Nature – Page 12 – ToadMama.com

April 10, 2010April 11, 2010

K Wins the Prize

The second weekend in April has us back at the WV place. Temps this week are significantly cooler than last week. It was in the low 40s when we woke up this morning. The high is only supposed to reach 60. That’s MUCH more Spring-like, which is fine by me.

Although cooler, things definitely got more green over the past week. And the redbuds, which were just starting to bloom last week, are now in full bloom.

redbuds_in_bloom — Redbud Tree at the End of Our Driveway

Are you wondering what this has to do with K? Bear with me. I thought I’d give you some nice, pleasant, soothing images first.

I shot these pics this morning while I was out walking with the girls. Thanks to Google Maps, I can give you a satellite overview of our walking “trail.”

I labeled the map so I wouldn’t have to describe each marker in too much detail. Our driveway is 500-600 feet long. It bends in the middle. A typical walk takes us “down the hill” to the end of the driveway at Turkey Hollow Road. From there, we turn left and walk to the top of Turkey Hollow Road and then round the bend and continue to the cul-de-sac at the end of Turkey Hollow Road. The closest public road is at the bottom of the ridge behind our house. All of the roads on the map have a dirt and gravel surface, which means not a whole heck of a lot of traffic.

This morning, K disappeared into the woods opposite the end of the driveway at Turkey Hollow Road. I knew she wasn’t far away, so I continued walking to the top of Turkey Hollow Road, which is about 300 feet from the end of the driveway. After a minute or so, she reappeared. I called her once and she ignored me. She was busy sniffing at the ground. From that distance, I couldn’t tell what she was sniffing.

When I called her the second time, she came running.

It was only on the way back toward the house that I discovered what she’d been sniffing.

Yep, she’d drug a carcass out of the woods.

K won the prize for first bit of grossness discovered this weekend.

Upon closer inspection (I had to look), I realized it was a possum. It was no baby either. This lovely bag of bones was at least a foot long. Of course, I couldn’t just let it lay there. Would you want your dogs eating (and potentially puking up) this nice treat?

I made K leave it lay so I could return to the house for a bag. (It was far too spread out and loosely assembled to just pick it up with my hands.)

She was not happy to leave her treasure behind.

going_for_bag — Not Happy to Abandon Her Treasure

She was even less thrilled to see me bag it up upon our return.

It’s a good thing I have a strong stomach.

And guess what? Mere minutes after our return to the house, Meg reappeared with a bone of her own.

It was much larger, and older, so I’m guessing it was one of the original pieces from the infamous bone collection, which you can read more about if so inclined.

Meg’s bone is now in the bag with the possum carcass hanging high up on one of our porch columns where it will be safe until we dispose of it.

Why not just put it in the trash? Because our trash can is in the garage. And bones like that tend to smell pretty bad.

Hubby and I plan on taking a bicycle ride a bit later today. Hopefully tomorrow’s post will be a little less grisly.

Sorry, but that’s the reality of life in the woods…

April 7, 2010April 7, 2010

Holy Cow

When Hubby and I visited Alaska a couple of years ago, the Alaska Raptor Center in Sitka was one of our stops. Actually, it’s one of the reasons Sitka was added to our itinerary. I’d read about their Bald Eagle rehab program and thought it would be a cool place to visit. It was. Very cool actually.

It’s really interesting to see these magnificent birds up close. The one pictured on the right is a Golden Eagle. As explained on this Web page done by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Golden Eagles are common in western North America, but rare in the East.

You’re most likely to make a rare sighting during the winter in the Mid-Atlantic region, which is where some Golden Eagles and many other raptors go to escape the harsher weather of their summer breeding and year-round ranges.

Hubby and I did see at least one Golden Eagle in the wild when we were at Denali National Park. But I haven’t seen one here.

Why then am I telling you about Golden Eagles? Because one of the people in my computer recently did a blog post about them. Before I tell you more, here’s a little info you should read about the differences between Bald and Golden Eagles.

American Bald Eagle description (from the American Bald Eagle Information Web site): A female bald eagle’s body length varies from 35 to 37 inches; with a wingspan of 79 to 90 inches. The smaller male bald eagle has a body length of 30 to 34 inches; with a wingspan ranging from 72 to 85 inches. Their average weight is ten to fourteen pounds. Northern birds are significantly larger than their southern relatives.

