Tag: Wildlife Sanctuary
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Wild Turkey Nesting
This time of year Rosslyn’s wildlife cameras document a noticeable uptick in activity amongst our natural neighbors. Springtime spurs mating rituals of all flavors, but reviewing recent images (including the wild turkey below, one of *many* wild turkey photos lately) my mind turns to wild turkey nesting. Perhaps you recollect my June 27, 2013 update,…
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Mustelid Musing
Willing unfamiliars into focus so that we may photograph Ermine, Marten, and Weasel…
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Oh, Possum, Opossum
One year ago an opossum sighting, an opossum photo, and an opossum poem. A familiar chain reaction fueling a familiar runaway post. The photo never made it into the post, and the poem — albeit a preliminary push, unready for prime-time — was buried in a morass of words more focused on Carley, our Labrador…
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Coyote Pup
On May 7, 2022 at 11:43 AM friend and wildlife steward John Davis made this video of a coyote pup playing in a brush pile in Rosslyn’s wildlife sanctuary. One of several he witnessed denning near Library Brook, I resisted the temptation to post this at the time in order to protect the location of…
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Play Daily
From our first fanciful forays — pipe dreaming and what-iffing — Rosslyn represented for Susan and for me an opportunity to play more. Or so we imagined back in 2005 and 2006 as we slowly talked each other into a monumental life change. Although fantasy and reality haven’t overlapped exactly the way we conceived, most…
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Ruffed Grouse
The male ruffed grouse in the photo above was documented on a Rosslyn wildlife camera about a year ago. Fancy fowl! And the two images below were recorded a few weeks ago. Rosslyn’s backlands are fortunately flush with ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus), a welcome reminder that wildlife gravitates — as if by some primal sense…
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Coyote or Coywolf?
There’s something stunning if slightly startling about spotting (or hearing the howl of) our ubiquitous Adirondack canid. Agile and attentive, swift and stealthy, this familiar predator is a familiar and important part of our ecosystem. And yet much mystery and misunderstanding collects around this handsome neighbor, not the least of which is disagreement over whether…
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Busy Bobcat Byway
Kudos to John Davis (@wildwaystrekker), and Tony Foster (@anthonyfoster335) for mapping out and building Rosslyn’s newest nature trail. It’s become a bustling bobcat byway, well trafficked night and day by many wildlife including a population of wild felines. Hurrah! Just over one month ago I acknowledged the scarcity of native wildcat images on our wildlife cameras. It’s…
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Gray Fox or Eastern Coyote?
John Davis, our good friend and Rosslyn’s conscientious wildlife steward, contacted me this weekend with an excited update. Good photos on your cell cam last few days, including a Gray Fox, I think, January 11. We rarely see those. I’d just been reviewing recent images from the camera he referenced, a Reconyx, cellular-enabled camera that…
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Northern Cardinal
It’s fair to call it midwinter, I think, and yet snow has been intermittent and sparse. But it’s plenty cold, so we’ll trust the calendar. The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) photographed by one of our wildlife cameras tells a different story. It could be autumn. Or spring. The male Northern Cardinal is perhaps responsible for…
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New Year’s Day: Writer’s Garret & Other Wonders
We survived 2022, friends, and in some fortunate cases, we even thrived. Cheers to surviving and thriving an occasionally challenging year! That means it’s time for a meandering year-ender… Retrospective I’d like to jumpstart my retrospective with a positive personal milestone. Yesterday’s post, “New Year’s Eve”, was my 153rd post in a row, completing a…
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Bobcat Blurring
I spy a bobcat blurring brookside, loping contentedly across a path padded with pine needles. Do you see what I see? S/he’s pretty well camouflaged in the range of rusty hues filling the majority of this image. But look for the lean, well muscled legs, the bobbed tail, and the pointy ears with a spray…