Snapper on the move

Snapper1Snapper2I was visiting my mom in Charleston, Illinois and looked out the window to see this snapping turtle motoring down the driveway at high turtle speed. Presumably it had laid eggs (somewhere in the yard? in the plowed field behind the house?) and was on its way back to the creek across the street. The neighbors came out to see what I was photographing. One of them was mowing his yard with a small end-loader. He came over, scraped the leeches off the turtle, picked it up by the tail and hauled it off to the creek. The turtle was pretty mad about this change in plans and got in some good snaps, but this way she didn’t have to cross the street. (I have since read that you shouldn’t pick them up by the tail because it can damage the spine and tail. Safest way for turtle and person is to grab the carapace above the back legs.)

Snapper3Snapper4Snappers are known for their angry attitude, biting jaws and the fact that their heads can really extend and snake around for snapping you! They snap to defend themselves because they are too big to hide in their shells. In the north, they mature at 15-20 years and apparently can live over 100 years. Adults have few predators (besides humans) but almost everything likes to eat the eggs and hatchlings. Incubation time is 9-18 weeks, depending on how warm the weather is… so Mom’s neighborhood should be watching for hatchlings starting in early July.

Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina)

Robin splash

The only actual wildflower I’ve seen blooming is the skunk cabbage, but there are other signs of spring. The herons are back on their nest. And this robin had a bit of a bath! It looked so happy, dunking itself and flittering its wings. A blue jay shouldered its way in and this little one hopped out, but as soon as the jay had its drink and left, the robin popped back in.

Robin-bathing

Pupping season

The nice thing about a hilly backyard is, you can be lying in bed considering waking up, and still see a coyote trot by.

coyotes in Needham, MA

It went out of sight, and then came back and surveyed the prospects from the front yard, but it was morning rush hour so that road was not crossable. It wisely turned and went to the backyard again and disappeared.

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They have their pups in mid-April so this is a time when they’re territorial about their dens, and apparently they are often show themselves more at the this time, just to make it clear to you. However, I think this one was just passing through. I wonder why. Glad to see it looking so healthy. Sorry the woods are less and less and it has to concern itself with things like crossing Central Avenue at rush hour.

Peeper time at last!

Heard the peepers first on the night of April 10, coming from the Charles River, only a week later than last year, even though spring feels so late this year. Then today went for a good listen. It was silent at a pond that still had snow on it, but frog party-town at the adjacent one that gets more sun… It’s peepers and wood frogs — wood frogs are the ones that make a clacking sound. So good to hear some spring!

Beavers at Rocky Woods

These photos are from May 10 of this year… but I just saw some impressive beaver work in Connecticut and it made me want to take another look.  First we saw this dam built along the boardwalk…

Beaver dam

And then saw what big trees they were taking down. Imagine gnawing those down with your teeth!

Beaver work with Lucy for scaleBeaver lumberjackingBeaver denThis is their lodge, sited on the shore so dogs could walk on it. (Typically the lodge is  supposed to be out in the pond, for protection from terrestrial predators, so these beavers weren’t thinking things through.) I checked for info on beavers in this woods, and only found this, about flooding in residential areas of the town:

(Notes from the Selectmen’s meeting, May 2014) Trapper Barry Mandell reported trapping a 60 pound beaver and breaching dams in the Stop River area of town. To date the town has spent $4,700 on trapping services. … Recently passed state referendums have made trapping difficult and resulted in an over abundance of beaver in Medfield and throughout the state. This in turn has resulted in major flooding issues caused by the beaver dams.

Beavers are Massachusetts’ largest native rodents (thank goodness!). The adults can weigh up to 80 pounds! They can live to be around 20 years old. Beavers mate for life and breed  January through March. There will be an average of four kits born inside the lodge between April and June. The kits learn to swim in their first week. They stay with the parents for two winters and leave the next spring. A beaver colony is typically made up of two adults, that year’s kits, and the youngsters from the previous year. Their main ecological benefit appears to be that they create wetlands, and that provides habitat for many other kinds of creatures and flora.

I wonder, once they move in, how long do they stay in a pond they have created, and when they’ve eaten all the bark from convenient trees, how far afield will they go to take down more? One of their favorite foods is water lilies, but the inner bark of trees is an important winter food for them. Since they’re quite long lived, it seems like they might stay put for a long time.

Beavers were completely missing from the Massachusetts due to hunting, trapping, and habitat loss, until 1928, when some were seen in Stockbridge, the first recorded sighting since 1750. From roughly 1550 to 1850, felted beaver hats (like top hats) were really popular in Europe, creating a huge demand for beaver pelts and fueling exploration in North America. Luckily for beavers, silk hats became the new fashion around 1850.

Beaver (Castor canadensis)

Coyote

We were driving around looking for a different access route to the marsh with the heron nest. We were on a residential street in Wellesley when we spotted this coyote. It immediately turned to leave, but when Lucy started barking at it from inside the car, it came back to investigate us.

