Top Photo: A great blue heron, an old wood duck nest box mounting pole, and a stake with a blue flag on it. The heron in the above photo just happened to be on scene when the photo was taken and has nothing to do with this story. The pole with the predator guard (cone shaped object) is where a wood duck nest box had been mounted. The stake to the right is the location a new pole and nestRead more
Posts filed in: Spring
More Squirrel “Food”
Top Photo: Gray squirrel enjoys what’s left of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We all know squirrels like to eat various roots, nuts, pine and other seeds. But those foods are either seasonal, difficult to acquire, or buried underground in a place where the squirrel simply can’t remember. Fortunately for them, there are plenty of alternative food sources, wherever people tend to gather. As a follow up on last week’s post, Pollen, Butterflies, and Squirrels, you can add theRead more
Nest Box Update 3.8.22
Top Photo: Eastern bluebird eggs (previous season). Each year I monitor six nest boxes placed in various locations throughout the museum’s 84 acres from March to August. Over the last 10 or so years that I’ve done the project habitat has changed, new exhibits have been built, and nest boxes have been moved to accommodate it all. I check the nest boxes once a week (Tuesdays) in the same order, Train Tunnel or Cow Pasture (TT), Explore the Wild (ETW),Read more
Pollen, Butterflies, and Squirrels
Top Photo: Male flowers of eastern red cedar or juniper. Pollen Red cedar is in bloom, and the male flowers are sending out pollen for the fertilization of female flowers, and for the rest of us to breathe in and sneeze. The local elm trees are in bloom as well. Elm is another tree, like the cedar, whose pollen is carried by the wind. Butterflies Not strictly an indication of spring, but of warm days throughout the winter and earlyRead more
Purple Martin Update
Last fall the entire population of our largest species of swallow took flight to follow the summer south of the equator. They spent the past several months in South America. They are now making their way back north, some having already been spotted within North Carolina. Click the link below to see where. Once there, click on the + to zoom in. Click on the purple dots to get information on individual sightings across their range as they progress northward.Read more
Woodpecker Holes
Top Photo: Male downy woodpecker jets out of hole it’s been working on (2/19/22). On January 12 of this year I reported on a downy woodpecker that had been excavating two, three, maybe even four holes within inches of each other in a black willow tree on the north side of the wetlands. He’s at it again. Link to last month’s excavations. The current hole he’s drilling is in the same tree. This time the single hole is about fourRead more
New Arrivals in Wetlands
Top Photo: Paddling out in the wetlands (new wetlands structure coming). If you’ve been out in Explore the Wild lately you may have noticed several new arrivals in and around the Wetlands, a floating walkway, geese, ducks, and a snake. First, the walkway. A new floating walkway across at least part of our wetlands has arrived in sections and is now in the process of being bolted together in Explore the Wild. If you stroll through the area, you mostRead more
Herons
Top Photo: Great blue heron. Great blue herons (GBHs) are by far the most often observed heron in our wetlands. They, along with green herons, nest locally. Though green herons tend to move either to the coast or to the south after mid October, great blue herons may be seen at any time of the year. A thick layer of ice on the pond is the only deterrent to a great blue heron showing up. Frogs, fish, in fact, anyRead more
Ducklings in the Wetlands
Top Photo: Mallard duck with two of her six ducklings. Ranger Molly informed me she saw a mallard duck and six ducklings in our wetlands over the weekend. On my next trip into the wetlands, I spotted the family in the swamp across from the Main Wetlands Overlook. A pair of mallards had been hanging around the wetlands the entire spring, had disappeared for a while early on, but had returned. Sometime later in the season they had again goneRead more