Living Lawn Ornaments

My friend Angie likes Flamingos. And has several that adorn her yard. Recently a mutual friend Carolyn posted a link on Facebook of a Flamingo image taken in Kenya. To me the image looks improbable, but if someone waited for exactly the right conditions I suppose it could be real.

It is not clear why this post showed up in my feed. It could be because I had recently been chatting with Angie. Or it could have been random Facebook stuff. Who knows?

My comment was "Been There". To which Carolyn replied, "Did it look like this".

My answer, "Not exactly."

Here is what it looked like to me.

These are Lesser  Flamingos.

And while there were quite a few of them, they were both distant and-or spread out.

There were also Greater Flamingos. Not as pink.

And obviously larger.

It was quite impressive.

And real.

🦩  🦩  🦩 🦩  🦩

Here is a link to the image on Facebook. It is from an organization: www.discoverafricaa.com. It is used without permission.

🦩  🦩  🦩 🦩  🦩

I've known Angie for over thirty years. I hired her twice (I hired Carolyn once, and we all worked happily together). The reason I had been recently chatting with Angie is she learned that as of April 8th, she will no longer be employed. If I had an open position I'd hire her a third time. So if you, or anyone you know, needs a Technical Business Analyst/Software Tester/Scrum Master/Product Owner, let me know and I'll get you in touch.

Tiny Tadpoles

The images of the Wood Frog eggs shown in yesterday's Eggs post were taken on March 14th.

Two weeks later and there are tiny tadpoles. Many many tiny tadpoles.

Yep, it is getting very crowded in that pond.

Northern Spring Peepers

Adding to the eggs in the back pond, the Northern Spring Peepers have been getting busy.

It's gonna get even more crowded out in the back pond.

A Snake in the Grass

And in the water too.

A Northern Water Snake made its first appearance today, at the back pond. Joining the turtles and the frogs. It is getting crowded out there.

It seemed just as curious about me as I was about it.

It is somehow very comforting that the natural world it coming alive at the same time that we seem to be coming out of the lost year of the pandemic. 

Hide and Seek

I've blogged about the Cooper's Hawk which frequents the yard. 

Looking for a meal amongst all the other birds which visit.

This time it seemed to know something was hiding, hopping from branch to branch and looking about.

This is what clued me into the hawk being around.  A White-breasted Nuthatch frozen on the side of the platform feeder. On the side opposite from the hawk.

This went on for over ten minutes. And the Nuthatch never moved. Amazing.

The hawk would leave empty taloned.

Bye bye.

Eggs

Frog eggs. Lots of frog eggs. Wood Frog and-or Northern Spring Peeper eggs.

Curiously, while I saw frogs mating in locations all around the pond, all of the eggs seemed to be in this one spot on the south edge, in this vegetation.

More and more each day. But none anywhere else.

This is the most eggs I recall seeing in our pond.

I had noticed that tadpoles that had presumably overwintered in the pond were munching on the eggs. 

So I fetched to small plastic aquaria from the garage and scooped up some eggs. A bit of protection form the other critters that call our pond home.

We'll see if it works.

More Falling, More Booming

Yesterday evening some heavy duty thunderstorms came through. They didn't last long, but they hit hard.

And when they hit I heard what sounded like a very loud door slamming. I looked around and didn't see anything that would have caused this banging. Once the storm passed through I grabbed a flashlight and went outside to see what I could find. The only thing I found was this:

A dead tree had snapped and and the trunk split when it hit the ground. Fortunately it fell away from the house. It was a relatively thin tree, and I wondered how it could have been so loud.

This morning while I was getting my morning coffee I noticed a the larger fallen tree shown above, resting on the new section of deer fence I recently installed.

This, also dead, tree snapped at the ground, and toppled over the fence. That could have been loud.

I'm very pleased that the deer fence held up. And that the trees continue to fall away from the house.

A Descent Up From Frustration

It was a rainy Sunday morning, and I set myself the task of setting up a WiFi nest camera. I had hoped to use it last year to watch the Eastern Phoebe nest, but it arrived too late. The birds had already started nesting, and I did not want to disturb them.

It started off fine. I powered up the camera, launched the app on my iPhone, configured everything, and voila, I had a picture over WiFi on the phone. I then poured down the camera, to install it out where the birds nest, to confirm the signal was strong enough out there. That's when things went south (why is "south" the 'bad' direction?).

The app would not connect to the camera. Worse yet, the error message said the "device may not exist". Curious as the device in question was in my hand. But it had disappeared from the app. So back I went to my desk to try and fix things.

I was not successful. Extremely frustrating. Now the camera does not show up at all, even after resetting everything.

And while I was sitting at my desk, I noticed a Pileated Woodpecker in the yard. Of course my bins were in the other room and by the time I retrieved them it was gone. I was not pleased.

I should not have worried.

The bird, and three friends, would be back.

Three are visible in the above shot. Two on either side of a tree on the left, and then the wings of the third are visible down and to the right. 

☆  ☆  ☆  ☆

At first I saw just one. But quickly I noticed there were TWO! How cool was that!

I was even more excited when they were both on the same tree.

And then I saw another fly by. THREE! And I was lucky enough to get an image showing three at once. 

And then a fourth flew by. FOUR! Alas I was not able to get a shot of all four at once.

This is the fourth bird. A bit to the left of the other three.

They were flying about the yard. And quite noisy. And, like the bird above, every once and a while would allow for a clear shot.

At least one camera was working. And as such did wonders to uplift my mood.

And there is still time. The Phoebe is calling about the yard, but nest building has not yet commenced. I'll be contacting support tomorrow ...

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For reasons that I've not found an explanation for, a group of woodpeckers is called a "descent".

