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North River (South Fork Shenandoah River)
The North River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 river in the mountains and Shenandoah Valley of northern Virginia, the United States. It joins the South River at Port Republic to form the South Fork Shenandoah River. The river rises at above sea level in western Augusta County, below Dyers Knob on Shenandoah Mountain along the Virginia- West Virginia border. From the man-made Elkhorn Lake it flows south and then east through the George Washington National Forest. The river breaks out of the Allegheny Mountains at North River Gap and flows into the broad Valley of Virginia. The river passes through the town of Bridgewater and flows southeast, joining the South River at Port Republic. The Middle River, a major tributary, joins the North River just west of the town of Grottoes, four miles above the juncture with the South River. Other towns along the river include Mount Solo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shenandoah Valley
The Shenandoah Valley () is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians (excluding Massanutten Mountain), to the north by the Potomac River and to the south by the James River. The cultural region covers a larger area that includes all of the valley plus the Virginia highlands to the west, and the Roanoke Valley to the south. It is physiographically located within the Ridge and Valley province and is a portion of the Great Appalachian Valley. Geography Named for the river that stretches much of its length, the Shenandoah Valley encompasses eight counties in Virginia and two counties in West Virginia. * Augusta County, Virginia * Clarke County, Virginia * Frederick County, Virginia * Page County, Virginia * Rockbridge County, Virginia * Rockingham County, Virginia * Shenandoah Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grottoes, Virginia
Grottoes is an incorporated town in Augusta and Rockingham counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. The population was 2,668 at the 2010 census. The Rockingham County portion of Grottoes is part of the Harrisonburg Metropolitan Statistical Area, while the small portion that extends into Augusta County is part of the Staunton– Waynesboro Micropolitan Statistical Area. Only seven of the town's 2,668 residents reside in Augusta County. Grottoes is home to the Grand Caverns, America's oldest show cave. History The town was incorporated in 1892 under the name Shendun. In 1912 the name was changed to Grottoes. ("Grottoes" means caves). The Stephen Harnsberger House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Geography Grottoes is located at (38.267385, −78.824868). According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 1.3 square miles (3.4 km2), all land. Transportation The main highways providing access to Grottoes ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Largemouth Bass
The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, but widely introduced elsewhere. It is known by a variety of regional names, such as the widemouth bass, bigmouth bass, black bass, bucketmouth, largies, Potter's fish, Florida bass, Florida largemouth, green bass, bucketmouth bass, Green trout, gilsdorf bass, Oswego bass, LMB, and southern largemouth and northern largemouth. The largemouth bass is the state fish of Georgia and Mississippi, and the state freshwater fish of Florida and Alabama. Taxonomy The largemouth bass was first formally described as ''Labrus salmoides'' in 1802 by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède with the type locality given as the Carolinas. Lacépède based his description on an illustration of a specimen collected by Louis Bosc near Charle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Snapping Turtle
The common snapping turtle (''Chelydra serpentina'') is a species of large freshwater turtle in the family Chelydridae. Its natural range extends from southeastern Canada, southwest to the edge of the Rocky Mountains, as far east as Nova Scotia and Florida. The three species of '' Chelydra'' and the larger alligator snapping turtles (genus '' Macrochelys'') are the only extant chelydrids, a family now restricted to the Americas. The common snapping turtle, as its name implies, is the most widespread. The common snapping turtle is noted for its combative disposition when out of the water with its powerful beak-like jaws, and highly mobile head and neck (hence the specific epithet ''serpentina'', meaning "snake-like"). In water, it is likely to flee and hide underwater in sediment. The common snapping turtle has a life-history strategy characterized by high and variable mortality of embryos and hatchlings, delayed sexual maturity, extended adult longevity, and iteroparity (repea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Painted Turtle
The painted turtle (''Chrysemys picta'') is the most widespread native turtle of North America. It lives in slow-moving fresh waters, from southern Canada to northern Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They have been shown to prefer large wetlands with long periods of inundation and emergent vegetation. This turtle is a member of the genus '' Chrysemys'', which is part of the pond turtle family Emydidae. Fossils show that the painted turtle existed 15 million years ago. Three regionally based subspecies (the eastern, midland, and western) evolved during the last ice age. The southern painted turtle (''C. dorsalis'') is alternately considered the only other species in ''Chrysemys'', or another subspecies of ''C. picta''. The adult painted turtle is 13–25 cm (5–10 in) long; the male is smaller than the female. The turtle's top shell is dark and smooth, without a ridge. Its skin is olive to black with red, orange, or yellow stripes on its extremities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltimore Oriole
