(Stranded on) Country Roads

 

This spring shaped up to be a very busy one, and as I was on my trip to North Carolina I found out that I was being sent back to Asia for a work trip in early June. I had barely been back from the Philippines for a few weeks but it was apparently time to head out once again. That still left Memorial Day weekend, however, and exhausting travel aside I still wasn't going to let a three-day weekend go to waste. 

Thankfully, one advantage of being plugged into the birding network means that weekends are difficult to waste, especially in spring. Mollee, who I'd already been on birding adventures with in various places, invited me to come out to her home state of West Virginia for a weekend of birding, herping, and general naturalist things. I asked my usual DC birding crew if they were interested in joining, and unsurprisingly all of them were. Mollee put together an impressive 3-day itinerary of naturalist adventures for us, and on the morning of May 25 I left DC with Cassie, Vikas, Atima and George in my car. 

Although I had driven through West Virginia several times on the way between Michigan and DC, I'd never really stopped there and certainly never birded it before. Indeed it's sort of off the radar of US birders in general. That may be because the whole state gets a bit of a bad rap for... various reasons, but it's a shame. Smack dab in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains, the state is home to a huge array of breeding warblers that are otherwise only much further north, as well as an astonishing diversity of amphibians, insects, and plants. The birding scene might not be as well-developed as in other states, but we were lucky: few people know West Virginia birding better than Mollee does, and even fewer are as good at putting together amazing birding itineraries. 

Unfortunately, as we were to learn, even the best-made itineraries can require some changes when the universe has other plans...

Our first stop was Blackwater Falls State Park, the site of the biggest waterfall in West Virginia and also the highest-elevation area we would be at. We met Mollee, Jimmy and Mollee's dog Finn at the visitor's center and did some walking around to find birds. Up there the mixed spruce and hemlock forests were full of Black-throated Green Warblers, Black-throated Green Warblers, and Magnolia Warblers, Blue-headed Vireos and even a couple Canada Warblers and a heard-only Blackburnian Warbler. The understory was full of flowering rhododendrons, and we flipped some logs to find a few Allegheny Mountain Dusky Salamanders. Despite all the birds photography was tough, and the one bird we saw well, an eye-level Black-throated Blue Warbler, was when I had forgotten to take my camera out of the car. 

The gorge below Blackwater Falls

Blackwater Falls

Canada Warbler

Blue-headed Vireo

Hummingbird Clearwing in a Catawba Rhododendron

White Pine Angle (Macaria pinistrobata)

Arched Hooktip Moth (Drepana arcuata)

Allegheny Mountain Dusky Salamander

Green-legged Spur-throat Grasshopper

Birding at Blackwater Falls (all the good people pictures in here are from Mollee)

We headed into the nearby town of Davis, a tiny little artsy community on top of the mountain, where we had some enormous burritos and very nice craft beer. We also unexpectedly ran into fellow birder Jerald (who I'd known online for a long time in person) and his boyfriend Simon–very much not what we expected in rural West Virginia. The unexpected joys of the birding community...

Our afternoon destination was the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge a half hour or so away. The NWR preserves some interesting high-altitude wetland habitat with a number of good open country birds that were lifers for some of us including Grasshopper Sparrow, Willow Flycatcher, and Bobolink. We stopped at a little marsh where there was a singing Willow Flycatcher and a very distant Bobolink, but we had to take shelter for a while as a storm front came through and drenched us in rain. We took a walk in another meadow where we had some singing Field Sparrows and Indigo Buntings but not too much else. Finally we explored the Freeland Road tract on the other side of the NWR, a lovely boardwalk through a small wetland, where we had singing Grasshopper Sparrows and Savannah Sparrows, more Bobolinks, lots of Yellow Warblers, and some nice "wintertime" birds like Purple Finches and Golden-crowned Kinglets. Once again bird photography was tough but the scenery was amazing and there was some cool insect life to keep us interested.

Field Sparrow

Northern Petrophora Moth (Petrophora subaequea)

Summer Azure

Divided Olethreutes Moth (Olethreutes bipartitana)

Forked Scorpionfly (Panorpa subfurcata)

Seven-spotted Lady Beetle (Coccinella septimpunctata)

Bird's-foot Trefoil

Azure Bluet

The wetlands of the Canaan Valley NWR

It was late afternoon so we got back in our cars and headed to our AirBnb about an hour away, stopping at the beautiful Seneca Rocks. As I drove I noticed that the battery light in my car had turned on, but didn't think too much of it as everything else was working and I figured it would charge as I drove. This, dear readers, is a literary device known as foreshadowing. 

