March and April, 2021

Here we are, already on the first day of summer as I write this! Spring is always a busy time, and this year's spring was indeed busy, but it was also wonderful. Unlike last year's chaotic spring (oh, 2020), this year's past few months have been relatively smooth, at least around here. We've had a fairly even transition from snowy frozen winter into warmer weather and rain and sun. And I've been able to wander outside and keep up with a lot of the plants and animals in our yard, meadow, and woods as their populations have grown and shifted. I played a game where I tried to know the name of every plant (native and non-native alike) as it flowered on our property this spring, and I made it all the way to the end of May before I had to admit defeat! (Maybe next year I'll make it even further.)

I have a bunch of sights to share from the past few months. This post will cover only the months of March and April (May and June will come later). It's time to go back to snowy days!

We must have had a big boom in our population of Meadow Voles over the winter, because the melting snow in March revealed lots of these rodents' nests in the meadow (and later, extensive tunnels across the ground, damaged plants, etc.). Here's one of the Meadow Vole nests and its perfect melted circle in the snow on March 11:

Big flocks of migrating Snow Geese and Canada Geese crossed the sky -- heading North -- fairly frequently in March. This flock of Snow Geese passed overhead on March 9:

Also on March 9, I saw this Red-tailed Hawk with what looked like a very full crop (I guess somebody found a big meal):
 

On March 21, I was surprised to see a Pileated Woodpecker clinging to our little suet feeder! I'd never seen one of these big birds at our feeders before, and I guess this setup doesn't look super comfortable:

April 11 was a big amphibian night (it was rainy and warm), and we saw Spotted Salamanders and Red-backed Salamanders galore (but no good pictures of those awesome amphibians), plus a couple of big Pickerel Frogs that I didn't recognize at first because I'd never seen them during breeding season before:

Lots of Spring Peepers were also out and about on the night of April 11, including this little peeper who perched on our doormat:

And this peeper who posed nicely on the blue background of our front door:

This was a great spring for flowers! Here are several pristine Bloodroot flowers in our front yard on April 14:

And female Spicebush flowers on the same day and only a few feet away:

Here's American Golden Saxifrage (Chrysosplenium americanum), also on April 14, and a totally new plant for me. These flowers are no more than tiny rings of orange dots, and I only thought to look closely at these plants in the pond in our woods after I read about these flowers in another blog (thanks, Saratoga Woods and Waterways!):

I found this next flower in the protected public land across the street from our house (which I've learned is especially rich in spring wildflowers!), rather than on our property. But I was so thrilled to see these Sharp-lobed Hepatica flowers, which I haven't seen up close in many years! Here's one of these beautiful purple flowers on April 19:

This patch of the woods had lots of white hepatica flowers, too, and I thought these were just as beautiful as the purple ones:

Back in our woods, I was super excited to find our first Red Trillium blossoms (after noticing what I thought looked like trillium leaves in previous years), right next to the path. This picture is from a rainy April 29:

To round out a few more April sightings, here's a very handsome White-throated Sparrow on April 19:

And here's a quite early Garter Snake (also on April 19) who sat perfectly still on the forest floor while I pulled up an invasive honeysuckle bush nearby (notice the large red Velvet Mite on the right as well):

A Common Raven stopped by several times to pull chunks off of a road-killed Raccoon across the street from our house, so we had front row seats for its shopping trips (perhaps it was feeding a family nearby?). Here's the raven visiting on April 22 (yes, that's snow):

Throughout March and April, our trail camera let us see some goings-on in the woods. Here's a compilation of a few video highlights from those months:

1. A Raccoon feeling for critters in the small pond in our woods.
2. Two Virginia Opossums walking together.... I've never seen two opossums at the same time before, so I wonder whether there might have been some thoughts of mating.
3. For a few days in April, I happened to set up the trail camera in what turned out to be a White-tailed Deer's bedroom, and I ended up with many, many videos of deer sitting around and chewing. Here's one of those videos.
4. Also from the deer-bedroom set, there's this video of the sleepy deer standing up, walking next to the camera, and audibly yawning. I think it's really cool to get to hear a deer's yawn.
5. At the fallen-log spot that was so productive last summer, a Long-tailed Weasel.
6. A beautiful Gray Fox.
   

