Scavengers

This past week I came across a couple of large birds in the wild; both scavengers. The first is no stranger to anyone. A seagull. During an excursion to the coast with my father and Janna, I decided to take pity on the seagulls at North Hampton Beach and feed them copious amounts of nutrigrain bar bits. This one seagull was by far the most feisty of his peers, thus warranting a photo.Next up! A few days later and much farther inland I came across this very tolerant Turkey Vulture. Typically, turkey vultures travel in pairs or families around here, but this one stood alone. And more importantly, they certainly take to flight well before you come this close to them! I was within 5-10 feet of this one before it cough/scrawked and nonchallantly went on its vulture way. :)

The Hummingbird

You may need to click on these photos I took to see the little guy properly. I went out to the historical conservation land of Monson yesterday and found a small tree behind the flower gardens. Near this tree was a hummingbird feeder; he who owns the tree shalt own the nectar. :)




This one hummingbird fought valiantly to defend the nectar against a formidable gang of three other hummingbirds. It was amusing to watch these tiny birds, no more than 2 inches long, in an epic battle over sugar water! In between bouts of high pitched squeals and fencing matches with teensy beaks, my little hero rested in the tree I sat near and I was able to get these cool photos. Never before have I watched a hummingbird resting in a tree in the wild.




So that's pretty much the whole story here. I hope you like them anyway. The photo of him flying is very blurry, but I thought it was interesting enough to put up here anyway. :)

Warm Tones of Summer

This post is just as simplistic as the last because I have a few good pics and pretty much no tale to tell. All these photos were taken at Beaver Brook's Maple Farm Gardens. The above is a lovely lily from the "Shade Garden" - the bee was an unintentional interloper to the photo. :)

The next flower came from the "Magic Garden". I've heard of this herb before, but never have I seen it in bloom. This is bee balm and it looks extraterrestrial to me! It comprised of tall green stalks about 5 feet high with these red crowns tipping each stalk.


The tree is a Japanese Maple from the Shade Garden that caught the light just right and merited a photograph.

And lastly we have a lily I have dubbed the "Creamsicle Lily". I'm actually not a huge fan of lilies, but they photograph so well and grow everywhere!

Whimsical Weekend Pics

Thanks to the break in the incessant rain this past weekend, I was able to take some more pictures. The above is a newcomer to my balcony garden - a very tenacious gray squirrel. In this picture, s/he is desperately trying to get into the goldfinch.

The next 2 pictures are taken from the "Kibby's Climb" trail at Beaver Brook, my favorite haunt. :) It's a growth on a pine tree that looks remarkebly like the Green Man to me. The brighter picture shows it better, but is not as good quality as the darker. It was dark in the forest, so it was tough to get these shots.









And the last picture is one of my personal faves. This large statue was guarding the herbal gardens of Maple Farm.

The Tree Spirit, the Fairy and the Mouse

The Hand Oak - This Tree Guards the Entrance to Sheldrick Forest

No, this blog post is not a folktale, but I could adapt it someday. I took advantage of the first day of sun in weeks to take a long overdue walk. Today: Sheldrick Forest, Wilton. This forest is an "old growth" forest, meaning most of the land has never been forested, harvested, cultivated. Many of the trees (Mostly Beech, Birch and Oak) are well over a few hundred years old.

These are some shots I took today. The tree to the right is a beech tree over 300 years old (which is a long time by New England standards where 90% of the forests were mowed down for pastures back when it was colonized). I may be looking too much into this and maybe I was a bit dehydrated at the time, but this picture looks like a woman holding her arms up to the sky to me. The sway in the trunk makes me think her a dancer. She was a happy tree today. :)
The mouse you see really made my week! This lil guy hopped across my trail and I thought "Oh! A frog! .... A gray frog! ... A furry gray...frog?" Nope! This is a whitefooted deermouse! This is the second year in a row I've come in direct contact with these guys. This one played with me a while. It scurried about and I caught it a few times then he would get away - but he wouldn't go far. A few times he climbed up my pantleg! Eventually, I lost him in some brambles. All in all, I was cracking up with laughter in the forest. :D

And lastly, there is a ridge that curves at the back of the forest that always reminds me of fairies. I picture King Paralda of the East Winds holding court there... long story. Anyway! Much to my surprise, I'm not the only one that must feel this way because on the trail today I found a "fairy home". These were popular a few years back when a children's story was published about them. This is the first I've ever seen on my travels. You can't see it in the picture, but there are sticks spelling the word "FAIRY" in the ground at the base of the house. This must have been built today as the rain would have been cruel to this little establishment.