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It looked quite fine and healthy as far as I could tell. Rather thrilling to get such a good look. Coyotes weigh 20 to 50 lbs. and can live up to 14 years in the wild. Their litters are three to twelve pups, born in the spring. Both parents protect their pups and their territory. By fall, the young can hunt on their own. There is an area of Ridge Hill I call Coyoteville. I wonder if this one has a den in that area.

Great Blue Heron Nest

This 4th of July morning was gray with the clouds of an impending storm. We went to  check out a heron nest I saw a couple of weeks ago. And it was so great to look over there and see all these great tall birds perched in their aerie! At first they were bunched together so it was hard to see how many there were. DSC_0005

But then they wandered around a bit, revealing four.DSC_0007

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I hope they come through this storm okay (remnants of Hurricane Arthur). Glad there is enough habitat here to support them. Imagine building that nest (with your mouth) — how do you get the first sticks to stay? Clever birds!

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Great Blue Herons will eat just about anything they can catch, including fish, insects, mammals, amphibians, reptiles and even birds. They can hunt during the day and night, because of good night vision. We’ve noticed new beaver dams in our favorite hiking areas, and this is a boon for herons because hunting is good in the swamps created by the dams.

From allaboutbirds.org:

Male Great Blue Herons collect much of the nest material, gathering sticks from the ground and nearby shrubs and trees, and from unguarded and abandoned nests, and presenting them to the female. She weaves a platform and a saucer-shaped nest cup, lining it with pine needles, moss, reeds, dry grass, mangrove leaves, or small twigs. Nest building can take from 3 days up to 2 weeks; the finished nest can range from a simple platform measuring 20 inches across to more elaborate structures used over multiple years, reaching 4 feet across and nearly 3.5 feet deep. Ground-nesting herons use vegetation such as salt grass to form the nest.

Great Blue Herons nest mainly in trees, but will also nest on the ground, on bushes, in mangroves, and on structures such as duck blinds, channel markers, or artificial nest platforms. Males arrive at the colony and settle on nest sites; from there, they court passing females. Colonies can consist of 500 or more individual nests, with multiple nests per tree built 100 or more feet off the ground.

— A clutch will have 2-6 eggs, which are about 2.5 to 3 inches long. They incubate for about a month, and the young stay in the nest 4 to 7 weeks. These ones must be about ready to strike out on their own. Pairs choose new breeding partners each year.

Another sign of spring: Backhoes

Another sign of spring in Needham is that you’ll be driving along and do a doubletake because suddenly, there’s an empty lot and a backhoe where there used to be an older house and a bunch of trees. Or depending on your timing, maybe they’re sawing all the trees down, or a big machine is biting the roof off of a little house.Teardown empty lot

Central Ave trees missing New construction on Charles River St One by one, the little houses are replaced by big ones. Sometimes the razed houses are ugly little houses and occasionally they’re charming, large, or architecturally significant. Sometimes it’s just a big estate of mostly woods carved into a subdivision. When we moved here I assumed all the woods was the happy result of zoning and conservation, but I was wrong.

Great Blue Heron

This morning we took a paddle on the Charles River. This bit borders Cutler Park and is about 20 miles upstream from Boston Harbor. I was trying to take a picture of an egret farther away when I realized we were really close to this well-camouflaged heron hiding in the pickerel weed!

GreatBlueHeronThe closest I’ve ever been to one — thrilling surprise! So tall — I feel like it was head-level with me in the canoe. Later we saw another one which had caught a fish…

HeronwithFishIt flew off and I was not ready with right camera settings… so here’s a terrible blur of a great sight:

HeroninFlightGreat Blue Herons are about 4 feet tall. They eat mainly fish, but also crabs, insects, frogs, small rodents, snakes, dragonflies… Their favorite breeding areas are beaver swamps, and their favorite nesting areas are in the branches of dead trees down in the water. They mostly migrate, and come back to use the same rookery every year.

Bonus picture of the whole scene. An usually wide place in the river. Felt lucky to have a canoe, a beautiful day, this amazing place, and a friend to go with! and a camera!

CharlesRiverPaddle

Snappers head for the Charles

BabySnappersbyScottOn September 1, we were walking on a mowed trail at Charles River Peninsula. We noticed something round and black in the grass– it was a baby snapping turtle. Its shell was about 1.25 inches long, and the pointy tail was about that long again. In another yard or so, we saw another… and another… and another… we counted 23 (!)  little black turtle babies, all heading up over the hill, presumably going to the river to grow up. Why did their mama put the nest so far away? I hope they all made it. (Plenty of critters like to eat hatchlings. I know we have fishers, coyotes, foxes and hawks around here…)

The nests are dug in June or early July, with up to 75 eggs, but usually 20-30. The egg incubation period is 10-12 weeks. Apparently the temperature of the soil around the eggs determines the sex of the hatchlings. From October to April, they chill in mud at the bottom of ponds, slow areas of the river, etc.

It was rainy that day so I didn’t have a camera with me. This pic of a different snapper baby migration is by my talented brother-in-law Scott Robinson. Thanks!

Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentine)