Sightings
- fun orange flowers
- outcompeting poison ivy
- big bees
- little hummingbirds
🔍 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.
Sometimes when it starts to rain, the water bubbles.
Four things I love about our jewelweed:
Had another Heronessie sighting today. It was surfacing a little.
Best guess is a huge common snapping or spiny softshell turtle, but I couldn’t positively identify the head.
(We have both types of turtle, as well as painted, red-eared slider, and northern map turtles).
🔎 You might think that a pond would lead to an overwhelming amount of mosquitos, but between the frogs, bats, dragonflies, damselflies, birds, spiders, skinks, etc. they keep things in check for all but about a week around late July.
E.g. check out these garden spiders’ placements.
