On the morning of Saturday August 10th a group of ten fabulous fungi finders gathered at the Pink Beds for a Mushroom walk led by Charlotte Caplan.  Under perfect summer skies we explored the first mile or so of the trail and unearthed a wide variety of mushroom species.  Highlights included black trumpets (ultimately serving as someone’s breakfast), and unusual speciments such as the Velvety Fairy Fan, the hard to pronounce and even harder to see Tolypocladium ophioglossoides (connected by an umbilical cord to a truffle), and a large Fairy Club.  Some distance down the trail we came to a beautiful wet meadow at a stream crossing, and a magnificent display of wildflowers (Joe Pye Weed, Ironweed, Boneset, Blue Lobelia, Goldenrod and more) distracted us from the mushrooms.  All in all a very pleasant morning spent in a great place with great people.

On Tuesday June 25th the Blue Ridge Naturalist Network hosted its first walk featuring dragonflies and damselflies at Charles D. Owen Park in Swannanoa.  Blessed with a beautiful early summer day under partly cloudy skies we had a total of 27 people participating.  Our walk leaders were local dragonfly and butterfly enthusiasts Gail Lankford and Vin Stanton.  We began by touring the perimeter of one of the small lakes at the park and soon began seeing interesting damselflies and dragonflies.  The damselflies were especially tricky to spot given their small size, but gradually we calibrated ourselves and began to notice them all around the lake.  A special treat just before lunch was spotting a Harvester butterfly along the lakeshore.