The Egg

Recall this post, where Patty found an egg in the pile of wood chips we had delivered to use as garden path mulch.

Well it didn't take long for some critter to find the egg once uncovered.

I found this two mornings later.

Interestingly, the inside of the shell was clean and dry. And other than that one wet spot there was nothing to indicate the egg had any contents.

Could it have hatched, with whatever was inside having wandered away?

Southern Leopard Frog

I knew I had seen, and photographed, this species in the yard.

Taken on July 4, 2016. And still on my iPhone. I found it while searching for a picture of the leaf bag the Carolina Wrens nested in (I did not find such an image. Bummer.)

I have way too many images trapped on my phone.

Still Trying ...

... to get good images of that Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.

This time it was in the willow tree, thirty or so feet from the deck.

I managed a few blog worthy images. Again using the big lens, at 531 mm (the lens is a bit soft at 600 mm 😬).

But it spent most of the time hidden in the leaves.

I'll keep trying.

Whitesbog BioBlitz - Fungi

This past weekend was the second annual BioBlitz at Whitesbog, located in the Brendan Byrne State Forest.

Patty, I, and many of our friends were participants. We arrived around noon, found our 'group', added our cooler to the already massed bounty, and had some lunch (food and drinks would continue to arrive throughout the day; we did not go hungry). After lunch we joined Marical Patino of the NJ Mycological Association for a Fungi and Mushroom Walk.

And while spring is apparently not the best time for mushrooms in the Pine Barrens we did find some interesting stuff, as can be seen below.

Eyelash Fungus

All fungi, but for one, I know not the species.

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As it was a BioBlitz we looked at all living things, not just fungi.

Like this Green Frog.

And this Wolf Spider.

And flowers too.

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But this walk, mostly fungi. Like these Waxy Cap mushrooms.

After we returned to listen to music, on the new Stage at Whitesbog, and eat some more. Good times.

Whitesbog Bioblitz - Pond Life

After we finished eating I joined Steve Luell of the Pinelands Institute for Natural and Environmental Studies to see what we could find in one of the ponds (Patty went on a bird walk).

Steve provided nets on long poles which we used to scoop up stuff. We  did our scooping amongst the vegetation along the edge of the pond, as that provides cover for the little things we were looking for. We emptied our nets into shallow pans we had filled with water. And looked to see what we had found.

We found lost of little things.

Like tiny tadpoles.

And larger, but still small, tadpoles. This one is likely a Bullfrog based on size.

Insects, such as this water bug.

And this Giant Water Beetle aka "Toe Biter". Watch out fish! (Even though fish don't have toes, this beetle will kill and eat fish of this size.)

There were several Damselfly Larva ...

... and Dragonfly Larva. Both are voracious predators as well.

And about those fish, there were three that we captured.

All Sunfish, too small to identify to species.

It was cool to see all this usually unseen stuff.

Whitesbog BioBlitz - Nighttime

After some more eating and drinking, I joined MacKenzie Hall of the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, on a Bat Walk. And while we did see bats (and a fox) I did not take any pictures of either.

Patty went on the Full Moon Night Hike, where she saw scenes like this:

After the conclusion of the official Bat Walk a group of us continued on to try and find Pine Barrens Tree Frogs. We were somewhat successful in that we heard quite a few. But we did not see any.

We did see ...

Southern Leopard Frogs.

A Wolf Spider loaded with baby spiders. As MacKenzie said, "The stuff nightmares are made of."

A Northern Redbelly Snake. That's a full grown snake on pine needles. Tiny.

And Pink Lady's Slipper orchids.

We ended the night with, what else, food and drink. And a bit of mothing.

Where we saw, among others, this Cecropia Moth.

We left a little before midnight. It was a very nice day of bioblitzing.

Carolina Wrens

I mentioned that we found a Carolin Wren nest in one of our kayaks.

This is the nest. It was a bit jumbled about after we had tried to load the kayak on my car.

Here are the kayaks back on the rack.

A few days later I found the nest empty, sitting on the lower kayak. There was no sign of foul nor fowl play. I wonder what happened?

Dad (?) was still around, singing up a storm. They are surprisingly loud for such small birds.

I hope the little ones fledged successfully.

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Last year's brood did not fair well.

One of the eggs from the failed nest.

Look closely, and you'll see an adult bird on two eggs in the nest.

Without the adult it looks like three eggs.

And now, two eggs, one cracked, no adult. The nest had been abandoned.

The wrens had made their nest in a bag of leaves that we had just outside our garage. Not unlike this one.

The leaves were from a friend's yard. We use the them as mulch in the gardens. Of course, once we realized the bag held a nest those were off limits. But I suppose all the activity, including us nosey birders and Max on his leash nearby, made for nervous birds.

So this year they make their nest on the other side of the garage and we still interfere with the nest site.

We need to provide them with a better nesting location for next spring.