Top Photo: A new world opens up to the red wolf pups. Born on May 5, our three male and two female red wolf pups are now freely moving around their enclosure. They’re staying fairly close to the security of the den, but moving further each day. The photos here deal with a brief few minutes when Carolina, the pups’ mother, called the pups out for a feeding and brief play period. Jacques, for unknown reasons, asserted his dominance overRead more
Posts filed in: Summer
Spring to Summer and Little Water
Top Photo: Wetlands losing water to evaporation. As spring rolls into summer, meteorologically speaking, drought hangs over us, the wetlands are drying up exposing more and more of its muddy substrate. But life goes on. Here are some photos of the past few week’s sights and more. As you can see above and below the wetlands is becoming a mud flat. If rain doesn’t appear soon it’ll become a meadow. You can see numerous tracks in the mud of turtlesRead more
Nest Box Update 5.30.26
Top Photo: Eastern bluebird, male. There has been only one change since last week, the house wrens that were bickering over the nest in one of the boxes (PKW) have added to their nest. ——————————— The Cow Pasture, Explore the Wild, Sailboat Pond, Into the Mist, and Parking Deck East boxes are all inactive. They all have been left alone for weeks. The only nest box that has seen progress is the Parking Deck West (PKW) box. As I walkedRead more
The End is Near, Summer That is
Top Photo: Ripening persimmon. There are many persimmon trees in and around our wetlands. The fruit is fast ripening. Much of the fruit will drop into the water. Fret not, fruit that plops into the water is not wasted. Our population of sliders in the wetlands will take care of whatever falls from the trees and into the water. An interesting fact about persimmons, they make excellent catfish bait. There are no catfish in our pond but if you liveRead more
Basking Turtles, Mating Anoles, and Pupating Moths
Top Photo: It’s carapace to carapace as sliders enjoy the warm sunshine. After days of either brutally hot temps or pouring rain the wetland’s sliders were out with the sun on a rather cool (relatively speaking) dry day. it was double digit turtles on the floating platforms placed in the pond specifically for that purpose. Both platforms were utilized. Green anoles were taking advantage of the change in the weather to mate. This pair was on a wooden bench inRead more
Otters
Top Photo: River otter cruises by. Standing on the boardwalk that surrounds the shallow pond in Explore the Wild I could see one, no two, brown objects on the far side of the wetlands surfacing, shaking off then quickly diving back under the water’s surface. Could they be a couple of female or young male hooded mergansers that didn’t migrate to their breeding grounds, too young to breed and dropping in to the local ponds to see what’s available inRead more
Larva
Top Photo: Larva of unknown insect on fence at Red Wolf Enclosure. I was at the red wolf enclosure when I noticed a couple of summer campers intently watching an insect crawling along the wire fence which keeps the wolves in and the people out of the enclosure. I felt the need to investigate. The insect was about 3/8” to 1/2” and mostly yellow with black-tipped yellow spines over most of its dorsal surface. To my eye, it was reminiscentRead more
The End of July
Top Photo: Male eastern tiger swallowtail seeks nectar from buttonbush flowers alongside Floating Walkway in wetlands. Eastern tiger swallowtails have essentially two flights here in the Piedmont of North Carolina. I see them in spring, centered around April, then again in July and August. The spring brood or flight is made up of smaller individuals than the summer flight. This may be due, at least in part, to environmental factors. The spring butterflies had been feeding, as larvae, from earlyRead more
A Turnabout for Little Bear
Top Photo: Little Bear (right) and Murray Bear “play” with each other in the bear enclosure. It seems, that all of the sudden, 4 year old Little Bear and 2 year old Murray Bear are best buds. Previously, Murray would attempt to engage Little, as well as much older Mimi Bear (21 yr) only to get growled at and chased away. Little was often antagonistic towards the youngest and latest addition to the bear enclosure. In the recent past LittleRead more