The first few days of the year brought with them the first ice over of the Wetlands. The ice will soon be history, all gone. I, or we, know that the ice will be gone within a day or two since the TV, internet, and radio tells us these things ahead of time. But for some of the creatures that live in and depend on the Wetlands for food, ice is not a good thing and it can’t be predictedRead more
Posts tagged: #Great Blue Heron
Big Bull succumbs to Big Blue
Last year around this time I saw a Great Blue Heron take a Bullfrog from the Wetlands. From capture to swallow, the whole process took approximately 13 minutes. On May 19 of this year the heron (or another just like it) took another big frog out of the water. This frog was dispatched in less than ten minutes. Just another day in the Wetlands.Read more
The Big Gray Bird Nesting on the Island!
If you happen to be walking down the boardwalk into the Wetlands and see a large gray bird sitting on what looks like a nest… look closely at the bird. The bird is a Great Blue Heron, and it’s resting, not nesting. The resident heron sometimes retires to the island to rest during the day. It does most of its hunting for fish, tadpoles, frogs, and crayfish within the cover of the willows on the north side of the Wetlands,Read more
Winter’s Here!
The calendar says that winter has arrived. What’s been going on in Explore the Wild? Raccoons make nightly sorties around the Wetlands in search of food, which can be anything from persimmons to tadpoles, or a raid on the trash receptacles along the paths of the Museum (the trash bins are emptied each day before closing so the pickings are slim there). Raccoons are not the only animals roaming Explore the Wild. The tracks below were left in the snow aRead more
Birds & Butterflies of June
On the last day of the month, some of the avian and lepidopteran creatures of June… Can you guess how each animal got its name? What did you see at the Museum in June?Read more
Big Blue and the Bull
The Great Blue Heron is back, and hungry! A Bullfrog makes a nice meal for a heron. Our resident heron (below) has captured a large male frog. With a firm grip on the frog, the heron wades over to a nearby island to safely prepare the frog for consumption. The frog must be rendered motionless before it’s gulped down. A squirmy, wiggling frog may accidentally be dropped in the water and could be lost among the weeds and algae, tooRead more
Flowers, Butterflies, Odes, Birds, Snappers, and the Fox
Dame’s Rocket and Blackberry are in bloom. Butterflies find the early blooming blackberries rather tempting. More species of dragonflies and damselflies have been emerging recently. A first-of-the-season Carolina Saddlebags (Tramea carolina) was seen on 29 April as was a new species for the Museum, a Prince Baskettail (Epitheca princeps). I had thought that I spied one of these Common Baskettail (Epitheca cynosura) relatives last year, but couldn’t be certain. The sighting on the 29th confirmed it. On April 23, I witnessed the matingRead more