Nature & Wildlife Thread

[JBtheExplorer]

Cat prolly thought you were lovin every minute of the good hunt just as she would

One time, she set one down in my kitchen, it sat next to her, and she walked away. Then it ran and I had to track it down.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

I visited two places yesterday. The first is a quiet nature sanctuary. The second was loud with construction in Foxconn territory. I'll let you figure out which was which.

 

[Burd]

A spider hangs out by the mason bee house

 

[j.w]

Very well made spider! How big is he/she?

 

[Burd]

About 3/8” long. Seems to hide behind bee house.

 

[j.w]

It looks huge in the photo!

 

[JBtheExplorer]

A quick visit to Myers park today and then north to the lighthouse. The entire lakefront was busy. Then I remembered it's 84°F on a Saturday on Memorial Day weekend. Of course it's busy!

 

[Burd]

I just saw a Jive Turkey out by my garage.

 

[j.w]

Alive is good @Burd

 

[Lisak1]

Alive is good @Burd

Unless its thanksgiving!

 

[JamieB]

Due to the high waters, I’m seeing lots of turtles on the roads. I saved two yesterday, a good sized female red eared slider, and a “painted?” Turtle. At first I thought it was hurt, as the shell edge was red, but on closer inspection, the shell was a beautiful mix of colors, with the bottom being edged in red. Sadly I didn’t get any pictures.
Looking for more today, instead I counted 7 dead turtles in 20 miles. It makes me want to cry.

 

[addy1]

I am happy you are saving the ones you can, sad the others are hurt and dead. We stop and save turtles that we find on roads, when we can.

 

[j.w]

Very nice of you to save the ones that you could and so sorry there were those that died. We don't see them up here much. There are some around I hear tho in wild ponds, just not like in other places in the country. When we drove across country one year in our car we noticed the trouble the turtles have getting over some high curbs down there and I had to tell my hubby to stop so I could rescue those that we saw. Boy they have some big suckers down there!

 

[JBtheExplorer]

A short walk at the local nature center along the river yesterday. Unfortunately, like most places I've been lately, the trails were flooded, so every trail I took led to dead ends. Even the boardwalks didn't help much.

I saw a handful of toads, a garter snake, painted lady butterflies, and quite a few red-bellied woodpeckers.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

This weekend was Wisconsin's free state park weekend, so entry was free. My mom and I went out to Bong Recreation Area and hiked four miles. She'd never been there before, so it was fun to take her to some place she hadn't been.

As some of you may or may not remember from last year's post about my trip to Bong, it's southeast Wisconsin's largest managed prairie, which exists on land that was intended to be an air force base. Plans for the base were scrapped and it was instead turned into a fantastic habitat.

A small stream flowing down a hill. Recent rains really made for a messy hike. There was standing water and mud everywhere. They also hadn't mowed the trails recently, so the grass was long and I had a few ticks crawling on me.

The white spot slightly above the pond in this photo is a Great Egret flying over. I saw about seven or eight today. There was also a white-tailed deer to the left of the pond that ran off a few minutes earlier.

Not a bad day at all.