Red Fox
This Red Fox is one of the kits that I enjoyed watching grow up before our eyes last spring. It is not doing so well now, and is probably one of the two that I saw had returned to their natal den at the beginning of the winter when things got tough outside. Both had some mange and looked rather thin. This individual has been hunting and stalking prey, still engaged at feeding regularly and apparently doing enough to keep itself going. While its tail has little to no fur left and it is patchy throughout the body at least the days are getting warmer and the sun is getting stronger. This...
Read MoreHelmeted Iguana (Corytophanes cristatus)
Here’s a Helmeted Iguana (Corytophanes cristatus)…or as Twan called it, a baby dragon…for your Tuesday. Be sure to check out the leaf for a better sense of scale (not the dragon kind of scale) as it is not quite as large and imposing as it initially seems!
Read MoreSo Far So Good
So far we have monitored five sites of interest within Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties in search of new infestations of Hemlock Woolly Adelgid. For the third year in a row, all of our sites still appear to be HWA free, and are full of healthy trees that support beautiful ecosystems. This past week in particular, we monitored South Valley State Forest and learned from a local volunteer that the streams running through it are excellent trout streams. Thanks to the shade the hemlocks provide, these streams stay cool and therefore highly oxygenated for trout and other species within the...
Read MoreStratford Great Meadows Unit Training
Here’s my huge “thank you!” to all of the great volunteers that joined us at a training and informational sign-up session yesterday for the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is seeking volunteers to help out at the Refuge’s Stratford Great Meadows Unit, and now we have over 25 more people on board to help with public outreach, clean-up efforts, maintenance and bird surveys. The event was cosponsored by Audubon Connecticut, New Haven Bird Club and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History and held at Stratford...
Read MoreDead Mouse
This looks like a White-footed Mouse, and it also looks like a cat kill. My dog Zach located it for us, immediately picking up the scent from probably over 50 feet away. A dead rodent with puncture wounds to the body that is left in the snow seems like a cat’s play toy to me. Other mammals or birds would have scooped it up for a meal and made sure to go back for it, even if they had to drop it. This occurs many, many times…millions upon millions…to small birds and mammals each day because of cats. They kill billions each year for no reason whatsoever apart from their own instincts....
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