I Must Be Getting Old ...

Last Wednesday I got the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. And the process was extremely well run. My appointment was for 12:30. I arrived ten minutes early as per the instructions. I was in the post shot waiting area by 12:27. And there were at least one hundred other folks in that waiting area as well. Including, arriving just as I was leaving, my friends Joe and Donna*.

There were signs everywhere, pointing out were to go, what each station was, where to get information. And there were signs stating that photography was not permitted. But on the way out there was this sign.

I did not take a selfie. 

Yep. I'm getting old.

💉  🦠  💉  🦠  💉

Patty has gotten both shots. In a couple weeks I'll have my second, and by the end of April it should be at full strength. If you haven't already sign up to get vaccinated as soon as you can. No only does it help you, but the more people who are vaccinated, the less chance the virus, including new strains, can spread. And the sooner we can all get back to doing the things we enjoy with the people we care about.

💉  🦠  💉  🦠  💉

* At least Joe told me Donna was there, I did not see her.

Wood Frogs

We have multiple species of frogs that breed in our yard.

Including this one, the Wood Frog*.

I took this picture on March 11th. And already the mosquitos are out. I've since tossed a mosquito dunk in the pond. I hope it works.

There was a lot of calling going on, click to listen.

Which n turn led to  a lot of this going on.

There were quite a few of these frogs in and around the pond. But this one caught my eye (pun!).

It could use and eye it could catch. Look closely at this one. It has but one eye. Interesting that it has survived this long. I would think that stereo vision would be important for catching insects. To say nothing of spotting predators on both sides.

🐸  🐸  🐸  🐸  🐸

* Thanks for Bob Ferguson for the frog ID. I was rather confused on this one. These are not showing the  'mask' typical of a Wood Frog, but the call was that of this species. Bob explained these frogs can change color based on conditions. Pretty cool.

It's Frog Season

Some nights the calling critters can be deafening. And curiously, other evenings are relatively quiet.

Some days are noisy too.

I was sitting out on the bench by the back pond Friday afternoon two weeks ago, enjoying a beer after another work week, when the Northern Spring Peeper shown in the middle of the above image, on the waters edge just over a Sarracenia purpurea pitcher, started calling. (All I had was my phone, thus the crappy picture, sorry).

And frog time was upon us.

Click here for a better look (and listen!).

Happy Frog Season!

Pink Sky At Night ...

While doing the Compost Mouse post I chanced to look out the window to the west. And I grabbed a camera and headed outside. 

Living as we do, surrounded by trees, we don't get many good sunsets. Only when the leaves are off do we have a chance at something worth seeing.

Ten minutes, from when I spotted it until it was gone. And as my tripod is off vacationing without me, all but these two shots were blurry.

But I got to see it. And that's a good thing.

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And why exactly is it "A Sailor's delight"?

“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men"

We keep a small compost bin by our kitchen sink. It was full, so I took it out to our full size compost bins.

And while out there I decide to turn the compost. So I returned the small bin to the kitchen, went and got my work gloves and pitchfork, and got to work.

And eventually this mouse sprang up. It was surprised to see me. I was surprised to see it. Eventually I thought to grab my phone to get a picture. 

Eventually it thought to run away.

Eventually I finished turning the compost, took a shower, had some dinner, had a glass of wine, and wrote a blog post.

I hope the mouse's night turned out just as well. 

More New Turtles

There were two hatchling Eastern Painted Turtles in the nest cage today.

Tiny Turtle 2.

Tiny Turtle 3.

That brings the known turtle population the back pond to six, two adult and three hatchling Eastern Painted Turtles and one Common Snapping Turtle. It's getting crowded.

I am amazed at how small they are, yet they look like adult turtles. Just miniaturized. Very cool.

This is Turtle 2 making its way into the pond.

And click here to see Turtle 3 head off and submerge.

I had been checking the next on a regular basis, hoping that there were eggs under there. And it was the hole just off center to the left that clued me in that something had happened, as that hole was not there on Wednesday. If you look closely you can see what appear to be egg shell fragments inside.

As I noted in yesterday's post, they can lay up to six eggs. So I'll be checking for the next several days.

And if any more show up I'll let you know.

Invasive Plant of the Week

Hairy Bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta. An edible annual weed (I've not tried it), and one of the fist plants to flower in the early spring. 

We have declared war on this planet this year, and hope to put a serious dent in the population, if not eradicate it from the yard.

However, it uses the ballistic method of spreading seeds, and can fire them up to sixteen feet from the parent plant. Disturbing the seed head will result in seed shooting about the yard.

So it is crucial that we get it before it goes to seed. And as you can see, it is already in flower.

It seems every time I bend down to pull one plant, I notice ten more. So we've our work cut out for us.

Wish us luck. We're gonna need it.

Halo Fragments

While out by the back pond, listening to frogs, checking for tiny turtles, I, as I am want to do, looked up at the sky.

And saw part of the 22° Halo.

And maybe part of the Cricumscribed Halo.

I think it's cool. And it's my blog.

A Newer Turtle in Town

Last June I posted about A New Turtle in Town, the last line of which read, "So set a reminder to check back in just under two and a half months.".

Well it took a bit longer, but we discovered the first hatchling in the enclosure today. A baby Eastern Painted Turtle.

Image courtesy Patty Rehn

I carefully lifted it out of the enclosure and set it on the ground.

It is tiny!

We stepped back and it headed toward the back pond.

A long way to go.

And those are some small legs. So I helped it along a bit.

Almost there.

And then it disappeared into the pond. I hope it survives.

I sealed up the enclosure, as Painted Turtles can have a clutch size of up to six eggs. I'll be checking every day to see if any more need a lift to the pond.