Fresh pale green of new emerging leaves
Pink or pinkish blooms of mountain laurel (late spring), pink azalea, hillside blueberry
Red blooms of red maple, black huckleberry
White blooms of flowering dogwood, common serviceberry
Green moss with long thread-like appendages that support tiny spore-bearing fruiting bodies
Migratory birds arriving or passing through
Nesting birds setting up territories, building nests
Veery calling in the middle of the day, when most other birds are quiet
Gray squirrels feeding on the buds, flowers, or seeds of red maple Ecobit: When Black is only Gray
Pink or pinkish blooms of mountain laurel (early summer)
Red blooms of black huckleberry
White blooms of striped prince's-pine, partridgeberry—low to the ground
Dark berries of hillside blueberry, black huckleberry
Red berries of common serviceberry
Nesting birds actively collecting food for young birds. Baby birds learning to fly and following their parents around, begging for food
Gray squirrels energetically flirting, chasing each other through the tree tops (very early summer; their second annual litter of 3-5 born in August or September in leaf or twig nest in crotch of tree)
Nuts (hard mast): oak acorns, beechnuts and occasional pine cones
Striking color contrasts—Gray rock outcrops, dark soil, green moss, light gray or dark brown trunks, colorful leaves
Yellow leaves of American beech, American witch-hazel
Red and orange leaves of blackgum, red maple
Purple and brown leaves of flowering dogwood, oaks
Dark green leaves of mountain laurel, American holly
Yellow blooms of American witch-hazel
White blooms of white wood-aster
Dark berries of mapleleaf viburnum, roundleaf greenbrier
Red berries of partridgeberry, flowering dogwood
Red fox hunting for mice
Migratory birds leaving or passing through and winter resident birds arriving
Some years, abundant white, wooly strings of the “Boogie-Woogie Aphid” on beech twigs Ecobit: The Boogie-Woogie Aphid Look for caterpillars or other predators eating the aphids
Rugged landscape and rock outcrops stand out!
Fallen leaves make studying leaf shapes easy: three-fingered leaves of sassafras; scalloped leaves of chestnut oak
Tan, dead leaves on tree—American beech
Evergreen leaves—mountain laurel, American holly, pines
White-and-green mottled leaves of striped prince's-pine (small plant)
Green, bare twigs of hillside blueberry
Dark contorted stems of mountain laurel
Gray smooth bark of American beech
Dark, deeply furrowed bark of chestnut oak
Fat, onion-shaped flower buds on flowering dogwood tree
Winter resident birds such as dark-eyed junco, ruby-crowned kinglet, golden-crowned kinglet, hermit thrush, yellow-rumped warbler
Gray squirrels noisily chasing each other through the tree tops in late January and February—part of courtship and mating