Butterflies

"The Aging Monarch"

Thanks to my conversation with the black and yellow butterfly herself, Caryn, I'm posting these 3 pics I took last year. The picture above was taken at the Beaver Brook gardens. I wish I didn't get so much haze, but I like it anyway. I could probably edit the haze out, but that would defeat the purpose of perfection in nature. :)

The next is one of my faves from the Granite Town Rail Trail. I took this in autumn, down a power-line corridor and under a bleaching sun. So, I'm not too surprised it's very yellow and fading - it captured the day nicely.













The blue and black butterfly was taken on the same trail, but earlier in the year. It was drinking dew from the rocky terrain.

The Nature of Water

This is a waterlily (lotus) that I photographed last year at Heald Pond in Wilton. Right now, lotuses are just buds on the water.

It is a warm and sunny Monday. I'm not a lover of heat so I was drawn to the watery habitats in the area - the brooks, ponds, swamps and wetlands (yes, there is a difference between the last two). I spent most of the late morning noting the best areas to find lotus blossoms for photographing in July, documenting hatchling turtles leaving the nest, and feeding Canadian goslings . Yes, I live a charmed life on occasion.

I started off looking for lotus buds. They look like little yellow and pink fishing bobbers on the ponds right now. I hunt for concentrations of them so I can go back to that spot for the couple of weeks in July when they will be in full healthy bloom. While walking a sandy bank to a swamp, I found a hole in the sand at my feet, just dug that morning. I followed tiny scrapings in the sand to the water's edge to find tiny painted turtles who were completely new to the sun and water world that they'll spend the rest of their lives in. Adorable, right?

And just to drive the 'adorable' home in your heart - here's some fluffy Canadian Goslings to take a *chuckle* GANDER at! Hehehehe Ok, that was a really bad pun and I'm sorry. :)
Now for some reason, I can't get the blog text to line up with the photos, so the next photo is below. This bullfrog needed a time in the limelight. He just chillaxed by my side as I took pictures of turtles and watersnakes. However, he's no William.

And to wrap up a picture of water life taken from the shoreline, I have a picture I took last year and is admittedly one of my favorites. This is a Northern Water Snake. These guys are not poisonous, but they do have anticoagulant in their fangs that makes a bite slow to heal. I handle them rarely because they are quick to strike and musk.

Sky Fire

I thought I'd put together a tribute to the sun with a collection of photos I took over the past year. The one above was taken at dawn last December from my balcony. I haven't touched the color at all, only shrunk the size of the image down. :) It always reminds me a bit of a painting. Oil on canvas - Janna, get on it! (after you paint me a turtle)

<-<- This is another dawn shot a few months later in March. In all my photos, I'm always trying to capture the lighting. With my little digicam, it's pretty difficult. I usually end up taking about a dozen shots only to find one good one.


I had about 15 of this rainbow ->->










<-<- This is the noon sun reflecting on a pond in Amherst. I was really out there to photograph great blue heron, but got bored and started photographing the sun on the water instead. :)

Hatching Dragons

Yesterday, I spent my time outdoors in two failed photo-journal pursuits. The first was tracking down a black capped chickadee nest I was watching. To my dismay, the nest was ransacked by some unknown predator (probably a raccoon) with nothing to show but stray feathers and egg shells. The second was to catch a freshly hatched painted turtle. A nest hatched and they quickly dropped into the stagnant, green waters of a deep roadside culvert - just out of reach. I sidled down the banking and realized with just one step in the water, I could reach one. So I took off a shoe, rolled up a pant leg, took a step down into the gross water and tried very slowly and carefully to ... and fell in! Nasty! AND I didn't get a turtle either. That was the worst part! So just when I was about to write off my day as *insert raspberry sound here*, I came across a seldom seen transformation; the hatching of dragonflies.That picture looks even nicer expanded. Click on it to see! There are so many different species of dragonflies and darners in NH, that I don't even know how to begin identifying this one without a good guide (the web is seriously lacking in good identification keys).

I walked along the grassy area by the Wildlife Pond at Beaver Brook where crickets and snakes can usually be found. Instead, I found lots of discarded, creepy shells of "dragonfly excuvae." These are the empty skins of dragons before they become flies. Don't expand the picture to the left if you don't like insects. It's rather "ew"-worthy.

Like butterflies from cocoons, dragonflies emerge from these skins complete with beautiful patterns and wings. The excuvai is normally insanely tiny compared to the dragonfly that emerges. The crumpled wings that were inside the skin are supple and crumpled. Here's a dragon that just emerged.


