This Week at Nixon Park - May 23-30
After a long bleak winter of waiting, traversing vast migrations, and surviving daunting probabilities, the late May parade of life carries on despite unseasonable cold and wet.
This week it's fledglings, nests full of eggs, the quiet work of incubation, feeding the nestlings, tiny turtles, fox kits, and the flight of damselflies.
A good samaritan spotted a tiny common snapping turtle in one of the park's paved pathways on it's way to the pond. Fearing it would be stepped on they picked it up, (shielded in a leaf) and wondered exactly what to do next. I advised that they put it down on the edge of the pond, and when I checked back in a few minutes it had gone into the water.
Covered in damp mud it can't have been out of the nest that long. If you recall the recent post about common snapping turtles their eggs require 80-90 days of incubation, so this nestling has almost certainly overwintered in the nest. If the eggs were laid last July, then the eggs likely hatched last October (seven months ago!). The cold would have triggered the nestling's metabolism to slow down by 90% or more to survive the winter.
The Green Heron staring back at us from its nest. The second picture taken on a nice sunny day (an excuse to leave the nest unattended for a bit) shows us four eggs. Two pictures of a Wood Thrush on their nest in a Witch Hazel tree, and a Wood Thrush calling. The next two are tree swallows tending their young in one of the nest boxes. Next a fledgling Brown-headed Cowbird - a parasitic nester that lays their eggs in the nest of another species who then incubates them and raises their young. Next a fledgling Robin still holding on to a downy crest.
Tiny Red-eared Slider (possible another over-wintered hatchling?), Common Water Snake, Red-Eared slider on the way back to the pond after laying eggs. Eastern Musk Turtle foraging near the edge of the pond, Painted Turtle Basking.
Common Baskettail Dragonfly (Still the only species of dragonfly I have spotted this year). Next is a pair of butterflies - the Summer Azure, and a Cabbage White. Nest a Juvenile Six-spotted Fishing Spider, Next is a Golden-backed Snipe Fly.(certainly the most dramatically attired fly I have seen), Next three different Damselflies - Fragile Forktail, Eastern Forktail, and a breeding pair of Orange Bluets
Whitetailed Deer browsing on multiflora rose. Three Red Fox kits spotted cavorting early one morning near the park entrance on Walnut Street.