Seneca Rocks

Our AirBnb that night was in Durbin, a tiny town deep in a valley with no cell service and only one functioning restaurant. We stayed in an old house that may or may not have been haunted, and George and Atima did some grilling in the back yard while I set up a moth sheet. Unfortunately there seemed to be too many pesticides in the area as not too much came in to the sheet, but the grilling was much more successful so I was able to console myself with an excellent grilled chicken taco. 

Codling Moth (Cydia pomonella)

Yellow-shouldered Slug Moth (Lithacodes fasciola)

Olive Angle Shades (Phlogophora iris)

Contrasting Henricus Moth (Henricus edwardsiana)

Bristly Cutworm Moth (Lacinipolia renigera)

Lesser Black-letter Dart (Xestia c-nigrum)

The next morning, the destination was a spot a ways south of Durbin that Mollee knew was good for Golden-winged Warblers, a lifer a many of us and I bird I'd only recently seen for the first time in Costa Rica. Mollee, Jimmy and Cassie went ahead while the rest of us followed in my car. I mentioned to George as we drove that the battery light was on, but dismissed it as a glitch. That was about when everything in the car started to shut down. First cruise control stopped working, then the lights went off, then suddenly I could barely steer. I pulled over in a hurry and shut it off before the entire thing became undriveable. 

So it was that we found ourselves stranded on the side of the road smack dab in the middle of West Virginia. It was 7 in the morning on a holiday weekend, we were miles from the nearest town, and there was no cell service to contact Mollee and Jimmy, who we'd watched driving around the corner and out of sight as my car was breaking down. Not exactly how we'd planned the weekend to go, and we weren't quite sure what to do. Thankfully, West Virginia came through for us. 

It became clear that we didn't have any choice but to try and get help from a passing car, though there weren't many of them at that time of day. After a couple of people drove by us without stopping, we were able to flag someone. This turned out to be a local girl named Tasia, and even though she was on her way to work she was totally happy to stop and give us a hand. We tried jumping the car but even though that made it start, as soon as we removed the jumper cables it started bouncing around and smelling like burning rubber. Clearly, something was up besides a dead battery.

Thankfully, Tasia was a godsend. It turned out she worked part time at a local car repair place, and although it was closed she drove Atima and I back into Durbin where we could connect to wifi at the town's only restaurant and she could call her boss. While Tasia worked to get in touch with him, Atima and I hung out and eavesdropped on the local gossip–the restaurant wasn't open for breakfast on time and grumpy locals were congregating by the door and speculating whether it was because the owner was too lazy or the waitress was incarcerated again. 

It was still early morning on the weekend, but Tasia was able to wake up someone who knew about car repair and agreed to come out and take a look. She drove Atima and I back to where we'd left the car, and where George and Vikas were assembling a surprisingly good bird list. We thanked Tasia profusely and went back to waiting by the road. A few locals stopped by to offer us help, with one pair of men even offering to just give us a new battery from the back of their truck. Finally, the local car guy rolled up with his wife and toddler son in tow, and lumbered over to take a look at what was going on. 

It didn't take him long to determine that the battery in my car was dead (not surprising), and not only that but dead to the point it wouldn't hold a charge anymore (also not surprising). Unfortunately it seemed that the root cause for that was that the alternator itself was shot. I knew nothing about cars besides the fact that they're magic metal boxes that go fast and get us places as long as we spend money on gas, but apparently that's the thing that converts engine power into charge for the battery. If it goes bad, the battery won't charge properly. 

I bought a new battery from the car guy, but he told me that the car would only run for as long as the battery had charge. That was *probably* enough to get me into a town with a car parts place that was open, but he offered no promises. With that terrifying knowledge, we thanked him and headed on our way, stopping first in Durbin to connect to wifi and see who might have an alternator for my car. The nearest car place was the AutoZone in the town of Elkins about 30 miles away, but they didn't have the right part in stock, with the nearest option being another 30 miles out- well out of range. We'd have to settle with Elkins and perhaps charge the battery enough to make it further. 

