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.

The main Wetlands Overlook from the Floating walkway.

You can see numerous tracks in the mud of turtles coming and going. This is the time of year they come ashore to lay eggs, though it seems the trek keeps getting longer each day.

Turtle tracks marking the travels of aquatic turtles.

Eastern, or common, musk turtle on shore to lay eggs in the soil.

Red swamp crawfish are bailing out, which leaves them exposed to predation, most notably by things like red-shouldered hawks,

This red-shouldered hawk sits on post waiting for something to present itself, like a crawfish in the mud.

The hawk was able to snag a crawfish, the remains of which were left on the railing

The tree swallows who have a nest in the wetlands are steadily feeding their nestlings inside.

Tree swallow with food for young inside.

Newly fledged house finch visiting bird feeders for first time

The galls below were in an ash tree next to the boardwalk. If you were to cut open one of the galls, down the middle, longitudinally, you would see tiny grubs or insect larvae within.

At some point in the past a midge (a type of fly) laid eggs into the stem of the leaf which stimulated the plant into growing the green shiny looking objects around the mid-rib of the leaves.

The larvae will live within the gall, consuming it while they grow, pupate and emerge as adult midges to begin the process all over again.

A small green moth showed itself to be a southern emerald moth. As interesting as the adult moth is for its color (green), the larva is even more unique in its habit of cutting plant parts to attach to itself as a form of camouflage. The caterpillar cuts seed heads, flower petals, or leaf parts from the plant.