Walking down the boardwalk, I noticed a dozen or so pieces of frass ahead of me on the boards. There was a branch of sweet gum tree overhanging the boardwalk directly above the frass. Several leaves had been chewed to mere skeletons. A search through the leaves revealed a large green caterpillar with red spots along its sides. It was a luna moth caterpillar and it was munching away on the leaves of the tree. I see lots of lunaRead more
Posts tagged: #salamander
A Salamander
Before this week I had seen only one species of salamander here on the museum’s 84 acres, a dead marbled salamander found alongside the path in January of 2017, nearly two years ago. Another salamander, described to me by a summer camper a few years beyond that, was probably a red-backed salamander. We now have a third. Animal Keepers Autumn and Janine, after several previous encounters with the slippery amphibians, were able to capture and photograph another species of salamanderRead more
A Familiar Face and a New Face
What is becoming an increasingly familiar face here at the Museum is that of the local barred owl. I’ve encountered this owl seven times since October, each time alerted to its presence through the harassing calls of crows, blue jays and various dickey birds. This time, the owl was in the swamp across from the Main Wetlands Overlook in Explore the Wild. The owl seemed to be resting, but apparently at least one eye and both ears were acutely tunedRead more