It can be quite amazing what you can find around us. Sometimes you’ll find an oddity. Sometimes you have to be more observant for less obvious things.

My friend’s favorite responses to me were: TOT (time on task), LOL (lots of luck) and RPRT (right place, right time). Well, since I love getting out there as often as I can, usually in the Times News region, I believe TOT is important. But I try not to focus only on birds (hard for me not to do), but to keep an eye out for almost anything unusual, different or beautiful.

I will tell you that I almost always have my canvas all-purpose bag with me, and in that is my camera, spare battery and a small jar (with lid) for temporarily holding an unusual bug, spider, etc. My camera goes with me even when I’m making a morning trip to the gym. You never know what you will see, and I want to be prepared.

I have missed opportunities, like when a bear cub crossed in front of my truck and then, almost as if it knew I was camera-less, stopped just off the side of the secondary road, stood up on its hind legs and seemed to sense I wasn’t prepared as he teased me for a minute.

So, I will show you a variety of photos taken in various spots around this area and see if you can identify them. I have included an answer pool with all the correct answers, and a few extra wrong answers, just to make it a bit more challenging.

Of course, you can check your knowledge by using the answer key included at the end of the column. Good luck, let’s see what you already know, and get out there to find many of these things yourself.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: Which of these is not an introduced species to the United States? A. Japanese knotweed; B. honey bee; C. fisher; D. Japanese barberry; E. house sparrow.

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: Chincoteague Island and Assateague Island are not the same island. Chincoteague Island is solely in Virginia, while most of the 27 miles of Assateague Island lies in Maryland.

Wildlife note: If you have nest boxes occupied by tree swallows, expect them to be finished nesting. And, unlike bluebirds, which often remain close by well into autumn, the swallows have probably dispersed already only to migrate back South through our area well into late September.

Email Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com

ANSWER POOL

Mountain laurel flowers, short-tailed shrew, hummingbird nest, European starling, sensitive fern, porcupine, rhododendron flowers, red-winged blackbird, cowbird, barn owl, emerald ash borer tunnels, fox scat, bracken fern, annual cicada, pine vole, sheep laurel, Queen Anne’s lace flowers, assassin bug, Indian pipes, milkweed flowers, barred owl, raccoon, screech owl pellets

ANSWER KEY

Photo 1: annual cicada

Photo 2: sheep laurel (look for its last blooms now in the higher elevations)

Photo 3: barred owl (our only dark-eyed owl)

Photo 4: sensitive fern

Photo 5: short-tailed shrew (only poisonous mammal)

Photo 6: milkweed flowers

Photo 7: porcupine (quills up in defense)

Photo 8: screech owl pellet (they eat the whole animal, regurgitate the fur/bones)

Photo 9: ruby-throated hummingbird nest

Photo 10: mountain laurel blossoms (they bloom before rhododendrons)

Photo 11: emerald ash borer tunnels (found just under an ash tree’s inner bark)

Photo 12: Indian pipes (appear in summer after a rainy day)

Photo 13: female red-winged blackbird (one of the most misidentified birds)