Here’s what that same Web site had to say about Golden Eagles: Length of about 3 feet (.92m). Weighing up to 15 pounds (7kg), with a wing span of up to 7 feet (2m). Golden eagles are larger than bald eagles in average height and wingspan, but there isn’t much difference in average weight.

After watching the video I’ll tell you about shortly, I thought Golden Eagles have to be way bigger than Bald Eagles. But they’re not.

You’ve just got to check out the very short video on my Flickr friend’s blog that shows a Golden Eagle hunting a deer. Yes, a DEER.

When I saw it, I exclaimed, “Holy cow!”

Usually, if Hubby overhears me commenting out loud about something I’ve just seen on the Web, he’ll say, “What?”

This time, he immediately grabbed his glasses and headed toward me saying, “Anything that warrants a ‘holy cow’ must be good.”

I hope you are similarly astonished.

While looking for that Golden Eagle picture, I saw this shot of me Hubby took in Alaska that I thought was cool…

toadmama-scoping — ToadMama Looking for the Perfect Photo Opportunity

You can see Sitka in the background. It’s a town on one of the islands in Alaska’s famous Inside Passage.

April 6, 2010

The Call of the Toad

I get excited each the Spring when the Spring Peepers start their chirping. Not because they are frogs, but because that’s when you know warmer weather is on its way. Tonight, I heard my first toad. 🙂

When the toads start calling, you know Spring is really here.

No, I did not run right outside and snap a picture of the singing toad I heard. This image is from quite a few years ago. It’s one of my favorite toad captures.

Speaking of toad captures, I can’t forget all the toad sex shots…

making_more_toads — Making More Toads for My Pond

When I had a backyard pond, it was a pretty popular toad hangout. Once when I went out there, there were FIVE toad couples going at it. Five. I kid you not.

There were even a couple of Green Frogs hanging out for a while. They were pretty shy and never let me get very close. Green Frogs are not quite as big as Bullfrogs, but they’re way bigger than toads and Pickerel Frogs.

I just had to share my favorite frog picture, too. I am pretty sure this is a Pickerel Frog. It could be a Leopard Frog, too. They’re hard to tell apart. And they’re way too fast to get a very close look.

Since I no longer have a pond, there aren’t as many frogs around. But there are still lots of toads.

Are you wondering how I know what a toad sounds like?

Back when we had a pond, I’d hear different noises and wonder what they were. So I’d go investigate. Toads are LOUD, hence they were pretty easy to find. Of course, there are also Internet sites where you can find frog and toad sounds. For inquiring minds and all.

If you have an inquiring mind, too, check these out:

I’ll have a pond again one day. But it will be much bigger than the one I had (pictured below).

Larger ponds are actually easier to maintain. I could go all into the reasons for that, but I’m guessing you probably care about that as much as you care about what different frogs and toads sound like.

I simply cannot end this post without a picture of a bullfrog.

Hubby thinks my interest in critters is stupid, but he usually humors me and does stuff like hold this immature Bullfrog so I can get a good photo. I’m pretty sure this is the one I found in a parking lot one night after a soccer game. I caught it, threw it in my trunk, and brought it home.

Bullfrogs are quite large. Here’s another frog fan’s photo that shows a Bullfrog at the bottom of a cat litter pail, which should give you a better idea as to how big they are. Another of her pics shows her holding a full-grown Bullfrog.

When most people think of frog sounds, they think of the Bullfrog. They also think of these famous Bullfrogs.

Although, really, most people probably don’t ever think of frog sounds.

I’ll try to find something more interesting for my next post.

If there’s ever anything you’ve seen here or heard me mention you’d like to know more about, just let me know. Coming up with new and interesting material isn’t always a hop in the park.

April 4, 2010April 4, 2010

Thinking Spring

Spring is definitely here. Wanna know how I know?

It’s Easter, for one.

Not being a particularly religious person, and having adult children, Easter doesn’t mean much to me.

There’s the grandkids, of course. But their father (my son-in-law) has a pretty big family and they tend to celebrate with large family gatherings. So most of our Easters are spent in West Virginia.

We could do the typical grandparent thing and get them Easter baskets full of candy and cheapo toys. But their parents don’t let them have much candy (which is really a very good thing) and they have lots of toys that more often than not end up being discretely disposed of because they totally clutter up their house.

So Easter is pretty much just another day to us. It would be more exciting if we got Good Friday and/or Easter Monday off of work. But we don’t.

Anyway… after Hubby sent me the bunny pic shown above, I decided to see what other kind of Easter humor was out there.

You did see me say I’m not particularly religious, right? I mention that again because some of these are slightly off-color.

