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Animals roaming free

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Changed my mind. Maybe some shots worth posting.

Blue Heron at the other side of the main pond.



Painted Turtles were out.


An inactive wasp nest


Canada goose


Connected Dragonflies


Lower end


Upper end


A pack of painted turtles on a log


Finally... well still sorta wild. Back in the spring the kids got some baby painted turtles out of the frog pond. I let them keep them with the idea that come fall we'd put them back. Well, the kids are fond of them. I guess I like them too. So we set up the turtles for the winter as pets. Got a new aquarium, a water heater, a UV lamp. Painted turtles would normally hibernate. But kept as pets they need to be in a place that feels like summer. So they are now set for the winter. 80 degree water. A nice UVB lamp to keep their shells growing. As I understand it, that's why turtles sun themselves. It's not just that they like the warmth. They need the UV light for the shells to grow. Otherwise they get sick.

So meet skipper, Baby chip and squirmy. The smallest is the size of a US quarter dollar coin.

Back in June I wasn't so sure I liked the idea taking these guys as pets. But the frog pond is now a frog puddle. There are no frogs left. There are no turtles left. The herons or other critters have eaten them or the adult painted turtles left for a better pond I don't know. But I'm pretty sure that these three would now be eaten had the kids not caught them and taken them home. So now I don't feel so bad.

 
I'm wondering if that large turtle is a Northern Red-bellied Cooter (Pseudemys rubirentris). The neck looks right and the size looks right. The neck is nothing like the thick neck of a snapper. It's listed as only being in the country next to my county but if it's there it could be here too. Listed as endangered in Massachusetts.

http://www.massaudubon.org/learn/na...bians/turtles/turtle-species-in-massachusetts

Here is a slightly less fuzzy version of the shot.

 
I sent the turtle photo to the state park and they agreed could be the Cooter which is endangered, or the Blanding that is listed as threatened. They are sending the photo to the State Fish and Wildlife department.
 
I actually got an email back from a biologist at Fish and Wildlife. Because it's not the best photo he can't be 100% sure but he is fairly certain that it is the endangered Northern Red-bellied Cooter outside of it's currently known range. They are going to try to get a positive ID. He seemed to view this as important news.
 
crazyfingers said:
I actually got an email back from a biologist at Fish and Wildlife. Because it's not the best photo he can't be 100% sure but he is fairly certain that it is the endangered Northern Red-bellied Cooter outside of it's currently known range. They are going to try to get a positive ID. He seemed to view this as important news.
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That's awesome!
 
A photo from a few days ago and a bunch from today.

First, the frog puddle is so low that pollywogs are dying in great numbers. Absolutely no frogs or turtles left. But a spotted sandpiper still looking for bugs.



Today was interesting for the unusual variety but no really good photo. Yet still very interesting.

A group of crows looking for some trouble to stir up.


Tons of Canada Geese on a pond


A lifer for me. A pied billed grebe.




An Osprey looking for food over a freshwater pond. I almost never see Osprey close to home. Always in Maine. Sun is the wrong angle to get a good photo.


A cormorant on the same pond. Quite a distance away and with the sun the wrong angle. Ripples in the air smudge the photo. I have never seen a cormorant on fresh water so in some ways it's a first for me.

There are also some wood ducks in the background.



Only my second sighting of an American Coot. Also bad angle on the sun.




 
This morning I heard a racket in the yard and went out to see. A load of Common Grackles had arrived.

Just a few of them on my neighbor's lawn.


A few more in my back yard


That's just a small faction of the total. There must have been several hundred in the trees, wood and were moving as a group into the deeper woods. Between the squawking and rustling in the leaves it was quite a racket. If not for the squawking, just the rustling sounded like a heavy and extremely local downpour of rain moving out into the woods.

In 30 minutes they were off to other places.

Later I went to the former frog pond. It's so depressing down there now.


It's clear the great blue heron still visits. These are fresh from today.


The other puddle is larger and I have know idea what's killing off the pollywogs.
 
This morning I took a walk down to the former frog puddle, currently the dead pollywog puddle. There are still a few live pollywogs and the blue heron picking them out. It appears to be uninterested in the dead ones.





The spotted sandpiper is still visiting. Posting this because I thought that it was interesting that the heron moved his head into the frame as I was taking a photo of the sandpiper. Neither care for dead pollywogs.



