Sightings
- fun orange flowers
- outcompeting poison ivy
- big bees
- little hummingbirds
- we had (at least!) three green herons today
- took a swim
- received this awesome tome
- daffodils in the snow
- wood ducks on the turtle log
- mallards in the creek
- elderly pup making snow angels
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.
I’m calling it Heronessie.
At least 3’ long in a sub-3 acre pond.
🔎 American five-lined skinks are really cool creatures. This one was by far the smallest I’ve ever seen, less than two inches long.
It was so young/little that it didn’t have great grip on the wall and fell (but caught itself) a few times.
Check out the incredible colors in the tail!
At the rate the green herons are enjoying turtle willow, we might have to rename it!
One just landed at the top of the branch and did its slow little dinosaur walk down the branch, turtles sliding off as it got closer. As it neared the end, two turtles didn’t leave and it hopped over them. Then it was at the part closest to the water and it stopped creeping and started fishing.
(I had been wondering along the way if it was going after a turtle. As @kurite knows, herons hunt some interesting things!)
good things:
🛶 tomorrow we do our duty
The sycamores and cottonwoods are in overdrive.
We call it Heron Haven not just due to the Great Blues, but because of the occasional elusive Green.
Here’s one who stopped by Turtle Willow this morning.
🔎 It’s a good day on Turtle Willow
🔎🐦 saw a yellow-rumped warbler this morning
(which is like the birdiest of bird names)
The sky and water are so pink & blue that Tucker Carlson is going to have a guest on, complaining about them.
The White River Alliance is issuing an urgent action request to protect Indiana wetlands. This is important for flood & drought management, ecosystems, biodiversity, and much more.
Beautiful springwinter here this morning:
🔎 watched six 🦌 play at dusk near the creek, as fluffy ❄️ fell.
Good end to the weekend.
🔎 I call this “creepwalkin’”
Sorry for the bad angle, but I didn’t want to lose the shot. #GreatBlueHeron
🔎 I like the interaction of the rain and ice and waves