We limped our way to Elkins, with the lights, air conditioning, and radio turned off to save as much battery as possible. Miraculously we made it to the AutoZone unscathed–and it was a true miracle, as they later tested my battery and found that it had less than 5% charge by the time we got in. Another couple of miles and we'd have been stranded again. By that time we were able to get in touch with Mollee, Jimmy and Cassie, who had arrived at the morning birding spot and realized we were nowhere to be found, presumed lost somewhere out in the wilds of West Virginia. They rushed over our way while we left my car at the AutoZone with the battery charging and went to try some local cuisine (Applebee's). 

Not the West Virginia scenery I was hoping for

Mollee and Jimmy were able to drive me into Buckhannon in their car to buy a new alternator, but we would still need to figure out how to actually put it in the car. All of the car repair places in town were either closed for the long weekend or not taking appointments until later in the week, so I was faced with the prospect of being properly stuck in West Virginia for several days. While the AutoZone guys weren't legally able to actually repair cars, one of them offered to walk us through the steps to replace the part ourselves, which wasn't ideal but better than being stranded in Elkins. Mollee, Jimmy and I drove out to buy a new alternator, George started watching YouTube videos on alternator replacement, and Cassie and Atima kept trying to find a repair guy. 

Amazingly, things came together: none of the real auto repair places would help, but one of them put us in touch with his son who also did repairs and would come and do the replacement for us. As we pulled back into the Elkins AutoZone a Harley Davidson screeched up next to us and a guy who looked vaguely like redneck Jesus got off and said he was the fixer guy. That was good enough for us, and within no time the old alternator was out, a new one was in, and my car worked again. I thanked the AutoZone guys profusely, paid Redneck Jesus, and we were on our way. It had taken a half-day of panic and about $700 in car repairs, but in the end it all worked out, mostly thanks to the kindness of total strangers. 

(This story doesn't end in West Virginia unfortunately. In fact, one month later I'm writing this blog while stranded in the Vermont countryside where my car is once again completely broken down–apparently because paying random strangers to fix your car for you doesn't always work out. Stay tuned I guess?)

By the time the car debacle was figured out it was mid-afternoon, so we had to make plans for what to do with the remainder of the weekend given the detours and lost time. Our next AirBnb and most of the other birding destinations were a ways to the south of us so we decided to get going in that direction and salvage what birding we could for the day. 

The next destination was the Muddlety Valley an hour and a half or so away, a nice area of wetlands and deciduous forest. Around the wetlands we had the usual birds like Red-winged Blackbirds, Green Herons, Tree Swallows, and Yellow Warblers, as well as another Willow Flycatcher, a distantly singing Yellow-throated Warbler, and a surprise flyover from a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. We drove a bit down the road to look for Swainson's Warbler in the woods, but Mollee's car screeched to a halt in front of us halfway there: they'd seen a Spiny Softshell Turtle by the road! This was a reptile lifer for all of us and one of the most exciting finds of the trip. In the woods we heard lots of beautifully singing Swainson's Thrushes and Acadian Flycatchers but there were no Swainson's Warblers to be found.

Red-winged Blackbird

Willow Flycatcher

Song Sparrow pretending to be an antpitta

Spiny Softshell Turtle- possibly one of the most ludicrous-looking creatures I've ever laid eyes on

Brush-legged Split Wolf Spider (Schizocosa ocreata)

Tulip-tree Beauty (Epimecis hortaria)

Ebony Jewelwing, one of the best-looking damselflies out there

Golden-backed Snipe Fly (Chrysopilus thoracicus)

The Muddlety Valley wetlands

We considered making another stop, but the rumble of thunder in the background was an ominous enough sign that we got back in the cars and headed toward the AirBnb. Indeed, we drove through a torrential downpour that had me driving at half the speed limit with hazard lights on, avoiding down branches and enormous puddles on the road. Just in case we hadn't taken enough Ls that day the storm totally knocked out the power in Fayetteville, the next town over where we'd been planning to eat dinner. The town where our AirBnb was had power but all the restaurants were packed with Fayetteville refugees with wait times of upwards of an hour. Finally some of us found grilled cheeses to order while George, Atima, Vikas and Cassie shopped for groceries and whipped up some amazing noodles, vegetables and barbecue that evening at the AirBnb. Unfortunately by that time I was a total wreck- the exhaustion of the past couple of weeks coupled with car-related stress was catching up with me and I spent most of the rest of the weekend in a bit of a feverish haze. 

Sunday was our last day in West Virginia, and while Saturday hadn't entirely gone according to plan there was still time for many cool spots before we needed to return. The first spot we hit was the New River Gorge, one of the many deep river valleys cutting through the Allegheny Mountains. Our main purpose for stopping was to enjoy the view, which was breathtaking, but we also got amazing looks at a singing Hooded Warbler, one of my favorite of the New World Warblers. 

