Tag: Wildlife
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Jack-in-the-Pulpit
While my poppy passion is no secret to Rosslyn Redux readers, I’m less vocal about my partiality to wild flora like trillium and Jack-in-the-Pulpit. One learns to protect these treasures! But today I pause for an overt gawk at this exotic Jack-in-the-Pulpit, a sylvan surprise with almost impossibly green and purple stripes. Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum…
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OG Bobcatting
Exciting update from one of Rosslyn’s wildlife cameras when I awoke this morning. Not sure why, but I always get especially enthused when we document a Bobcat. The sequence of three images captured at 2:29am appears to be the same bobcat we photographed a few months ago. Still healthy. Strong. Well fed. I’m struck by…
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River Otter
Exciting news to share. Today while reviewing images from one of our wildlife cameras, I came across this pair of River Otter photographs. Our first sighting ever! Better yet? As you can see, the date stamp is April 26, 2023, my birthday. So I’m choosing to see this rare encounter as a birthday gift from…
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Movable Feast
Earlier this month one of Rosslyn’s wildlife cameras captured this remarkable image of a coyote (running with her/his mouth full.) Despite the grainy, blurry photograph, John and I both believe that we’ve identified this movable feast. To be certain, the eyes are prominent. And the snout. But the coyote is unmistakably carrying something. To our…
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Fisher
This evening we’ll let the photos do the talking. Enjoy this healthy fisher (Pekania pennanti) documented recently with one of Rosslyn’s wildlife cams. Part of the weasel family (Mustelidae), these native neighbors enjoy dining on wild hares and they’re one of the few predators in our forests who successfully hunt and eat porcupines. Given that…
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Easter Color
Happy Easter to you from the Adirondack Coast where our seasonal reawakening is picking up pace with each passing day. And since spring is synonymous with the reemergence of vibrant lizard-like amphibians — most notably the red eft and the yellow-spotted salamander — it feels appropriate to substitute creatively died Easter eggs for a watercolor…
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66% Done, 33% To Go
This is my 243rd Rosslyn update in daily succession. It completes an 8-month streak of daily old house journaling, the 2/3 mark in my quest to post every day for one year. I marked an earlier milestone — six months in and six months to go — with a summary of the aspirations guiding these…
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Vernal Equinox: Barred Owl Sighting
Welcome to spring! It’s currently 43° at Rosslyn, on target to hit 46° shortly. Sun is out. Snow is melting. Bulbs are bursting. So many remarkable signs and suggestions that the vernal equinox may indeed have marked the transition from winter to spring (daffodils and daylilies perking up, an auspicious sunset cloud formation, a handsome…
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Field Notes & Punch Lists
So many photos and field notes and punch lists, marked up plans, pruned and grafted scopes of work. This is the ephemera of construction and the detritus of rehabilitation. A midden of sketches and diagrams, souvenirs of collaborative problem solving, artifacts of alterations and adjustments,… this is the tangled and layered chorus we seek to…
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Opossum O’Clock
You’ve heard of happy hour. And maybe even beer blogging. But opossum o’clock? Earlier this evening (or late this afternoon, if you’re still jet lagging from the standard time to daylight savings time adjustment,) Carley burst into a barking frenzy. Bark, bark, bark,… Not an excited “My momma’s home!” bark. Nor an “I need to…
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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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Pileated Woodpecker
Larger than life, or at least most of our avian life, the Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is a familiar plumage and percussive soundtrack in our Adirondack Coast forest. And often at our suet feeders, even trees in our yard. Freaky physics notwithstanding, the poise and drama of this sylvan neighbor stand out among our local…