The sun finally showed itself here at the Museum after over a week of hiding behind rainy, drizzly, stratus clouds. It didn’t take long before the turtles of the Wetlands came out to take advantage of the rarity by basking in the warm sunshine. A small tree has fallen onto one of the turtles’ favorite basking boulders limiting access to the spot. Even so, the turtles began filling up space on the boulder early in the day. Good day sunshine!Read more
Posts filed in: Herps
We have much to do before winter
With each passing cold front the temperatures are a little cooler, the humidity a little dryer, and winter a little closer. There’s plenty going on outside during this transitional time of year when we make the shift from summer to winter. It’s time to prepare for what’s to come and the birds, mammals, and insects are doing just that. As the cicadas wind down so too the activities of the Cicada Killer. Hopefully their burrows are stocked with cicadas forRead more
Things you may have walked past and not noticed.
This past Saturday, I saw an adult Pickerel Frog out on the path in Explore the Wild. It was a bright sunny, and dry day. I probably wouldn’t even mention this if it were February or March, or even April, the months when this species breeds, necessity bringing them down to the water for courting and laying eggs. Most of the rest of the year they’re up in the woods or well hidden along the edge of the water, notRead more
It’s all out there, heat or not.
We are not experiencing record heat, in fact it’s hotter today (7/19) in Boston than it is here, high 90s to low 90s, respectively. But it’s still hot. No one could convince me otherwise. So why was there a bullfrog sitting on the pavement today in Explore the Wild? True, the frog in the above photo is in the shade. And, that particular patch of pavement is in shade most of the day, but is it really cooler than a niceRead more
Observations
I see tree frogs nearly every day in and around the Museum’s Wetlands. It’s difficult to not take photos of them, they’re so attractive. After photographing one such tree frog, a green tree frog, I noticed a line of small marks on its nape, just behind the head. The marks looked like a series of small tears in the frog’s skin. What could have caused these tiny cuts or tears in the frog’s skin? I don’t know for sure, butRead more
When Frogs and Toads become Frogs and Toads
Last week while walking along the path in Explore the Wild, I stepped off into the grass to have a closer look at the Wetlands, the water’s edge. As my foot hit the grass half a dozen tiny creatures leapt for their lives. Hmm. Looking closer I realized they were frogs, Pickerel Frogs and Spring Peepers. A day or two before, I had come across a miniature toad hopping across the path. During February, March, and into April, Spring Peepers, PickerelRead more
A Few More Sightings From the Wild
It’s been a while since I’ve come upon an adult Red Swamp Crawfish hiking across the path in Explore the Wild. I’d seen a bunch of the younger and smaller crawfish caught and used in Wetlands Teaching Programs, but hadn’t seen adults out and about for some time. The heavy rains of the past week brought them out of the water and on to the “road.” Last week I posted about a mourning dove building a nest in a willowRead more
What’s up in the Wild
Here’s a little of what’s going on in the Wild at the Museum…a caterpillar. A damselfly. An assassin bug. A nest-building bird. A morphing frog. A tree frog who thinks it can’t be seen. And, a bird with a frog. And that’s some of what I’ve been seeing. How about you?Read more
Northern Water Snake vs Copperhead
It’s almost a daily occurrence, I’d be watching a water snake coiled up and snoozing in the grass on the north side of the Wetlands, point the snake out to someone passing by and they’d say, “That looks like a Copperhead,” or, “Is that a moccasin, cottonmouth?” or most often, “Is it poisonous?” The answer to that statement and those questions is always no. In explaining my no response, last question first, no snake in our area is poisonous. It’s an honestRead more