Interesting moths

At my condo, they have lights in the porch area that remain on throughout the night, every night.  So I often find interesting moths hanging out during the day, when the lights go out.  Today I found these two pretty moths. It's a real pain to try to key them out on the various ID websites, but I took a shot.  I think the top one is called a Crocus geometer (Xanthotype sospeta).  Poor thing with that horrible name.  I got sick and tired of browsing through the tens of pages of moths so I ended googling yellow moth and someone had IDed before. 

The bottom one I think is called a Harnessed moth (Apantesis phalerata). I'm not 100% sure of that ID. That one didn't seem so happy as it sat stoically on the carpet. I moved it to the railing because I was sure someone would step on it.What I have learned from this, is that I really do need a macro lens on my dslr since these better shots came from my point and shoot. 

Once you start, you just can't stop

Wow. I can't believe it's been almost two months since my last post.  Since then, spring has finally somewhat normalized.  After our unusually warm and snowless winter, spring seemed to come early.  There's supposed be April showers followed by May flowers.  That's in reverse as April was insanely dry and full of early flowers and now we've had days of rain in May. Early each spring I get my sea legs by searching for spotted turtles near my house.  It's a challenge to get to the spot and it usually entails me crossing a river.  A river that is deep, has steep slippery banks, and multiflora rose thickets at the top of the banks.  So there's only like one good spot for me to cross.  In the past I could get across in knee boots, but this year even with the lack of rain, I could barely get across in hip waders.  I had to walk on my tippy toes to avoid filling my hip waders with water.  That's because the hurricane last year created numerous log dams which raises the water significantly.  I explored a few alternative crossings.  Two were on top of log jams and one of these jams had a large animal carcass at its base. I regretted using those jams about halfway but was determined to not turn back.  The other crossing was down a steep bank using roots as footholds. It's still deep but now it's my primary way across.   I still feel a bit like a competitor on survivor.

The spotted turtle search started real slow.  The wetland was insanely dry and the turtles were not in their usual areas. They had retreated in the scary deep part where the snappers and painted turtles hang out.  But as we got more rain, things improved.  I tied my record of finding 6 turtles in one visit. I even saw another courting pair...well a male chasing a female in the water and the female swimming for her life. I briefly interrupted their courtship by grabbing them, measuring, and marking them. 

On my last outing there, I made the long trek back to my car and heard a rare owl calling.  I had previously searched unsuccessfully for this owl. I even would go out at night and play the call in hopes of finding it.  Now it was calling on a gorgeous sunny day at 1 pm by some condos.  So I went out last weekend at night and played its call again.  No response except some dogs started barking.  Not sure what's going on, but I may try again in the near future.

In other field excursions for work, I've had some unpleasant sightings.  First my first dead black bear carcass in the woods.  It was mostly bones, but a paw was intact.  Interestingly the head was gone.  I'm not going to post this pics. Then we went and explored some new bird boxes at a site. We saw feathers and wings sticking out of the bottom of the box. We touched them with no reaction.  Once we opened the 2 boxes, we found 18 dead adult tree swallows.  From doing some research, it seems that perhaps the tree swallows were so weakened from the migration that they were unable to climb up the smooth box inside to get out.  Plus they are not the best climbers.  We scooped the birds out and the next time I go out there, I'll try to roughen up the box front insides.  I also emailed the person who I think put up the boxes to let him know. 

I am iron marsh

 

If you've spent any time in wetlands, you've probably stumbled upon this orange slime or coating in spots.  In some areas iron-rich groundwater comes to the surface and the iron precipitates out. It also can be associated with acid mine drainage.  Well this area above this large wetlands is likely an old landfill similar to old farm dumping.    I've never seen such a large expanse of this yellow boy or whatever it's called.  But it sure was impressive. 

Also on the site, I made a fantastically creepy find. This doll head lying in the leaf litter and filled with leaf litter and mud. When I picked it up and it's "brains" starting falling out it gave me quite the startle.  I decided it was only right to display it on a tree for all to enjoy. I'm currently using the bottom pic as my computer wallpaper and work and it certainly gets quite the response.  I'm also now being shown photos of other creepy doll finds. I guess that's what I'll be known for at work.

