I'll get to the fox in the title by the end of this post, but first I'll share some sights from what has felt like an especially long first part of spring. I'm sure some of the reason why early spring has felt so long is the fact that I'm now home all the time, and every day seems like an extension of the last. But spring also started pretty early this year, and it sure is taking its time to progress. On the night of March 19, a Spring Peeper showed up on our doorstep as if to say "Hello, it's spring now!" and we heard choruses of these little frogs starting up the next night. This was way earlier than last year, when I didn't hear or see any Spring Peepers until April 5. Here's a picture of this year's early spring herald:
Also on March 19, I was surprised to see Ramps pushing up through the leaf litter in our woods, again a good two and a half weeks earlier than last year:
Wood frogs also got an early start this year, gathering in the pool in our woods and making their quacking sounds way back on March 13 (compared to April 6 last year). Here's one of these frogs floating in the pool on March 26, and staying silent as long as I was there:
While some of our plants and amphibians got an early start, the birds arrived back in our yard this year pretty much right on schedule. It's so wonderful to see so many birds again after they've been absent all winter. I was happy to admire this handsome Song Sparrow up close on March 27 as it and a few of its fellows sang from various corners of our property:
On the morning of March 30, I woke up to the wonderful discovery that our pair of Eastern Phoebes had returned -- they seemed confident and comfortable hunting insects from our back deck, so I am assuming that they're the same pair who has nested at our house for years. Welcome back, phoebes! The male spent some time sitting right outside our bedroom window and loudly announcing his presence:
On April 13 -- amid soaking rain and soggy ground -- I watched the female phoebe gather mud and moss from our yard and fly it up to her usual nesting spot above our front door. The weather hasn't been great for nest building since then, and she hasn't made much progress yet, but it's a start:
On March 27, the Silver Maple tree next to our house looked beautiful in full bloom and backlit by the afternoon sun:
And on the same day, I came across a White-tailed Deer who wasn't expecting to see me emerge from the woods:
The deer got some impressive height as it bounded away:
On March 30, a male Wild Turkey displayed for a few foraging females in our meadow:
White-throated Sparrows have been stopping by our yard in recent weeks, and this brightly-costumed individual looked just too perfect in the midst of a forsythia bush with its emerging yellow flowers:
A couple of Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers have been hanging around the yard as well. Here's the male on a pine tree that bears the marks of many past sapsucker visits:
These birds have made such interesting patterns on this bark, and the resulting textures provide such a wonderful backdrop for the bird himself:
A storm last night brought a few inches of heavy, wet snow. When I woke up this morning, I was surprised, first, by the white stuff covering every surface (this isn't very spring-like!), and then surprised again by the rusty red animal moving through the white meadow. A Red Fox!
We see foxes only rarely during the day (much more frequently at night on the trail camera), and this fox was quite close to the house, so this was an exciting event indeed! What a treat to see this animal so close and just doing its thing. (Please pardon the blurriness of many of these pictures, which I took through windows.)
The fox criss-crossed the meadow and yard, clearly on the hunt:
About half an hour after I first saw the fox, I spotted it again in the meadow, and I witnessed a successful hunt: A precision pounce into a clump of snow-covered grass, and the extraction of a plump vole. Hooray, good job, fox! We have a robust vole population in our yard, if the extensive tunnels throughout the grass (which were exposed when the winter snow melted) is any indication. The fox then moved back through the meadow and yard, stopping at a couple of spots on the way to gather something... which turned out to be more voles that it had caught and cached while I wasn't watching! That's quite a haul!
A quick stop for one more vole buried in the snow:
Got it:
Groceries obtained, the fox headed off our property, presumably to a den of hungry kits somewhere nearby:
Best of luck with your family, fox. Maybe we'll see you around again sometime!
And here we are, still in the early stages of spring. This morning's snow is now entirely melted again. The Bloodroot flowers in our yard are so close to opening, and they've been stalled at the closed-bud stage for days now. We saw a few Spring Peepers and an American Toad out and about on a rainy upper-40s (F) night back on April 7, but we still haven't had the first big amphibian night yet (last year we saw salamanders and more on the night of April 12). It looks like we'll have a stretch of warmer weather coming soon, though, and spring will certainly continue. I'm dreaming of new-green leaves on trees, flowers everywhere, and May birds.... All of that will be here soon enough. :)
The ponds at Naugatuck State Forest were positively raucous with amphibian activity when I visited there yesterday afternoon. Hooray for spring! Spring Peepers were calling their piercing calls from all around the water's edge, but even though I looked and looked for these tiny frogs, I couldn't see a single one. They must have been very well hidden under the grasses and brush! Well, whether I could see them or not, they were definitely there:
(The bird flying around in the above video is a Song Sparrow who every few minutes added his voice to the Spring Peeper cacophony.)
