Sightings
- tons of great blue heron activity (flying, stalking, wading, on Turtle Willow, & Turtle Stick)
- tiny bright five-lined skink
- wood duck pair (and again on Turtle Willow)
- lots of turtles sunbathing
🔎 Saw a doe and a tiny fawn and I am dead of cute.
(but please don’t eat all the new trees, k?)
🔎 After the rain a dinosaur came up on the deck
🔎 Can you spot two elusive green herons?
(Hint, they’re not green and are smaller (at least with their necks tucked) than other herons you are likely used to.)
We also had three great blue heron sightings, eight five-lined skink sightings, and our first common watersnake of the year.
Great animal day:
Rough pond day: some of the land bridge needs further remediation after prior work.
🔍 first five-line skink of the season, and the tail is unreal!
🔎 just saw a fawn running and play-bowing like it was a puppy! (It was to the edge of the pond where there were some geese).
When we saw a mink on the trail cam, I thought it was an incredible treat. Did not expect to see one up close and in the daylight.
(Videos are of a mink in the creek and then passing us by while skittering along the creek bank.)
🐢 Turtle sunbathing season has already begun on Turtle Willow.
Going from never seeing antlered bucks all the way to seeing two locking antlers this morning!
Not a great photo, but I finally saw a buck with a rack at Heron Haven. (Looked like a family of 6, as there was a big deer up front, 4 small ones, then the antlered buck.)
We see deer all the time, including herds of more than 15, but antlers are rare. (I suspect they get hunted pretty quickly.)
🔎 Yay! I was worried after the bald eagle sighting that it may have been clearing out our heron population.
Today we’ve seen both Halle the Kingfisher and a Great Blue Heron. No green heron sightings, but those are more rare and elusive, anyway.
About this time last year was the last time we saw a muskrat.
I guess the bullfrogs, coyotes, eagles, foxes, hawks, (green and blue) herons, largemouth bass, mink, otters, owls, raccoons, snakes, and snapping turtles are doing their jobs. 🤷♂️
Beautiful cold morning. Let’s play “guess who was stalking around my house last night?” I’ll provide some tracks and some reference points. Bonus photo of mostly iced-over pond.
🔎 First bald eagle sighting at Heron Haven!
Does anybody know what we call the “ice spiders”?
First real snow
I think I just saw a Green Heron chase a Kingfisher 😲
Don’t fight, there’s plenty for both of you!
I am enjoying that there are Autumn leaves floating on the water, yet there are still turtles sunning.
🔎 It was 55F or less and there are still 🐢 sunning themselves today.