They’re not REALLY bad. But they’re not all sunshine, rainbows and cute little bunnies either.

That’s totally something one of my dogs would do.

That last one is my favorite. Nothing like a slightly humorous joke with a picture of crabby-looking old folks.

Okay, okay, I’ll stop. Those images really aren’t all THAT funny. Besides I’d rather share some pictures I took yesterday that really are signs of Spring.

redbuds — The Redbud Trees are Starting to Bloom

going_green2 — More New Growth and Blue Skies

going_green3 — New Growth on Another Bush

lizard — The Lizards Have Awakened From Their Long Winter Slumber

flowers — The Forest Floor is Coming Alive

ready_to_ride — Nothing Says Spring Like a Motorcycle All Gassed-up and Ready-to-Ride

That’s it for pictures shot yesterday. But it’s not the end.

When I was at my friend Tracey’s house a few weeks ago, I did more than photograph her poultry. I took some pics around her house. One of my favorites is the one I got of her basket full of chicks. She made them. She’s very crafty. In fact, she’s the one who taught me to make hand-tied quilts.

basket_o_chicks — Tracey's Home-made Chicks

She’s got a great eye for decorating, too. This one picture I took in her kitchen makes the perfect Easter banner with which to end this long and sort of boring post. Sorry.

I hope you have a fabulous Easter!

March 23, 2010March 23, 2010

What Might Have Been

While driving home from Pennsylvania on Sunday, I stopped at the Conowingo Dam near Port Deposit, Maryland to check out the Eagle action.

I didn’t know I was going to stop there.

Why does that matter? Because had I known I was going to visit the dam, I would have been prepared. I would have had my tripod with me.

A tripod is important. A tripod is what supports your camera to minimize movement. Minimizing movement matters most when using a zoom lens, when even the slightest movement blurs your image.

Even though I was bracing my camera against a fence, it still moved ever so slightly. And that, unfortunately, was enough movement to blur my shots.

Now, had I used a tripod, I could have had some cool, clear photographs. Instead, I ended up with a lot of grainy/noisy snapshots. Yes, you can see what is in the pictures, but the pictures are blurry. And they’ve all been edited to get them to this poor level of quality.

Normally, I wouldn’t even post images that are this bad. For someone like me, capturing a barely recognizable image isn’t good enough. I want focus. Clarity.

When I do finally get to Conowingo with a tripod, I’ll show you the difference. For now, you just have to settle for what might have been some great shots if only I’d been prepared.

This image was captured with my standard lens. It is close to what the average person sees with the naked eye. The two arrows show the areas of focus for most of the following shots. They are pretty far away.

Had I used a tripod, you would have seen a cool picture of seven, yes SEVEN, Great Blue Herons and one Cormorant (on the right in the vertical middle) fishing. You would have been able to tell, without squinting really hard and using a bit of imagination that the bird in the center of the shot has a fish in its mouth. (NOTE: If you click on any of these images, you’ll get a bigger view.)

If I’d had my tripod, this might have been a great shot of a Bald Eagle joining the fishing party.

If I’d been prepared, you would’ve seen a clear shot of a second Eagle taking off from this big rock to score himself a fish.

unprepared_6 — Immature Eagle Chasing Adult Eagle

Having a tripod wouldn’t have helped this shot much. I tried my best to get a shot of this immature Eagle (brown head) chasing the adult Eagle (white head).

This might have been a clear image of the two Eagles landing. Perhaps you would have noticed the Great Blue Heron in the middle of the frame without me having to tell you it is there. Notice all the pigeons sitting still on the rock that Eagle is about to occupy? You know the fishing is good when pigeons are of no interest to an Eagle. In any other setting, one or more of those pigeons probably would have been lunch.

unprepared_8 — Great Blue Heron In Flight

The tripod wouldn’t have helped this one either. I had to track the bird with my lens while focusing manually hoping for at least one clear image.

This might have been a nice shot of that same Great Blue Heron landing in the foreground while the two Eagles look on.

Perhaps this would have been a nicely focused image showing the adult Eagle (left) with seven Great Blue Herons in the foreground, an immature Eagle (center) and nine or ten Cormorants in the background with water cascading over the spillways as a backdrop.

One day, when I have my tripod and actually get some good bird pictures, you’ll be able to see the difference. You’ll know why I find these shots disappointing. I’ll even refer back to this post for reference.

For now, I hope you enjoyed those snapshots of what might have been.