Eastern Box Turtle, with orchids, and others

An Eastern Box Turtle clambers over a branch in a rich Hocking County woods, last Thursday. Handsome Pink Lady's-slippers, Cypripedium acaule, provide a photographic flourish.

I have covered major ground of late, which is always great, but such travels make it tough to offer up blogs of much substance. West Virginia for a week; one of the best single-day forays I've had in some time (the Hocking County trip where I made this turtle image); a very rare Curlew Sandpiper (thanks Steve Jones!!) and many other interesting birds along Lake Erie; the best warbler day in recent memory at the fabled Magee Marsh Wildlife Area; thousands of Lakeside Daisies, Tetraneuris herbacea at their finest, eight hours in a helicopter covering what seemed like half the state, and more.

A Small White Lady's-slipper, Cypripedium candidum, vividly punctuates the early spring Castalia Prairie in Erie County.

Yellow-breasted Chat, fresh from bath. Hocking County.

A stunning male Prairie Warbler peeks from a thorny snarl of blackberries. Hocking County.

Next, and soon I hope, will come a montage of warblers from last Sunday's INCREDIBLE day along the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area's Bird Trail.