 

And that's March and April! May and June are up next!

Two Wonderful April Creatures, And Some Wildflowers

This is my catching-up-with-April post! This month has been so busy that I can't tell whether it's gone by really fast or really slow.... Either way, there have been a lot of good things happening, and in between all the busy-ness, I saw some very cool creatures while wandering outside this month. I can't let May start without sharing some wonderful sights from April!

First: Peepers! I started hearing a few scattered Spring Peepers calling in our neighborhood way back in late February, but these tiny frogs definitely reached their peak activity in April. They called basically all month from the marshy area across the street from our house, and we got pretty good at going out at night and finding the creatures amid their clouds of ear-blasting sound. On April 9th, we first tried looking for the frogs during the afternoon because many of them were already calling, but they were too well hidden in the marshy grass. I found one peeper that jumped out as I walked by, but he wasn't about to call while I watched; still, I got to admire his subtly intricate camouflage:

What a handsome frog, even with his weird baggy throat:

When we returned with flashlights the same night, it took us quite a while to find our first peeper, but we did it. Look, a tiny inflating bubble in the reeds!
 

Sorry, little guy, just one picture with flash, because you're so cool (look at those veins!):
 

We got better at finding peepers every time we went out looking for them: two the next time, then three the time after that. As I'm writing this, only a few peepers are still calling, and I'm so glad I got to see these tiny neighbors up close while they were doing their springtime thing.

Here's my second awesome sight from this month: On the afternoon of April 23, I went for a walk at the Mulholland Wildflower Preserve with friends. It was sunny and warm, and we were admiring the wildflowers and a few birds, when wonder of wonders, a bat flew past over the creek, and even more incredibly, it landed on a tree just ahead of us, right next to the path, at eye level. Oh my goodness, a bat!
 

As best as I can tell, this is a Little Brown Bat. (But I'm happy to be corrected! I haven't had much opportunity to build bat identification skills before now.) This is one of the most common bats in New York, and probably the species we used to get in our family's house every once in a while when I was little. But common or not, I hadn't seen a bat at all in quite a while (even nighttime sightings seem rare now), and this is by far the closest and clearest I've ever seen a bat in the wild. So pardon the small explosion of photos!

The bat took a nice break on the tree (I'm guessing it had been busy hunting over the creek) and it stayed there for a few minutes while we watched. I can't imagine having to maneuver with all those membranes between limbs. There's its tail!
 

Look at that face:
 

The bat even scratched for a bit under its arm with its back claws, so much like a fuzzy little dog:
 

Ah, that looks like a good scratch:
 

Really though, how adorable and beautiful is this creature?
 

The bat took off for another fluttering lap over the creek and came back to land on a different tree for a few seconds (look closely to see a tiny bat tongue!):
 

And then it was off and down the creek and out of sight. What an amazing encounter!

The rest of the walk was filled with lovely ephemeral wildflowers, and I'm so glad I got to be in these woods in early spring. Trout Lilies are some of my favorite first flowers, not only for their yellow lantern-like blooms but also their pretty dappled leaves:
 
 

White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) was just starting to bloom:

We were just a bit too early to see Wild Ginger open its blossoms, but I was still happy to see this cute little plant for the first time (at least as far as I can remember):
 

Also new to me (outside of seeing pictures of it) was lovely Sharp-lobed Hepatica (Anemone acutiloba):
 

Spring Beauty flowers with their tiny pink stripes are always a happy sight:
 

And that's April! Today, on the last day of the month, I went for a gray-day walk (not good light, so no pictures) and saw Palm and Yellow Warblers, a female cardinal building her nest, and many Trout Lilies already past their peak. The earliest stages of spring have finished, and now the really intense part of the season begins. Here comes May!