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Newts, turtle sex, and a morel-munching salamander

We had a good, drenching rain on Friday night, prompting me and Althea to spend a lot of time in the woods searching for oddities over the next few days. We weren’t disappointed.

Eastern Newt (Notophthalmus viridescens)
Althea tries to figure out what these two Common Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina) are up to
A bunch of blonde morels surround our forest altar to Morchella, a tribute to fortunate foraging. I did the same with black morels I found the previous day and found the blondes almost immediately the next morning. Morchella smiles upon such offerings.
Black morels pay tribute to Morchella.
We found this Eastern Red-backed Salamander on a blonde morel (morchella americana) that we foraged over the weekend. We released him back into the wild …
Dwarf Larkspur (Delphinium tricorne)
Long-spurred Violet (Viola rostrata)
Black-and-gold Flat Millipede (Apheloria virginiensis)