Category: Wildlife
-
American Beech
The forest here is dominated by beech trees. Usually, they have very smooth light gray bark as in the photo above. They are also magnets for people carving their names into trees like in the example below (76 ? + Penny, I am not sure about the first name but apparently the carving has been…
-
Gray Fox
I’ve been noticing some tracks that looked cat-like (four toes, small, round/broad overall shape) in the woods near our house. I wondered if it might be a fox. It often walks along the top of logs. Above is a print that was made when the snow was softer and has subsequently melted a bit. Below…
-
Ravens
I spotted a pair of ravens flying together in circles today! The image above is the best I could get with my phone. They were very high up. I heard their call earlier (in fact I kept thinking I might have heard a raven for weeks now but wasn’t sure) and used the Merlin app…
-
Red-shouldered Hawk
We went on a short hike at a park nearby and saw a red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus). It was watching a dray of squirrels that were running around over the forest floor. In Europe, these might be called buzzards. Red-shouldered hawks prefer forested areas. Their more commonly sighted cousins, the red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis), prefer…
-
Raccoons in the attic
My daughter heard a lot of scratching sounds overnight. We were talking about what it might be, squirrels in the attic, etc. Then we hear them again during the day. Opening the door to a storage space, there were two raccoon kits! I grabbed my phone and took a picture of one that was still…