Roads End Naturalist

Exploring the natural world as we wander at the end of the road

Author: Mike Dunn

  • My Temple is the Swamp

    …I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most impenetrable and to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place…I seemed to have reached a new world, so wild a place…far away from human society. ~Henry David Thoreau My last trips to the magical swamps of the Roanoke River happened… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Chip Away

    The temple of truth has never suffered so much from woodpeckers on the outside as from termites within. ~Vance Havner Melissa spotted a pair of pileated woodpeckers out front the other day and we grabbed the scope to take a closer look. They were both pounding on a couple of hickory stumps that we had… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Swampin’ Again

    ,

    Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. ~Winnie the Pooh Well, if you didn’t know it before, you will know it now…swamps are Melissa’s (and my) favorite places to camp in North Carolina. And one swamp in particular, the “Amazon of North Carolina”, the massive swamps along the Roanoke… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Song of the Swamp

    ,

    If prisons, freight trains, swamps, and gators don’t get ya to write songs, y’ain’t got no business writin’ songs. ~Ronnie Van Zant As part of our “farewell tour”, we drove up to Merchants Millpond State Park last weekend. When I was working with state parks, I fell in love with that place and its amazing… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Snow Birds

    ,

    Winter perches like a bird. Wings tucked in so the soul is heard. ~Angie Weiland-Crosby Another nice snowfall (it has been many years since I could utter that phrase around these parts). We probably got about 3 inches here and it was a nice fluffy snow (prepping us for our upcoming move to Montana no… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Grand Finale

    ,

    The song is ended, but the melody lingers on. ~Irving Berlin After leading my last group over a week ago, we decided to make one more trip to Pungo last Friday (it appears letting go truly is hard to do!). Our friend, Meghan, was with us and we decided to do a day trip for… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • My Last Group

    ,

    Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. ~Dr. Seuss Last weekend, I had the privilege of co-leading a group of folks to two of my favorite NC places, the Pungo Unit of Pocosin Lakes NWR and Mattamuskeet NWR. It was for a program sponsored by the NC Botanical Garden and New Hope Bird… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Salamander Nights

    ,

    The real beauties of nature Whisper Instead of shouting ~Melissa Dowland For those of you not on social media (I posted some of this today on FB)… I cleaned out (removed excessive filamentous algae and some leaves) our two small wildlife pools last Friday in anticipation of the predicted rain, thinking it might be the… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Our Busy Woods

    ,

    Life keeps moving, even when you can’t watch. ~Unknown While we have been busy on the road and having all sorts of appointments, the creatures of our woods continue with their busy lives. The trail cameras have recorded a lot of the usual suspects – deer, squirrels, and coyotes. But it is always fascinating to… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Soundscapes

    ,

    The sound of birds stops the noise in my mind. ~Carly Simon I was back in my favorite spot in North Carolina this past week – Pocosin Lakes NWR. A lot has changed on the refuge since my first visit back in the early 1980’s. Back then, you could walk almost anywhere this time of… Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn