On April 22, I posted to this blog about a northern cardinal’s nest in a red cedar tree at the Red Wold Exhibit in Explore the Wild. I included photos of the nestlings in the post. Fours days later, the nestlings are out of the nest, they fledged on the morning of 26 April. I was able to get photos of three of the fledglings. They’re posted here for your viewing pleasure. The nest was a bit crowded for the four fast growingRead more
Month: April 2017
Bluebird Update 4.25.17
We have two empty nests, one bluebird and one chickadee. Of the remaining four active nests, there is a total of 18 nestlings, three of which are bluebirds and 15 chickadees. The Cow Pasture nest box remains empty with no further activity. It has an empty bluebird’s nest within. A house wren cleared it of its bluebird eggs sometime during the previous week. The chickadees that have nested in the nest box located at the entrance to the service roadRead more
New Additions (4) at Red Wolf Exhibit
No, no, not red wolf pups, northern cardinal chicks! For the past several weeks a pair of cardinals have been building a nest, laying eggs, incubating and hatching out those eggs, and finally feeding four nestlings right over our heads at the Red Wolf Enclosure. Just two feet over our heads, as one stands at the red wolf interpretive signage at the overlook, the cardinals have been flying in and out of the nest in a red cedar tree atRead more
Bluebird Update 4.18.17
As of Tuesday morning (4/18/17), we have 10 eggs and 16 hatchlings in our six nest boxes. All 10 eggs belong to chickadees. Three of the nestlings are bluebirds and 13 are chickadees. We lost five bluebird eggs though the nest destroying behavior of another species of bird. When I last looked into the nest box at the Cow Pasture it had five blue eggs within its pine straw and grass lined nest. This morning, it was empty. As myRead more
Reptiles and Amphibians
It is spring, and rapidly approaching summer. The reptiles and amphibians of our wetlands are busy doing whatever it is they do at this time of year. Sliders and other aquatic turtles are out basking in the sun. Musk turtles are eating. American toad eggs have been hatching. There are 35 turtles on the logs in the banner at the top of this page. Among those is one of the largest, if not the largest, yellow-bellied slider in the wetlands.Read more
Bluebird Update 4.11.17
Another week of nesting season has gone by, some things remain the same, others have changed. We currently have 24 eggs, all being incubated, and three hatchlings in our six nest boxes. If you remember, there were 24 eggs in the nests last week. Three of those eggs have hatched. So how can we still have 24 eggs? Read on to find out. The Cow Pasture nest held 2 eggs on Tuesday last (4/4). There are now 5 eggs in that nestRead more
Bluebird Update 4.4.17
We are now into our third week of nest box inspections and all of our six nest boxes are in use. Two of the boxes are occupied by eastern bluebirds, the remaining four by Carolina chickadees. The Cow Pasture nest has 2 bluebird eggs where last week there were none. I expect they’ll be one or two more eggs when I peek into the nest box next week. The chickadee nest in the nest box on the service road in ExploreRead more
End of the Line: Part 2
Part 2 – A continuation of an earlier post (here). Carolina Parakeet I was walking a dirt track in a local wildlife management area in central New Jersey. It was the mid 1980s. On the right side of the road was a small meadow. The meadow gave way to riparian woods which gently sloped to a small phragmites-lined estuarine river. The other side of the road had a narrow strip of grass (weeds) and a line of trees forming aRead more