Tag: Wildlife
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Bye-bye, Bats
It’s time to evict our friendly nocturnal neighbors from Rosslyn’s cozy attic and soffits. We bid fond farewell for now. Bye-bye, bats.
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Raccoon Skull Haiku
Plain as cuspid skull,winter’s lumbering bandit,furred, furtive, no more. Sometime poems, even haiku, compose themselves. Or nearly so. When I reached out to ask if anyone recognized the skull that appeared mysteriously behind the carriage barn recently, I received several helpful responses. Joel (@mountain_man_fur) and Heather (@evergreen_lakeside_living) were the most prompt and the most decisive.…
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Friend or Foe: Yellow Garden Spider
Meet our Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia). This morning this awesome arachnid greeted me from a flower bed planted with Shasta daisies, lupine, and irises. She’s dazzling and, I’ll admit it, a little daunting. Is she friend or foe? Yellow Garden Spider Although I’ve come across these visually impressive pest predators before I needed a…
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Spring Meditation 2018
Welcome to springtime in the Champlain Valley, a glorious but slightly schizophrenic transition — sun, rain, wind, hot, snow, sleet, etc. — when springtails make way for dandelions. This visual meditation captures the haltingly springlike transformation of a small corner of Rosslyn’s back acreage over the last three months. A meadow’s margin. A fallen tree.…
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Spring Dance: Coyotes and White Tail Deer
One trail cam. One location. Three months, give or take. Deer. Coyotes. And the transition from winter to spring in the Adirondacks’ Champlain Valley. The perspective, situated near a fence opening at the transition of scrub forest and meadows offers a glimpse of the dance between ungulates (white tailed deer) and native canids (Eastern coyote).…
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Bald Eagle Surveying Lake Champlain
While returning to Essex from Elizabethtown this afternoon I spied this handsome bald eagle perched 20 to 30 feet above Whallons Bay. He was surveying the glass-flat, frigid (37° isn’t quite freezing, but it’s not far off) waters of Lake Champlain, head pivoting jerkily. Although he never took flight, never plunged down to grab a lake trout…
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Bald Eagle Omen
I share with you a bald eagle omen, courtesy of my mother. Bald eagle by your boat house. Saw this elegant creature as I went to massage and he was still there when I returned. May be a sign of something good? ~ Melissa Davis Rosslyn’s boathouse is often frequented by bald eagles, hawks, and other…
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Bobcat Sighting
This handsome bobcat (Lynx rufus) was photographed with game camera in one of our meadows on January 2, 2016. Friend and Essex neighbor John Davis mounted the camera about a month ago. In addition to photographs of deer, turkeys, and rabbits he discovered four images (from two separate occasions) of this healthy bobcat. In fact, he thinks it might possibly…
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Beavers & Boathouses
We noticed yesterday that a beaver (or beavers?) have selected a pair of trees on our neighbor’s waterfront to sharpen their teeth. One is a large cottonwood with a pair of fallen locusts hung up on it. The beaver (Castor canadensis) has already gotten a pretty good start, and the tree is laaarge and disconcertingly…
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Snakes, Swiss Chard & Automobiles
A week ago today was a day for snakes. Though – sadly, I must add – it was not a day for living snakes… Rattlesnakes and White Tail Deer Let’s start with the good news. Or at least the benign-if-slightly-amusing news. To set the stage, imagine yourself walking across the still dewy lawn south of…
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De-Icing the Duck Pond
Let me start by saying that we don’t have a duck pond. We have a lake. Lake Champlain. And although it pains me slightly to say it, we also don’t have any ducks. Not personally, at least. Lake Champlain, on the other hand, has plenty of ducks. And when the lake freezes and the ducks…
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December 2014
In recent years December has given us our first real blast of winter. A premature blast usually because early December snows have usually melted by Christmas… December 2014 Raptors Early in December 2014 I walked Rosslyn’s woods and meadows to make sure our cross-country ski trails were clear of trees and brush. The good news was…