Amphibian Crossing
This Wednesday or Thursday, depending on your location in the Northeast, should bring temperatures well past 40 or even 50 with rainy conditions. Since it is late March it may be the first night of amphibian migration as these are ideal conditions for frogs, toads and salamanders to emerge from hibernation and start migrating to a nearby wetland at night! Please slow down for salamanders and frogs when you’re driving back roads near wetlands – even when they don’t get crushed by your tires, the slipstream generated underneath a vehicle when you’re moving more than 20-25 MPH will pick these...
Read MoreThrowback Thursday – Shorebirds of Texas plate
Here’s a Throwback Thursday to a “Shorebirds” plate from A Field Guide to the Birds of Texas by Roger Tory Peterson, 1960. You can find it currently hanging on the walls of the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History. If you are in the Jamestown, New York area on such a rainy day you should come visit us and see it for yourself!
Read MoreWild Turkey: vicious predator
‘Tis now the season for the Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). I have been regularly spotting a couple of groups lately, one with around 18 individuals and another with around 8. Here is one bird passing through on a showery and cloudy afternoon. It is hard to believe how rapidly the species has expanded in many areas in the last couple of decades. Is their population increase partially responsible for a decrease in some woodlands herpetofauna? I posted a great deal about Timber Rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) this summer, and would you believe this very turkey is a potential...
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