Top Photo: Canada geese float about in wetlands. You can’t help but see the Canada geese drifting about on our three acre pond in Explore the Wild. They’re big, loud, and recently, there’ve been ten of them present, five pairs. With the installation of the floating walkway in our wetlands you may have the opportunity to get quite close to the geese. Of course, they sometimes walk along the main path grazing on the grass as they go, so youRead more
Posts filed in: Herps
Spring Is Here!
Top Photo: Redbud, about to burst wide open. March 1 is the first day of Spring. Many wait till the equinox to proclaim the season, but for me it’s the first day of March. Most meteorologist agree. Besides the photo of the redbud above, here’s a group of photos which may help confirm the arrival of the season. A single soft-white flower and a single rounded, lobed, leaf means bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). Red juice from the stem can be usedRead more
Early Spring Things to See
Top Photo: Balancing act by yellow-bellied slider. The unusually warm February has brought out early baskers, bloomers and animal hormones. If you haven’t seen turtles basking in the wetlands you haven’t been looking very hard. Every available perch is occupied, with no room to spare. Normally heavy sleepers, I even saw a snapping turtle the other day. Red buckeye, one of the earliest shrubs to open up, is doing so now. There are a dozen of them planted along theRead more
Spring Already?
Top Photo: Male hooded merganser swims past a bale of turtles out basking on a warm February afternoon. Basking turtles, excavating nuthatches, blooming honeysuckle, sunning anoles, and mating hawks, all a part of the spring to come. Sliders come out on every available sunny winter day to bask, but they were out in force on a sunny 70 degree day this week. Brown-headed nuthatches commence cavity construction in soft-wood trees each February. They excavate many more holes than they useRead more
Late Season Hyla*
Top Photo: Juvenile green treefrogs (2) huddle safe and secure inside unfurling leaves during late summer (look carefully). Both young and adult green treefrogs rely heavily on their color and posture to “hide” themselves from possible predation. They often, though, squeeze down into tight nooks or recesses for added protection, as the juveniles in the above photo illustrate. We installed three artificial “hides” around the outdoor exhibits for our resident treefrogs. And, believe it or not, there are still frogsRead more
October Color
Top Photo: Ashleaf maple, or boxelder. On a walk around the Explore the Wild/Catch the Wind Loop I photographed some of the fall color during the last week of October. Here’s some of those images.Read more
October
Top Photo: Thorny olive flowers. If you happen to be strolling past the Farmyard and sense something powerfully fragrant invading your nose, it’s probably thorny olive (Elaeagnus pungens). It’s related to autumn olive and Russian olive, two invasive shrub species from Asia. We have much autumn olive on our campus, no Russian olive that I’m aware of and just a few locations overgrown with thorny olive which tends to ascend trees and nearby structures when it can. Thorny olive, unlikeRead more
From Hummingbirds to Mushrooms
Top Photo: A lichen “pipe.” What appears at first to be some sort of corn-cobish kind of smoking pipe is actually a ruby-throated hummingbird nest. Ranger Dakota noticed it lying in the leaf litter adjacent to the Farmyard. As soon as I saw the object I knew it was a hummers nest, about 1 3/4” high, 1 1/2” across and covered with lichen. The nest must have fallen from a loblolly pine above us on the path. The delicate lookingRead more
More Fall Sights
Top Photo: Hearts-a-bursting on the Dinosaur Trail. The second week of fall brought even more new sights than the first. Read on to find out what. Euonymus may be known to gardeners by various names, burning bush, golden euonymus, winter creeper, and others, all non-native plants in the genus Euonymus. However, hearts-a-busting, or bursting hearts (Euonymus americanus) is a native understory shrub which can be seen at various places along our outdoor trail loop. It’s also know as strawberry bushRead more