A winter getaway

This winter has been the complete opposite of last winter. It's been unseasonably warm with almost no snow.  We had more snow during the freak October snowstorm as compared to the entire winter so far.  Last week I was even looking for salamanders and turtles...that's how crazy it has been. I can't say I'm complaining as my tires on my car and due to replaced in short order. 

We took our winter Vermont trip early this year and it was a very small group as the parents were up at the house.  Even Vermont had very little snow until the days we drove up and two snow events gave us about a foot of fresh and festive snow.  It was the perfect snow and made everything beautiful and postcard like.  It was the perfect depth to take leisurely walks in the woods and the dogs enjoyed romping about. 

We even had a couple days of bitter cold and we awoke one morning to what appeared to be frozen fog up in the mountaintops. See the pic above.  We did get stir crazy after a couple days and even though it was bitter cold that night I enlisted some to go out and look at the stars and attempt to see the Milky Way.  The Milky wasn't visible but Jupiter was out in all its glory and the stars were beautiful as usual in a cold and clear night.  The dogs settled in each night after hours of romping about.  See if you can pick out the flying pig formation dog in the very top photo.

The sunsets were awesome and I snapped photograph and photograph trying to capture that perfect shot while trying to stay warm.

We even got to see a mild sundog one sunset, which I kept calling a snow dog. It's when it's so cold two bright spots appear on each side of the sun.  Only one was visible as the trees blocked the other one. 

Parade of critters

We got a brand new fancy field camera and set it up a couple months ago.  It's on top a steep and rocky hill and it takes a good 15 minute hike and many breaks to get up to it.  I'm usually the one to go and it's my exercise for the day.  We set the camera up to take 3 shots once the motion detector goes off with a 1 second interval. At first, everything was great with a reasonable amount of shots to review each week.  We even put the old field camera up near it.  We've had a bunch of windy days and nights which resulted in at first hundreds of photos within a week, but the latest round has resulted in over 6,000 photos.  It's attached to a smaller tree that moves in the wind and there's an ample amount of branches and leaves into the field of view to set the camera off.  The top bear photo was enough to stop reviewing the photos in the field and quickly scramble back down the mountain. I just hope this big guy survived the imminent bear hunt.  The usually visitors are the squirrel, oppossum, and raccoon.  The coon and possum seem to play tag team and their photos are always close to each others.  The squirrel shot is what I called the sunbeam squirrel shot.  For now, we've taken the cameras down and will wait later winter for some new action.  In the meantime, I hope that we can solve the excessive photos because my eyes are not happy from reviewing them all.

 

We also had a mystery guest as shown on the photo below.  The camera is set pretty close to the ground.  By process of elimination, we said it was a red fox.  We think its' up on the camera going for a very very quick sniff because the photos before and after it, which are one second apart, show nothing.....unless someone else thinks otherwise.

 

My mini road trip

 

First off, I should mention that I sometimes forget that I have a blog. I mean I know I have a blog, I just seem to forget that I actually need to post things. So I am remiss and it's practically winter.

Originally back in October, I had usual Vermont trip planned with friends. We stay at my friend's parent's vacation home.  When Hurricane Irene struck and it struck Vermont very bad, I made the mistake of forwarding various links and videos to those same friends.  I was riveted by all this and religiously checked the Road Closure Vermont websites and various newspaper, town, and shop websites.  As it drew closer and closer to our supposed vacation, I learned that my friends didn't want to go.  They felt that too many things and roads would be closed and that they heard this information from a variety of sources. They were not open to any discussion. I felt the total opposite. I saw that Vermont was working like crazy to get roads back up and most of the shops/areas we usually frequent were open. We could even take our normal route to get up there.  I even have a friend who lives in the same town and he agreed with me.  I also felt that I wanted to support Vermont, the open businesses, and I am fascinated by seeing Mother Nature's destruction. So I decided to still go to Vermont and visit some areas we don't normally go. 