While I searched for peepers, a Pickerel Frog leaped out of hiding. I wish I would see these fancy frogs more often:
In the pond's shallows, the water was practically roiling with Red-spotted Newts:
And just a few feet away, in a small pool, Wood Frogs were making their quacking-croaking sounds. When I got near, these frogs went quiet and did their best floating-leaf impressions, just drifting across the water's surface:
So many amphibians, and I love them all! There were already many clusters of Wood Frog eggs in the pool, along with cloudy masses of (probably) Spotted Salamander eggs. I keep hoping to come across a Spotted Salamander on my walks, but so far these awesome underground creatures have stayed hidden.
Although yesterday's walk was (as usual) lacking in terrestrial salamanders, I did happen upon another creature that's usually hidden away underground: a mole cricket!
This bizarre insect (I think the species is a Northern Mole Cricket, Neocurtilla hexadactyla) was wandering across the muddy ground next to a pond, and it very helpfully froze as soon as it knew I'd seen it. I've only ever seen a mole cricket once before, and that was a dead and mangled individual, so I was super excited to get to check out this guy (or girl) close up. What an amazingly weird animal!
I love those claw/spade-like front legs, so perfect for digging, and I'm intrigued by those alien tube-like structures down its back. From what I've read, I'm guessing these are modified hind wings; I've just never seen anything like them before. The mole cricket was big, too, maybe around two inches long.
The mole cricket eventually decided it'd had enough with the photo session, and it pushed its way under a wet leaf:
Ah, snug as a... mole cricket in a wet leaf. (Can you see the antennae sticking out in the upper middle of this last picture?)
Other sights from yesterday's walk included 20 Common Mergansers on the open water, drifting in large groups from one end of the pond to another:
Common Mergansers show up at these ponds around this time every year before they move on to their breeding areas. I'm always happy to admire the elegant females:
And tuxedoed males:
The Skunk Cabbage blooms are showing off their gorgeous colors and patterns, as usual:
And look, green leaves unfurling! I guess spring really is here!
Last Wednesday, I visited a strange and foreign land: Canada! I had some work-related obligations in Ottawa, Ontario -- which, as it turns out, is a mere eight-hour drive northwest from my house, just up past the middle of New York state. So off I went, and of course I had to make time to get out into the woods while I was there. I've traveled in Canada before, but I've never been to Ottawa, and I couldn't pass up this chance to explore!
As soon as I checked into my hotel in downtown Ottawa on Wednesday afternoon, I headed off to Gatineau Park, a few miles north of Ottawa and just over the border into Quebec. This really did feel like a foreign country, since everyone I passed in these woods was speaking French! I spent most of my time in this park walking around Pink Lake -- named after a person, not the color -- and the change from Connecticut was dramatic. The air was cool and clear instead of hot and muggy, and there were conifers and rocky inclines all over. Pink Lake itself was gorgeous:
Right in the middle of the lake (a tiny black dot in the above picture) was a Common Loon! What an appropriate first Canadian creature to see:
According to the various informational signs along the trail, this lake is meromictic, which means that the upper and lower layers of water don't mix. Apparently the only creature that survives at the bottom of Pink Lake is an ancient bacteria that lives off of sulfur instead of oxygen. That's preeeeetty cool. In any case, the lake's water was also just really lovely and clear, and I often looked in to see fish staring back at me:
An amazing number of creatures popped out along the path as I walked around the lake. These are all animals I'm familiar with from Connecticut, but I loved how frequently they showed up here and how active they were! An Eastern Chipmunk darted right out onto the path's steps only a few feet in front of me:
And then it proceeded to just sit back and groom itself:
Eh, so there's a human looming over me, no big deal:
I noticed the same sort of nonchalance in the chipmunks and squirrels when I visited Utah last summer, whereas the chipmunks I see in Connecticut are extremely skittish! I wonder what causes this difference in behavior.
