The Rest of 2022, Part II: Mammals, Amphibians, and Reptiles

Let's keep going with 2022 sights on our property, continuing from my previous post about breeding birds! Here, I'll share some assorted highlights featuring mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. We'll still need some more posts after this. Here we go!

 

Mammals

On June 11 in the woods, I came across a female and male White-tailed Deer who, strangely, didn't run away when they saw me, but instead watched me carefully from not too far away for a few minutes. The female, in particular, was intent on watching me:

The male was a little further back, and I was very impressed with the sizeable antlers he was growing:

I wondered whether there might have been a fawn hidden somewhere nearby, but I didn't see anything, and I stuck to the path so I wouldn't accidentally disturb anyone. The deer and I watched each other for a while, and then I moved on.

Eastern Chipmunks are a common feature in our yard throughout the non-freezing months, and I couldn't resist a picture of this chipmunk on our old hollow apple tree on June 20:

Our vegetable garden is generally well-protected with tall netting to keep out deer and short metal fencing with small holes to keep out rabbits and rodents who would love to nibble on veggies. Every once in a while, though, some industrious creature finds a way through these defences, and in July this year, I returned from a trip to find whole bean plants and eggplant branches snipped off by a mysterious muncher, and only some of the leaves on those branches eaten. After a few days (and some more damage), I figured out that the culprit was a mother Meadow Vole who had found enough of a gap in my fencing and had moved her family of babies into a rock pile in the corner of my garden. On July 17, I removed the rocks and uncovered a handful of furry toddlers -- here's one of these cute and hungry creatures:

Meadow Voles are numerous in our yard and meadow, but I don't often get to see them up close like this. I moved the babies outside of the garden, saw the mother make her exit, and re-secured the gap in the fencing where she was probably getting through. Unfortunately, either I didn't successfully fix the gap or the mother vole was able to climb over the ~2-foot fence -- and I read some sources that suggest that voles can indeed climb if they have enough motivation -- because she kept removing bits of the beans and eggplants over the next few days. And then when I put out a live trap in the bean row, hoping to relocate her, she got caught in the trap and died; I suspect now that the trap might have gotten too hot in the sun. I was really sad to have caused the death of this inventive and persistent creature, but it is also true that we have tons of voles here (including her new batch of babies), vole mortality is high in general, and the purpose of my little vegetable garden is to make food for people, not voles. Here's hoping the fence keeps little furry creatures out of the garden in the future; it's really better for everyone if they stay outside.

 

Reptiles and Amphibians

Our first amphibian sightings this year were on March 19, when night-time temperatures were in the 50s and the ground was damp, and our first really big salamander night was on the rainy night of March 24, when we helped at least 20 Spotted Salamanders across the road near our house in a span of around 10 minutes. Amphibians were waking up and on the move! On March 26, I re-learned that it's best not to tidy up flower beds too early in the year, when I accidentally uncovered a Spring Peeper that was hunkered down in the dirt beneath some dead leaves on this freezing cold day; after taking this picture, I quickly covered the little frog back up:

The night of March 31 was another great time for amphibian movement. Here's a big Spotted Salamander who we helped across the road that night:

And here's a much more awake Spring Peeper on the damp pavement that night:

Although my garden fencing is (usually) pretty good at keeping out unwanted mammals, somehow amphibians and reptiles still find their way inside fairly regularly. I'm not sure how this large American Toad ended up submerged in the garden dirt on May 13, but I was very happy to have it there, and I encouraged it to please enjoy the slug buffet on offer:

This Brown Snake was living in the same rock pile in my garden as the Meadow Vole family, which I uncovered on July 17; I was surprised at this neighboring arrangement at first, but Brown Snakes are too small to pose a threat to voles, and instead this creature is also primarily a slug eater (yes, please, have all the slugs you want):

Sometimes amphibians show up in other unexpected places as well. This small Spotted Salamander spent some time in October in a little cave-like corner of our basement, and this is actually the second year we've found a salamander in that same spot; we weren't able to reach the creature well enough to relocate it, so we just enjoyed looking at its friendly face, pictured here on October 24:

I hope this little salamander was able to find its way back out the way it came, because I'm not sure we have enough food for it down here; and in any case, it should probably be sleeping. Good luck, little creature!

 

In the next post, look for more bird sightings from 2022, followed by insects and flowers!

August-October, 2021

I'm still catching up with 2021! Here are some assorted sights from our yard, meadow, and woods in August through October of this year.

Young Rose-breasted Grosbeaks were a steady presence in our yard in August, and they seemed to especially enjoy tasting a variety of plants in my vegetable garden. I would've preferred it if they didn't munch on the tomato and pepper blossoms -- those plants had a hard enough time already during this very wet summer -- but there were plenty of peas to go around, and I enjoyed seeing these rowdy young birds snacking away at the top of the pea trellis on August 2:

I think this young Rose-breasted Grosbeak may have struck a window on August 6 (a rare occurrence at our house, fortunately), because it sat for a few minutes on our upstairs balcony, allowing for some unusually close views before it flew off:

For the second year in a row, American Robins nested on the front of our house, making close neighbors with the Eastern Phoebes above our front door. On August 3, the stripey robin babies were looking alert and nearly ready to leave the nest:

This is actually the first year I've seen American Robins successfully produce new birds on our property -- the nests I've seen in the previous three years have all failed. And even better, there were a total of three successful American Robin broods on our property this year. Hooray for a productive year for robins!