When I arrived, the leaves were just past peak in the lower elevations and entire direction and view was a postcard.  Unfortunately, the sun never fully cooperated so the pictures don't do it justice at all. I did a ton of driving and hit some of the Vermont Cheese Trails sites. It's December and I still have a large supply in the fridge.

 

The destruction was just as riveting as the leaf colors. Entire hillsides slumped into rivers.  Tree parts, debris, and sediment created new landscapes and terrain. Rivers and streams made new paths.  Buildings were knocked off their foundations and the roads almost always had a new patch near streams.  I will say that I never had to turn around because of a closed road even though there were some sketchy areas. 

One of my main reasons for the trip was to take an introductory falconry lesson at the British School of Falconry .  It's a bit pricey but I figured where else am I going to experience this. This also had a even pricier off road Land Rover driving class but I didn't do that.....yet. We got an overview of falconry and learned that Harris Hawks make the perfect candidate. They naturally hunt in families and are very social/tame.  We each got our own Harris Hawk. Mine was Monty and he was a youngster. I immediately wanted one and he made the cutest "I'm so excited noises" when we were walking outside.  It was like a muppet.  Here he is attacking a pheasant wing. It's like the best toy ever to them and they love love love it.  He got so obsessive he was even attacking just one feather from the wing. You have to throw them a piece of meat and quickly grab the wing out of their sight.  We got to send them off to the perch and have them come back.  Monty decided the close perch was too boring and fly up to the top of the barn. He then flew back to me unprompted because he knew that he would be rewarded with a piece of meat.  He was so light and you could barely feel his weight given his size. 

Ms. Irene

So the hurricane was imminent. The stores were packed with frantic shoppers in search of milk, bread, and eggs. I guess everyone makes french toast when the weather gets rough. I don't know why folks buy milk and other perishables when there's a strong possibility of losing electricity.  It seems like wasted money.  Water, batteries, and flashlights were totally sold out.  My coworker saw someone buy a small raft and we joked that if you are buying a raft, perhaps you should just evacuate.  The weather reports got more and more ominous.  The hurricane symbol showed up on the weather report, which is something I've never seen.  They said that around 6 am Sunday was supposed to be the worst.  I barely slept Saturday night fretting about possible basement flooding and the loud wind and rain outside. By 4 am, the wind and rain kicked it up a notch and I thought "How much worse can it get by 6 am?" Turns out the storm had picked up speed and hit us early.  By late-morning all that was left was the wind filling the pressure void left by the hurricane.  I was lucky.  No basement flooding, no trees down, and I never lost power. My parents who live 5 minutes away lost power for a week and the next town over suffered major flooding and many downed trees isolating people for days.

I was back at work on Monday anxious to check on the hatchling turtles.  We headed out knowing that the travel would be tough and that the area we were going to was essentially closed. We faced many detours from flooded roads, downed powerlines across the road, and downed trees across the road that had been cut just enough to allow one vehicle through.  This was the part of the state that I felt would have it easiest and it was farthest from the hurricane. But I was wrong.  It looked like a dam had been released. Where there was normally about a foot of water in the stream there had been 10+ feet of water.  New streams attempted to form in lawn.  Rocks had been excavated from the ground and pushed out all over the place.  The footbridge across the stream had one of its concrete footings demolished.  It looked like someone had taken a jackhammer to the parking lot.  The bathrooms looked like the sewers had backed up with water rushing from it. The picture below is a normally a lawn picnic area. Now it has a rock installation.

Once I saw this destruction, I knew that the hatchling turtles were gone..pushed practically out to the bay or buried under rocks. Maybe just maybe the larger one who had earlier climbed the embankment survived by holding on for hours or perhaps by sheer luck it kept climbing higher and higher out of harms way.  Either way we couldn't pick up any radio signals from any of them anywhere.  Given the small size of those transmitters, they could have been easily damaged.  We tried for a few more days after that but we never found them.  Recently we set out to remove the radio transmitters from the adults.  We happened upon a very young turtle, who was probably about a year old. So maybe just maybe those hatchlings held on, but all the radios failed.