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This is the famous Davie Poplar, approximately 350 years of age.

At dusk, hundreds and hundreds of Chimney Swifts swirl in vortex above, before darting into the hollow trunk to spend the night. An Eastern Gray Squirrel, however, awaits their arrival, fulfilling its classification as an omnivore. [see 3rd photo].

30 years ago, Dr. Jerome Jackson had amongst the slide set for his students of Ornithology, a photo that elicited primal gasps of horror and shock. The photo showed in gruesome detail an Eastern Gray Squirrel holding a male Northern Cardinal like an ice cream cone. The head of the cardinal had been devoured.

The memory of that photo sprang to mind when I espied the Eastern Gray Squirrel lingering around the hollow into which the Chimney Swifts would descend. And then it quietly slipped in to greet them upon their arrival.

Another interesting find along the Blue Ridge Parkway in western North Carolina (16 May 2021) was this vine in bloom.
Pipevine, Dutchman's-Pipe - Aristolochia macrophylla (syn. Isotrema macrophyllum)
References:

• Brandenburg, National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Wildflowers of North America (Sterling, 2010), p. 78
• Foote and Jones, Native Shrubs and Woody Vines of the Southeast (Timber Press, 1989), p. 57, plate 9
• Radford et al., Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas (UNC Press, 1968), pp. 398-99
• Weakley, Flora of the Southeastern United States (UNC Herbarium, 2020), p. 158

in the absence of a trunk or stone to lean on, a capybara may be an option;
I have observed these two individuals do this twice;

see also
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/nelson_wisnik/21258-the-friendly-capybara

After patrolling my dad's yard for two months, remaining ever vigilant for these tiny shoots, I have come up with a new curse for thine enemy:

"May an Ailanthus Tree grow in your garden."

Whoever thought bringing these things over here was a good idea was an agent of the devil. This is actually the Tree-of-Hell.

You might think it's just a tiny seedling sprout, and pull it up so easily. And then do it again in a week. And again... and then you wonder, why do they keep appearing here?

So I dig now, and this is what I find under what appears to be only a tiny sprout. This one is the worst so far, with a long network of roots that even still broke off at their ends so that I know more will be popping up. I've started to use Roundup on them in the hope that it'll reach the tips of those roots. The roots are brittle and break easily, which aids in leaving bits behind to grow more sprouts.

It's a lost cause, though, as there is a huge mature tree loaded with seeds in the neighbor's yard. >:-/

The blue image was shot with my phone and a UV flashlight. I saw my first wild scorpions this night, AND, I got to see them glow, so I was pretty psyched. I originally had 3 scorpions in this observation, but have split out the others into their own. They are connected through Similar Observation Set.

Calopteron terminale because (1) transverse depression on elytra, (2) uniformity of ridge heights, and (3) blue tinge. I'm not sure how useful blue tinge characteristic is (from BugGuide page on species). In case useful for anyone else learning about this genus I took a stab at some visual ID tips (on pic #2):



The other two members of the genus in the United States and Canada are Calopteron reticulatum and Calopteron discrepans. I have a blog post with more pics.

Please also see the very similar Caenia dimidiata.

There are many more species (100+?) in Mexico, Central America, and South America but those species are not yet logged into iNaturalist. So if you have observed a Calopteron outside of the United States, keep your ID at the genus level even if it sort of looks like one of the three species in the United States.