The House Wrens were also productive this year, with two broods in their chosen nest box. Here's one of those young House Wrens on August 6:

On the morning of August 8, I was shocked to see a really big bird walking around next to our house. What in the world is a Great Blue Heron doing in our yard??

There are ponds and streams a short flight away from here, but we have no aquatic environments in our yard at all.... As it turned out, though, this Great Blue Heron was hunting food of the small furry variety, and our yard has plenty of those. We watched through a window as the heron snatched up a Meadow Vole:

Here's a closer view of the vole's plight (as clear as I could get through the window):

Down it goes:

The heron hunted over quite a bit of the yard. Look, there's a huge bird walking behind the cars (!):

The heron grabbed one more wriggling vole from the bank between the road and the driveway:

And then a passing runner startled the heron and it flew away. What a cool and unexpected visitor! Now I can add Great Blue Heron to the list of predators who sometimes stop by to keep our vole population in check.

We had so much rain this summer that our little pond in the woods kept water in it all year, instead of turning into a big muddy patch as it has done in previous years. On August 6, I was happy to see some Green Frogs hanging out in the water:

On August 8, I saw the cutest little Gray Treefrog (a young individual) in a patch of Orange Jewelweed in our yard:

I hear Gray Treefrogs frequently enough around here that they must be fairly common, but I so rarely get to see them. And this little creature was so adorable! It was climbing among the jewelweed stems, hunting tiny flying insects, and pausing long enough for a picture now and then:

This lovely Black Swallowtail showed up at the zinnias on our back deck on August 28:

While gardening in the front yard on September 3, I came across a couple of fun little creatures (and had only my phone's poor-quality camera to document them). This small Spotted Salamander was burrowed below ground, before I accidentally unearthed it:

And I found a really bizarre larva on Black Walnut leaves -- at first, I assumed this was a caterpillar infected with some sort of fungus, but it turned out to be the normal larva (they're supposed to look like this!) of a species of sawfly, the Butternut Woollyworm (Eriocampa juglandis):

On September 11, I watched a flock of Cedar Waxwings feasting on Pokeweed berries:

These birds looked so fancy surrounded by Pokeweed and blooming goldenrod:

Nearby, an industrious Eastern Chipmunk watched me from one of the many holes in the old apple tree next to our driveway:

Look at those stuffed-full cheeks!

Also on September 11, this European Mantis (Mantis religiosa) was doing its best impression of a grass stem as it staked out a patch of Little Bluestem in the meadow:

This Giant Puffball made an impressive sight in our yard on September 18:

Here's a beautiful Monarch on New England Aster on September 25:

And reddening Virginia Creeper leaves glowing in the sunlit woods:

Furrow Orbweaver spiders (Larinioides cornutus or patagiatus) commonly build webs across the outside of our windows throughout the spring, summer, and fall. This little individual found shelter in a leaf caught against a window in October, and it seems to now be spending the winter curled up in its home; this picture is from October 10:

I didn't get outside much in October and November -- fall is always a busy time. I have a few more sights to share from December 2021, and that will be the next post.

Basically All of Spring: Part 2

Here are the rest of my sightings from our house since mid-March, continued from the previous post!

More Birds 
 
We've had a lot of nesting drama this spring. First, pair of Eastern Bluebirds developed a strong interest in one of our nest boxes. Here's a female bluebird visiting the box on March 15; I think she looks very pretty backlit by the morning sun:

The pair eventually went for it, and the female built a large (towering, really) nest with grass and lots of pine needles. Here's the finished nest on April 29:

The male was around, too, chasing off other birds and generally keeping an eye on things. Here he is on April 30:

On May 4, I found a single blue egg in the nest:

And then that was the end of the bluebirds' nesting attempt here! A week later, the nest still only had the one egg, and the adults seemed to have disappeared. Sometime after that, the egg was gone and the nest untidy. I'm not sure what happened or why the bluebirds left, but at least this all happened early in the season, and hopefully one or both of them will still have time to make another go at nesting this year.

