that do not allow the insect to crawl back out.  The insect falls into the base of the pitcher, which is filled with digestive enzymes.  How interesting is that?  Cool beans!

I also finally got a half way decent photo of the butterwort bloom.  This is a much smaller carnivorous plant.  It captures prey on small, sticky, glue-like pads on their leaves.  Insects are attracted to the sticky substance.  Once they land on a leaf, they are trapped by the glue.  The leaf will roll up around the insect to digest and absorb its nutrients.   What a wild and crazy place the wet pine savannah is.

I also found what I think is honeysuckle blooming.  I’m just not sure if this is a native species or an invasive species. 

 

I’m glad we took our hike in the early morning, because by the time we got back to the rig I needed a big towel to wipe off all the perspiration dripping off of me.

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy