Although spring is right around the corner, winter is hanging on with three Nor’easters in the past two weeks. After all the shoveling and arduous cleanup (huge thanks to our property manager Owen Cunningham), we took an hour to snowshoe the wildlife sanctuary and enjoy the quiet and calm that always seems to follow a large storm. The trees were blanketed with a thick snow and everywhere you looked the wildlife sanctuary was painted white.
The meadow was blanketed with nearly two feet of snow and only one set of snow shoe tracks.
The start of the main loop trail.
This trail leads to our vernal pool. In less than a month, as you walk up the hill you will be treated to an auditory sensation as a loud chorus of wood frogs welcomes spring. It is amazing how quickly nature turns in the spring. In two months, the pine forest floor will be covered with pink lady’s slippers that will be using the snow melt to thrive in May.
This is the spot that the wood ducks frolicked less than two weeks ago.
The vernal pool on our main loop trail.
Snow weighing down the saplings growing in our pine grove.
Who will use this cavity in spring? Maybe a chickadee or hairy woodpecker?
The pine grove. Deer recently walked by this scene.
As a flock of robins “swarmed” in the pine grove, bright red male cardinals sung from the tallest trees, and fairy shrimp emerged from the vernal pool, a flock six wood ducks flew into the maple, oak, and pine trees above our vernal pool on the morning of February 28. Nature can be so wonderful!
I was fortunate enough to have my camera with me and I was able to capture a few pictures and one short movie of these amazing creatures. Enjoy this brief glimpse into the hidden world of the wildlife in our sanctuary.
Watch and listen to the wood ducks chattering to one another high up in the trees.
The following are more photos of the wood ducks in the wildlife sanctuary.
While I was investigating life in a vernal pool, some peaceful fur way way up in the crook of a tree caught my attention. A raccoon was snoozing the day away. Check out the ears on one side and the foot on the other.
Mystery Tree Damage
Near one of our smaller vernal pools, the damage to this tree puzzled me. Based on it’s teeth marks, it is clearly a rodent, but the damage is one inch deep at some points and is about 8 ft long. I’m are not sure what caused this damage, but could it be a porcupine? Let us know what you think.
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Deer Traffic Jam
Birding Highlights
Here are a few of the birds that have been seen over the past few weeks.
Red-tailed hawk hunting pine voles
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Brown creepers
Eastern phoebes
Wood ducks
Hermit thrush
Hairy and downy woodpeckers
Flocks of dark-eyed juncos, chickadees, tufted titmouse, and American robins
Pair of nesting red-shouldered hawks
Red-bellied woodpeckers
Calling red-winged blackbirds in the red maple swamp (birding hotspot)
American woodcock
Our digital photography homeschool class observed a cooper’s hawk preying on a mallard.
Check out our bird blind by the gallery, our feeders are always stocked and there are usually lots of birds to photograph
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Flora Highlights
Stunk cabbage is one of the first plants to emerge in the spring. It is found near soggy or submerged soil and is usually pollinated by flies. This was taken near the Pequit Brook.
Check out this amazing little orchid hiding under the pine needles. These pictures are from early March.
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One of the tiniest and earliest spring flowers
We have had over 10,000 of these flowers blooming in bare patches of soil and on our lawns. They are so easy to miss until you start looking for them.
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Vernal Pools in the Wildlife Sanctuary
In early March, when the weather cracked 60 degrees, the spring peepers and wood frogs started calling. Wood frogs sound more like ducks than frogs. Check out these two videos to hear them.
Wood frogs are abundant at our wildlife sanctuary and are always one of the first frogs to emerge from hibernation. This year, wood frogs were first observed on March 10 congregrating in large numbers at our main vernal pool and where I counted well over 60 wood frogs on March 11. Listen to their chorus from March 11, 2016.
Spotted salamanders have also been laying eggs and fairy shrimp are abundant.
Fairy Shrimp. Photo Credit: B. L. Dicks and D. J. Patterson