The Eastern Phoebes seemed to consider putting a nest over our front door again this year (as they have for at least the past two years), but in a surprise twist, the female phoebe built her nest on some electrical conduit under our back deck instead. The first egg appeared in the nest on May 2, and all seemed well and normal until I peeked into the nest on May 9 and saw an unusually large and speckled egg tucked in among the pearly white phoebe eggs -- a Brown-headed Cowbird had found the nest:

Brown-headed Cowbirds are native birds that don't build any nests of their own, but rather lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species, usually to the detriment of their hosts' actual brood. My first reaction on seeing this egg was disappointment, because I love phoebes, and it's been such a joy to see them raise their babies in previous years. But there's really nothing to be done; besides the fact that it's illegal to mess with native birds' eggs (without proper permits), there are all sorts of other reasons why it's a bad idea to remove a cowbird egg (see this site for a bunch of interesting points). So with all that in mind, I decided to view this nest as a chance to watch weird nature at work. I'd never gotten to actually see a cowbird being raised by host parents, after all. And, in the end, everything has worked out rather well (so far), which I suspect is mainly because these two adult phoebes are master hunters and excellent providers for their young dependents. I see the two of them snatching up bugs in our yard and meadow almost constantly. Here's one of the parents in a bush near the nest on May 16:

The cowbird was the first to hatch, on May 20:

I worried for a while that the phoebe eggs wouldn't hatch at all, but on May 25 (with the cowbird baby already six days old), the first phoebe baby appeared (wow, look at that size difference):

By May 29, only two of the phoebe eggs had hatched, and those two nestlings were pretty well dwarfed by the hulking cowbird baby:

And when I checked the nest on May 31 (only 11 days after hatching!), the cowbird had departed, and the two phoebes had the nest to themselves:

When I checked again yesterday, the two phoebe babies were still growing and doing fine. It's true that two phoebes is significantly fewer than the five original eggs, and some of that loss may have been because of the cowbird, but two phoebes is still better than no phoebes (which was another possible outcome), so I call this a win. Overall, I'm super impressed with these phoebe parents, who raised a cowbird nestling to fledging while also incubating and feeding their own babies. They deserve an award.

After a long period of indecision, a pair of Tree Swallows also took up residence in our second nest box, and that nest is going strong, with the first egg appearing in the nest on May 24. I love having these beautiful birds here, making their bubbling sounds and swooping around our meadow. I also appreciate how relatively amiable this particular pair of Tree Swallows is; these birds sit politely at their box while I work in my garden not too far away, whereas I've met Tree Swallows in other places who dive-bombed me for walking by at a further distance. Here's our pair at their box, the female peeking out of the entrance hole, and the male in his typical perch on top of the box:

Other birds are starting to nest in our yard, too, but these attempts are in their earliest stages, so I'll hold off on reporting about them until I know more.

Finally, this spring has brought an exciting bird milestone: We reached 100 species on the list of birds we've seen/heard on our property! Bird #98 was a Double-crested Cormorant who flew overhead (a pretty strange bird for a yard more than 10 miles from the nearest lake). Bird #99 was a group of Common Nighthawks who hunted over our meadow and woods for several evenings at the end of May, making their weird honking calls the whole time (what an awesome sight):

Bird #100 was a Mourning Warbler -- also a totally new bird for me -- who popped into our yard briefly near the end of May. 100 species of birds... wow. And we won't stop there! This place continues to amaze me.

Amphibians

We got to see several amphibians this spring. On the night of April 8, we went in search of the very loud Spring Peepers we were hearing, and after some careful searching we successfully spotted a few of these tiny frogs calling at the small pond (more of a large puddle really) in our woods. And then when we returned to the house, of course, who should be waiting at our front door, out in the open and easy to see, but a Spring Peeper. Oh well! I love these little frogs, regardless of whether we go looking for them or they come to us:
 

The night of April 12 was warm and rainy, and we spent some time shepherding peepers and Spotted Salamanders across our road. Unfortunately, several of these creatures had died trying to cross, but we made sure that at least a few got to the other side safely. Spotted Salamanders are wonderful, and I love getting to see them out and about on these early spring amphibian nights:

On May 16, I was surprised to find a Red-backed Salamander in our basement; it had crawled inside the warm, humid stand where I was starting seedlings for the garden. I find these salamanders fairly frequently in our woods, but transporting this individual outside was a great opportunity to admire it up close. Sooo cute:

Plants

Here are a few wildflower sightings to round out this spring summary. On April 7, eager for any signs of growing things, I admired the tiny new leaves of Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis) in our meadow; this is second-year growth from seeds we scattered in 2017:
 

By May 26, these plants had become glorious mounds of greenery, with spires of purple/blue flowers:

I expected the lupine blossoms to be beautiful from afar (and they are), but I didn't know that these flowers would also have intricate and subtle markings up close:

The diversity of spring wildflowers in our woods is somewhat limited, but they're out there. I was happy to catch this Early Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum giganteum) in bloom on May 4:

Likewise with this Starflower (Trientalis borealis) on May 24:

An Allegheny Serviceberry (Amelanchier laevis) I planted last year produced beautiful ribbon-y blossoms this sping; here's a picture of these flowers from May 4:

And on May 29, the many hawthorn trees in our woods were covered with blossoms (many more than I saw on these trees last year):

And finally, although it's not a native plant, I can't stop admiring the blossoms on Germander Speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys), which is common in all the spots in our yard where I haven't mowed:

And that's most of spring! There's still a lot of growing (for plants and animals) ahead in the upcoming months, but the wild rush is mainly over. I'm excited to see what happens next!