From this point, they try to sit stationary in the sun to dry off and let their wings harden enough to allow them flight. Just walking through the grass, I had many climb up onto me. It was very windy, so they were having a tough time of it. I sat with this one in particular, protecting it from the wind, just to see it all the way from excuvae to flight. It took a while, but it was pretty wonderful to experience. A half hour after the picture to the right, the picture below
shows the dragon's progress.


And the picture at the very top was the final snap I got before s/he took off into the air. I think it was a thank you shot. ;)

Water Turtles Of NH

New Hampshire has a chilly climate in general. Because of this, our state contains mostly water turtles (the one exception being the rare Box Turtle of which at last count, there were only a whopping TEN in the state!). Above is the most common - the Eastern Painted Turtle. Painted turtles are very intelligent, and in captivity are the grand moochers - meaning they beg for any food you can give them as if they've never been fed before. Anyone who walks in the door of my house is confronted with two turtles in an aquarium begging for food with hyper paddling and snapping mouths. :)


My favorite aspect of painted turtles is the coloration of the underneath of their carapace and their plastron. Red and black tribal stripes with vibrant yellow or cream.





To the left is an old 1.5 foot long snapping turtle. Growing up, I used to refer to these as dinosaur turtles. These turtles can live well over a hundred years. This particular girl is at the very least 30 years old. Snapping turtles get their name from their formidable turtle beak which is attached to a surprisingly long neck. The turtle can whip its neck out to half its shell length and bite hard! When these turtles bite, they don't let go.



In my hands is a young snapping turtle. Tiny dinosaurs with spiky shells and tails! At this age, their shells are so incredibly soft, that I'm always careful in holding them. Because their biting power is very weak, their musking power overtakes their defenses - its like holding a cute bundle of rotten eggs because of the stench.





But the baby snappers are the tiniest I've found. Speaking of stinky turtles, the little guy to the left is a Musk Turtle aka "stinkpot turtle". This one was by far the tiniest turtle I've ever found. My sister and I came across him while catching fish for my painted turtles out at Hartshorn Pond in Milford. He easily fit on the Nickel and I took many amusing photos thanks to his size.




The next photo is more for the turtle than the quality of the composition. :) This is a rarer for me to find; the Blandings Turtle. These guys have high domed, smooth shells. They spend their lives travelling from forest pool to forest pool, from pond to pond, from hill to hill. They are nature's wandering turtles.

The only turtle I'm missing for this blog today is the Wood Turtle. I do have photographs of this state threatened species that I took last year - but the poor little turtle I found was dead. I didn't think you would appreciate that image. You're welcome. As soon as I find a live one, you can bet I'll be posting oodles of images of this rare species in its own blog page! :D

And just because I wanted to add it...

Isn't nature wonderful? :D

A motley mix of spring things

My Potted Pumpkin. I have a tiny pumpkin now in place of this flower.

I have a mish-mosh of photos today. This is mainly because I'm going to be overhauling my computer and want to get these up before I'm down for a few days.

First up! Those so-ugly-they're-cute mystery baby birds. I took the picture to the left on Saturday. There are really 5 birds there, but you'd never know it! The 5th bird has one bulgy, closed eye at the bottom of the photo.








To the right, you'll see the same birds as of yesterday. I really thought their eyes would be open by now. Instead, I found a show of prickly pinfeathers. All 5 managed to face the same direction, toward the rock wall.



On a completely random topic:

I felt inspired to post two photos here of a couple of my favorite herbs. To the left is Catmint aka Catnip. This is a healthy shrub from the wonderful Maple Hill Gardens in Hollis. Catmint makes a very delicate tincture and is great for mild headaches and relaxation.

To the left is my very own, home grown peppermint plant! Peppermint is one of my all-time faves. Any mint herb is really. It's calming for your stomach, relaxing and great for clearing your head. I need to drink it pretty often.

Mix these two wonderful herbs and you get a refreshing mint tea that is even better cold. And what inspired me to post these pics?

Thanks Charly! :D

A little blog on little birds

Out in the depths of Beaver Brook there is a trail that runs through the craggiest, hilliest portion of an otherwise tame forest. Here, boulders the size of small cottages are strewn on hill tops thanks to the receding glaciers eons ago. As I was making my sweltering way along these boulders (It was around 90 so a bit too hot for me) I noticed a mud ball against the crevice of such a boulder.


It doesn't look it, but it is about 6 feet up from the ground. So last week, I took my camera, reached up and took a blind snap.

And then again yesterday....

Aren't they so ugly that they're cute? I have no idea the kind of bird. Last year I followed the growth of a different nest and was lucky enough to spot the parents. This nest is atop a hill and the parents have ample warning that a huffing, puffing hiker is coming. :)