Hooded Warbler

The New River Gorge scenery

Our next stop was the wooded hills up above the little town of Ansted, where the beech-maple forest held good breeding birds like Kentucky Warbler and Cerulean Warbler. The woods were gorgeous and full of interesting plants and insects, but birding was tough; this time of year most of the good birds are very high up in the canopy and hard to get a good look at. There were no Kentucky Warblers around and Cerulean Warblers were heard only, but there were other good birds we did see like Hooded Warblers, Black-and-white Warblers, Ovenbirds, and Wood Thrushes and we even managed to flush a Wild Turkey out of a tree roost. Alas, the only things I managed to photograph were the bugs. 

Some sort of cool stonefly (Isoperla sp.)

Tawny Virbia Moth (Virbia opella)

Elegant Crab Spider (Xysticus elegans) inside a cracked turkey egg

Large Lace-border Moth (Scopula limboundata)

We continued on to the next stop on our itinerary, the woods around the Summersville Lake reservoir. We took a walk through the woods near the dam and found very few interesting birds besides a heard-only Louisiana Waterthrush, but lots of cool insects and plants. That was a bit of a trend for the trip but as a group we were all interested enough in non-bird things that there was never really a boring moment- one of the things that made this trip a great deal of fun despite... circumstances. By the edge of the water we found a cool flock of feeding swallowtails and heard good birds like Yellow-throated Warbler, Hooded Warbler, Yellow-throated Vireo, and Least Flycatcher but couldn't find Swainson's Warbler, the main target.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails and a Spicebush Swallowtail

Red-spotted Admiral

Spicebush Swallowtail

Serrate Dark Fishfly (Nigronia serricornis)

Fragile Forktail

Black Purseweb Spider (Sphodros niger)

Little Wood Satyr

Canadian Flat-backed Millipede (Pseudopolydesmus canadensis)

Black Firefly (Lucidota atra)

Eastern Least Clubtail (Stylogomphus albistylus)

Baby American Toad

Norman's Quaker caterpillar (Crocigrapha normani)

Ghost Pipe! One of my favorite North American plants and one of the few plants that completely lacks chlorophyll

 

Just as we were about to give up and head to the next place, we heard a Swainson's Warbler singing from the slope above us! Mollee, George and I scrambled up the steep hill until we got to the patch of rhododendrons it was hanging out in, and we got brief but nice looks as it did a circle around us. It was basically a lifer for me as my only other record was of a heard-only bird years ago in South Carolina, and one of my main target birds for the trip. 

Swainson's Warbler

Our last stop of the day, and of our West Virginia trip, was the Cranberry Glades Botanical Area in the Monongahela National Forest. Probably the spot I'd most looked forward to for the trip, it's a very nice boardwalk through an acidic mountain bog filled with cranberry bushes and other interesting plants and insects. The bog was absolutely gorgeous, and full of birds with Myrtle Warblers, Chestnut-sided Warblers, Magnolia Warblers and Canada Warblers singing throughout. We ended up getting amazing looks at a Canada Warbler and I finally got some of my only decent bird pictures of the weekend. Birds aside my favorite was a patch of sphagnum moss dotted with Purple Pitcher Plants and a few sundews- because why come to a bog if not to look for cool carnivorous plants?

Magnolia Warbler

Canada Warbler

Canadian Owlet caterpillar (Calypta canadensis)

Eastern Elderberry Borer

Marsh Blue Violet with a Variable Duskyface Fly (Melanostoma mellinum)

White-striped Black (Trichodezia albovittata)

Purple Pitcher Plant

Round-leaved Sundew eating some sort of bug

Bristly Buttercup

The Cranberry Glades boardwalk

The swamp forest at Cranberry Glades

Mollee is much better at taking people pictures than I am

That was all we had time for, as we all had work the next day and I was feeling even more like death than I had been earlier. We bid our goodbyes to Mollee and Jimmy and made our way back to DC, thankfully with George doing most of the driving. I barely had enough energy to make it through the door to my apartment before I collapsed in bed and slept for about 18 hours tormented by fever dreams.

Sickness and car troubles aside it was still an extremely fun weekend, and a chance to see a part of the country I'd absolutely never been to despite living just a few hours away. I fully expect to be back in West Virginia again very soon for some more naturalist adventures- and ideally to try doing it with a functional car in case that improves things.