The Baltimore oriole (''Icterus galbula'') is a small icterid blackbird common in eastern North America as a migratory breeding bird. It received its name from the resemblance of the male's colors to those on the coat-of-arms of 17th century Lord Baltimore. Observations of interbreeding between the Baltimore oriole and the western Bullock's oriole, ''Icterus bullockii'', led to both being classified as a single species, called the northern oriole, from 1973 to 1995. Research by James Rising, a professor of zoology at the University of Toronto, and others showed that the two birds actually did not interbreed significantly. The Baltimore oriole is the state bird of Maryland. It is also the namesake and mascot for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team. Taxonomy The Baltimore oriole was one of the many bird species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in the 1758 10th edition of his '' Systema Naturae'', where it was given the binomial name of ''Coracias galbula''. Like all ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belted Kingfisher
The belted kingfisher (''Megaceryle alcyon'') is a large, conspicuous water kingfisher, native to North America. All kingfishers were formerly placed in one family, Alcedinidae, but recent research suggests that this should be divided into three subfamilies. Taxonomy The first formal description of the belted kingfisher was by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his '' Systema Naturae''. He introduced the binomial name ''Alcedo alcyon''. The current genus ''Megaceryle'' was erected by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1848. ''Megaceryle'' is from the Ancient Greek ''megas'', "great", and the existing genus '' Ceryle''. The specific ''alcyon'' is Latin for "kingfisher". The ''Megaceryle'' large green kingfishers were formerly placed in ''Ceryle'' with the pied kingfisher, but the latter is closer to the ''Chloroceryle'' American green kingfishers. The belted kingfisher's closest living relative is the ringed kingfisher (''M. torquat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canada Goose
The Canada goose (''Branta canadensis''), or Canadian goose, is a large wild goose with a black head and neck, white cheeks, white under its chin, and a brown body. It is native to the arctic and temperate regions of North America, and it is occasionally found during migration across the Atlantic in northern Europe. It has been introduced to the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Japan, Chile, Argentina, and the Falkland Islands. Like most geese, the Canada goose is primarily herbivorous and normally migratory; often found on or close to fresh water, the Canada goose is also common in brackish marshes, estuaries, and lagoons. Extremely adept at living in human-altered areas, Canada geese have established breeding colonies in urban and cultivated habitats, which provide food and few natural predators. The success of this common park species has led to its often being considered a pest species because of its excrement, its depredation of crops ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wood Duck
The wood duck or Carolina duck (''Aix sponsa'') is a species of perching duck found in North America. The drake wood duck is one of the most colorful North American waterfowl. Description The wood duck is a medium-sized perching duck. A typical adult is from ( or 1.5 feet max.) In length with a wingspan of between . The wood duck's weight ranges from 454-862 g (16.0-30.4 oz). This is about three-quarters of the length of an adult mallard. It shares its genus with the Asian Mandarin duck (''Aix galericulata''). The adult male has stunning multicolored iridescent plumage and red eyes, with a distinctive white flare down the neck. The female, less colorful, has a white eye-ring and a whitish throat. Both adults have crested heads. The male's call is a rising whistle, ''jeeeeee''; the females utter a drawn-out, rising squeal, ''do weep do weep'', when flushed, and a sharp ''cr-r-ek, cr-e-ek'' for an alarm call. Behavior Their breeding habitat is wooded swamps, shallow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Blue Heron
The great blue heron (''Ardea herodias'') is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North America and Central America, as well as the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to coastal Spain, the Azores, and areas of far southern Europe. An all-white population found in south Florida and the Florida Keys is known as the great white heron. Debate exists about whether this represents a white color morph of the great blue heron, a subspecies of it, or an entirely separate species. The status of white individuals known to occur elsewhere in the Caribbean, and their existence is rarely found elsewhere besides in eastern North America. Taxonomy The great blue heron was one of the many species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th-century work, ''Systema Naturae''. The scientific name comes from Latin ''ardea'', and Ancient Greek (), both meaning "heron". The great blue h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Crawford, Virginia
Mount Crawford is a town in Rockingham County, Virginia, United States. It is included in the Harrisonburg Metropolitan Statistical Area, and the town's population was 433 at the 2010 census. History Contentment was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. Geography Mount Crawford is located at (38.357039, −78.941807). According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.3 square miles (0.9 km), of which, 0.3 square miles (0.9 km) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km) of it (5.71%) is water. Transportation The main road running through Mount Crawford is U.S. Route 11. Just north of the town limits, US 11 connects with Virginia State Route 257, which connects with Interstate 81, the main long-distance highway through the region. Demographics At the 2000 census there were 254 people, 104 households, and 74 families living in the town. The population density was 764.0 people per square ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Chimneys, Virginia
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are part of nature, human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena. The word ''nature'' is borrowed from the Old French ''nature'' and is derived from the Latin word ''natura'', or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant " birth". In ancient philosophy, ''natura'' is mostly used as the Latin translation of the Greek word '' physis'' (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics of plants, animals, and other features of the world to develop of their own accord. The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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