Awakenings

Top Photo: Adeyha and Oak (front) sticking close. It’s February and the season for procreation begins. Red wolf Oak is in estrus, Canada geese have arrived, hawks are soaring above screaming out their intentions, and songbirds are ramping up their melodious twitterings. Oak and Adeyha have been much more attached to one another over the past week, estrus has arrived. As of yet, I’ve not witnessed a tie, which is required for the female to become pregnant. Each year inRead more

More Quick Pics

Top Photo: Amur maple seeds. It’s a warm day in February, just the weather for strolling around campus. Here’s a mere handful of what you might see while you’re out there this week. There’s much more out there than this small sample of goodies suggests. So what are you waiting for, get out and have a look around!Read more

The Little Nuthatch

Top Photo: Brown-headed nuthatch pecks away at willow trunk. Brown-headed nuthatches are the smallest of the eastern nuthatches. In the southeast, where there are pines, there are likely these tiny, frenetic birds foraging among the outer branches and cones of the trees. White-breasted nuthatches prefer more deciduous forest habitat. Though you may see the larger (by an inch and more) white-breasted nuthatch in the same pine habitat as brown-headed nuthatches, you won’t see brown-headed nuthatches far from stands of pines.Read more

Birds to Look Out For

Top Photo: One of two pileated woodpeckers seen near the Lemur House on 22 December. I heard the call coming from the woods next to the Lemur House, in the woods between the lemurs and the Sailboat Pond in Catch the Wind. At first I thought it the call of a flicker, but it was deeper, more liquid and more powerful than a flicker’s call. It had to be a pileated woodpecker. I’d seen and heard pileated on our campusRead more

Merganser Display

Top Photo: Three male hooded mergansers try to impress female, though she seems little interested. Anywhere from a single individual to 6 hooded mergansers have been seen cruising the wetlands during the last month or so. Keep an eye out for small groups as they may be performing a pair-bond display as in the photos posted here. The males vie for the female’s attention, each aiming to become the one she chooses to mate with. They dance around in theRead more

Juniper Berries Anyone?

Top Photo: American robin foraging on eastern red cedar. Had you visited the Red Wolf Enclosure’s overlook in the past few days you may have heard the chortle of robins above. You may have had juniper berries rain down on your head. You may have seen a dozen or more birds flitting about, knocking the small blue fruit off the tree limbs in their zeal to consume them. American robins, bluebirds, hermit thrushes, sapsuckers and yellow-rumped warblers have all beenRead more
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A Ruby-crowned Display

Top Photo: Ruby-crowned kinglet in full display mode. Male ruby-crowned kinglets have a patch of red feathers on the top of their heads, the crown. The ruby-red crown of this tiny, frenetic bird is usually concealed by olive-green/gray feathers, except when the bird is excited. Excitement means, while the bird is in the presence of a potential mate, predator or rival. In the case here, the bird was stimulated by its own reflection in the passenger side mirror of aRead more