At other points along the path, a gorgeous Wood Frog bounded into view:
An Eastern Garter Snake rustled in the underbrush and then slithered back into the leaves:
And a small Painted Turtle walked across the path, with another creature in tow:
I've never seen a leech on a turtle shell before, but I guess it happens. Poor little guy:
There were some really cool plants in these woods, too. Here's something we don't have in Connecticut, Pinedrops (Pterospora andromedea), big (2 or 3 feet tall) flower stalks that emerge right from the forest floor:
Pinedrops are some of those weird plants without chlorophyll, and they get their food from underground fungi. These flower stalks are definitely striking, and the flowers are quite pretty up close:
In the sunlight, those stalks practically glowed red -- pretty, and very weird:
Finally, these lovely flower buds looked vaguely familiar, but I haven't been able to identify the plant they belong to. (Help is appreciated if anyone recognizes them!) I just love these purple stars floating in the dark forest:
The sun was quickly setting, so I left Pink Lake. It was a wonderful first taste of this awesome area, but I wasn't finished yet! More pictures of creatures and plants coming soon!
Today was pretty much the perfect spring-like day. Paul and I decided we had to take advantage of such gorgeous weather (sweatshirts, not coats!), so we went for an afternoon walk in West Rock Ridge State Park, where I was super excited to find Wood Frogs in full courtship mode! Yaaay, Wood Frogs!!
This little pool (almost more of a big puddle, really) was practically roiling with dozens of male Wood Frogs, all calling and charging around at each other. I actually only saw one pair of frogs that had coupled up, and no other females. (I'm sure the girls were hiding in there somewhere.) These frogs were so totally engrossed in displaying their masculinity that they didn't seem to care at all that Paul and I were walking around (not quietly) just feet away from them. These guys mean serious business.
I just love these creatures, and it was really great to get to show them to Paul, who'd never experienced their mating frenzy before. We just stood there for a while, watching these frogs wrestle and listening to their ridiculously loud/hilarious chorus, and it was awesome -- definitely one of my favorite spectacles of early spring.
Here's a brief video I recorded of these frogs in action. (Note the air sacs on either side of this guy's head.... I was really surprised when I first learned that this is how male Wood Frogs work, and I still think it's extremely cool.)
As a bonus, we heard a few Spring Peepers in the woods today as well. So now that the amphibians are waking up, I think that means spring can really begin. :)
Today and yesterday have been the grayest days we've had in a while, with persistent low clouds and intermittent showers. "Soggy" would probably be the best descriptor, actually. But I've been itching to get out into the woods, so imperfect as the weather was, I spent most of my mornings both today and yesterday in the meadows of Naugatuck State Forest. And I have to say, despite the squelching shoes and the occasional need to protect my camera from rain with a plastic bag, I had just the best time. The was so much to see! In fact, I saw too many things, so this is going to have to be two posts. First up: Herps!
I hadn't even reached the parking area this morning when I got a surprise:
Nooo, turtle, don't try to cross the road! I did carry him or her the rest of the way across (and got a hiss for my troubles), but I had to stop and say "hi" first. OMG, Box Turtle!
I really have no idea how it's possible that I've been wandering the woods in Connecticut for years now, and yet this is the first Eastern Box Turtle I've seen here. I don't think they're especially rare, although they are listed as a species of special concern in Connecticut and apparently populations are slowly declining. Oh, you beautiful creature with your fearsome face. Don't glare at me; I'm trying to help you!
I love the golden star-bursts on this turtle's shell:
With those bright orange markings, you'd think these turtles would be hard to overlook in a brown forest background, but I actually think this creature blends in fairly well -- maybe that's how I've managed to miss seeing these creatures for so long:
The Box Turtle was a wonderfully exciting creature to get to meet! And speaking of bright orange herps, Red Efts were everywhere in this lovely damp weather. Again, you wouldn't think these juvenile Red-spotted Newts would be good at camouflage, but I found myself having to watch my step very carefully to make sure I didn't accidentally squash one of these little guys in my path:
I had to stop and admire every one of the several efts I came across. They're such wonderful little creatures. (And so photogenic!)
I lifted a log by the path to see if anyone was hiding there, and found a dainty Red-backed Salamander, who was probably also thoroughly enjoying the damp weather:
And this Wood Frog leaped across my path and landed, perfectly still, on a dead leaf:
I could practically hear it muttering, "I'm a leaf, just a leaf. Can you see me?" Yes, little frog, but I'm not going to eat you, I promise.
When I moved on, it hopped away again, just another leaf on the forest floor:
So many awesome creatures, and this is just the beginning! Stay tuned for more forest findings -- birds and flowers! -- on these two soggy days.