At lunch I went down to the swan pond. The swans are still there. And there is a ring-neck duck. They are almost a quarter mile away.


Yup. Lots of ring-neck ducks have shown up. Migrating south. I saw ring necks last on the same pond in April this year going north. Sun is in the wrong spot. It's in back of them so contrast and shadows made it not easy to get a good shot.


The domestic mallard/yuk duck/possible mix Peking duck is still there also a quarter mile off.


There are now two cormorants hanging out on this very shallow pond. Another ring neck duck in back of them. Sun also at the wrong angle for a good shot.
 
And I had posted those photos above thinking it unlikely I'd be getting any more interesting photos today. But...

I went out to check the mailbox. I usually grab the camera when I go out because you never know...

Up my drive looking across to the cross the street neighbor's house.

White tail deer watching me. I stopped and it stared at me.


Then looking into my yard there was a cottontail. It was sitting totally still. There was a hawk noise nearby.


I worked my way around to try to get closer and it flattened it's ears. Then it scurried into the bushes.
 
If those are mosquitos, I cede the right to use this sign to you.


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Underseer said:
spikepipsqueak said:
If those are mosquitos, I cede the right to use this sign to you.


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In America, the large mosquitoes are not mosquitoes. Dunno why people get freaked out by them. The little ones are the ones that suck blood.
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I've had some damn big mosquitoes come after me.

Tent camping on the Texas coast, I woke up and heard 2 mosquitoes talking in my tent. First says "Should we eat him here or drag him outside?" Other one says "Here; if we drag him outside the big uns'll git him."
 
Mageth said:
Underseer said:
In America, the large mosquitoes are not mosquitoes. Dunno why people get freaked out by them. The little ones are the ones that suck blood.
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I've had some damn big mosquitoes come after me.

Tent camping on the Texas coast, I woke up and heard 2 mosquitoes talking in my tent. First says "Should we eat him here or drag him outside?" Other one says "Here; if we drag him outside the big uns'll git him."
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The big ones are mosquito hawks. They eat mosquitoes. They were probably dining on the mosquitoes that were dining on you.
 
Underseer said:
The big ones are mosquito hawks. They eat mosquitoes. They were probably dining on the mosquitoes that were dining on you.
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I think by "mosquito hawk" you may be referring to the crane fly, of the order Diptera (true flies), and which does not eat mosquitoes. In addition to "mosquito hawk" or "skeeter hawk", it has other common regional names, including but not limited to "daddy longlegs" and "gallanipper" (which is what I was raised calling 'em).

I've never once in my life confused a crane fly for a mosquito.

"Mosquito hawk" may refer to any of several insects, depending on where you're from, one of which is the crane fly. I don't think you're referring to damselflies or dragonflies.

Meanwhile, on the Texas coast and elsewhere I'm sure, there are some big mosquitoes (not as big as the crane fly, however) that do suck blood. There are also smaller, even tiny, mosquitoes that'll get ya. Being raised on the Texas coastal prairie, with a river bottom and swamp for a back yard, and fishing on and around the bays, rivers, and bayous, it's easy to become sort of a mosquito aficionado. I've seen and been attacked by swarms of mosquitoes (including, but not limited to, the nasty salt-grass or salt marsh mosquito) so thick that you just have to run away. Or want to...I've fished in 'em before when the fishing was good, bundled up in a rainsuit and coated with deets, wading out into the water to get away from the bushes where they're the worst.
 
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crazyfingers said:
What are those? Look like dragonflies. But all going the same direction? Locus?
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Gauge the bugs with the eve which seems to be about four feet away. The insects re way too small to be dragon flies or locus (sic).

These bugs were photoed by a gee who labeled his photo as being of mosquitos

My mosquito experience (42 states over 73 years) is enough to convince me that the coastal west is the best place to be if you don't want them bothering you. The very best places are cool windy coastal places like speederfundus.
 
Only good photo today. Black-capped Chickadee. They are all over but so hard to photograph because they almost never stop moving.

 
We've had snow on the ground for about a week now, and the ponds and lakes are ice covered. I thought the fall migration was over, with just a few mallards and stray Canada geese still hanging around looking for handouts. But while I was walking the dogs in the wee hours Friday morning, a small flock of Tundra Swans flew overhead at low altitude, quietly calling to each other. It was a beautiful and serene moment, with low gray clouds, still air, and the white swans illuminated by the light reflecting off the snow.
 
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