Pigeon House Re-hab Helps Edna Metz Wells Park

A nice piece of graffiti has garnered some media attention for the City rehabilitation project taking place just above Edna Metz Wells Park along Smallwood Drive. The stretch represents the headwaters of Pigeon House Branch, which was diverted, ditched and straightened during the construction of Cameron Village.

This is the current view of Edna Metz, but as you can see below, all is well in the interior.

The entrance off Park Drive.

The small park between East and West Forest drive just above Edna Metz.

This is the beginning of work on the Smallwood section. They added large boulders, retention terraces and other measures to complicate and slow down the flows after heavy rains and restore some biodiversity to this section of the creek.

The landscape is recovering quickly, as you can see be comparing this image with the one below from a month ago.

Pigeon House Branch crosses Clark into Edna Metz Wells Park.

Now here is the graffiti, at the outlet into the park.

Edie Sedgwick's portrait

My record tulip tree inside the beltline inside Edna Metz.

excellent Goodnight, Raleigh post about the portrait

Raleigh Nature article on the subject

Raleigh Nature main site

Downed Tree Highlights Snowy Greenway Walk

When the lovely, harmless 3 inch fluff ended on a Saturday morning, I took off for my favorite sight-seeing greenway, Buckeye Trail from Milburnie Road. At the edge of Rollingwood, Crabtree has carved out a tall bluff (at least for this part of Raleigh), and at the end of this picture post you will see a snowy tree which has fallen off this bluff on to the greenway.

Longview Branch at Mulburnie after snow February 12-13, 2010.

Longview Branch upstream from Milburnie greenway bridge.

Landfill meadow at Milburnie Road greenway.

Snowy slope on Buckeye Trail.

Deer and coon tracks after February snows at lanfill meadow on Buckeye Trail.

Pine and beech off Buckeye Trail.

Brook from Rollingwood slope enters Long Branch off Buckeye Trail.

Oak stump on Buckeye Trail

This tree had a monstrously huge box elder beetle gall on its side before being cut down.

(return to) Raleigh Nature snow post

Lassiter Mill Dam with High Water

This clip was taken at Lassiter Mill dam in Raleigh on Friday December 4th after scattered and sometimes torrential rains during the week.

Acadia National Park and Mount Desert Island

bald eagle on Bar Harbor island

Cara and I went to Bar Harbor the last week in June, staying at Emory's Cottages on upper Frenchman's Bay. We visited Acadia National Park and covered a lot of the less famous features of Mount Desert Island as well. Below is the Bass Harbor lighthouse, located at the southeast corner of the island. This post, part one of two, covers the interior of the island and views from Cadillac Mountain. Part Two covers our cottage's beach, our boat trips and Indian Point nature preserve. The naturalist essay based on these pictures is at Raleigh Nature.

Don't forget - all pics click to enlarge!

John Dancy-Jones (author) at Bass Harbor, Maine

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Otter Cliffs by Cara Dancy-Jones

scoters off Otter Cliffs

Thunder Hole

hottest tourist spot in Acadia National Park

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Acadia interior creek

close-up of beaver dam by Cara

frog in Abbe' Garden, Acadia National park

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Trail up Dorr Mountain, named for the founder of Acadia National Park. He, Rockefeller and others just bought up the island farm by farm and gave it to the Park.

Cara on Dorr Mountain trail

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We had a wonderful carriage ride in Acadia National Park, on some of the 47 miles of carriage roads designed and built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., whose anti-automobile covenant on his magnificent donation protects the park to this day. Our driver was a horseman from Pennsylvania who uses these horses for logging in the winter and drives eight of them to Acadia each summer for some productive exercise!

Mr. Rockefellers's Depression bridge

carriage ride brook by Cara

the Bubble Mountains

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Cara and I are both point-n-shoot folks, but she has a better camera and a wonderful eye for natural beauty. This "photo painting" is her trimmed zoom of some cliff flowers. All of the photos she took in this post are clearly labeled so. Thanks, baby-baby!

bearberries by Cara

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Eagle Lake, Acadia National Park

summit of Cadillac Mountain

Acadia National Park, Maine

Cadillac Mountain granite

Bar Harbor from Cadillac Mountain

Porcupine Islands from Cadillac Mountain

Otter Point from Cadillac Mountain

This is upper Frenchman's Bay from Cadillac Mountain. We stayed at Sand Point, the triangular protrusion just to the right of center. That beach and other adventures from our week at Bar Harbor are covered in Part Two of this photo post.

return to Raleigh Nature