The Celery Farm & Beyond

Mrs. Wood Duck flies out

 

   I video-recorded Mrs. Wood Duck as she flew out of the box this morning. 

   I figured I recorded her flying in -- might as well catch a departure as well.  You can hear a camera shutter going off in the background.

   At 6:15 tonight, she flew back in... which means no babies have left the box yet.

    I am hoping that in the next three mornings, I might be able to see the duck babies jump from the box...

   The four owlets were asleep at 6:30 p.m. but night time seems to be busier.

   They are owls, after all.

   Mrs. Wood Duck video:

Download MVI_1017a.avi

A little red fox in Mahwah

 

   

    Pedro, a follower of this post, kindly passed along this great photo of a little red fox in Mahwah.

   He also shared his photos of the black bears earlier this week. 

  Thanks, Pedro!!

  He writes:

  I guess you could say I've been blessed by nature this past few days.

   I went to search for fawns to photograph, which involves moving very slowly through the woods and instead I ended up with this.

   I came across a group of young red foxes playing around and it took me about 45 minutes until I got this shot.

    A lot of patient steps to get closer without them noticing.

    It's a young red fox with a fawn's leg in its mouth. It was taken in the mountains in Mahwah.

I figured I'd share as it's something most of us have never seen.

 

Wild turkey in Allendale

   

    I saw a wild turkey at the intersection of Brookside and Crescent avenues in Allendale last week, but I didn't have a camera.

   Yesterday, as luck would have it, I did. 

   The turkey is a bit shy, which is good, so I had a bit of a run-around trying to photograph it and making sure it stayed away from the road.

    I understand it hangs out around there a lot, and that it has been known to use the crosswalk, but it is not in a good place.

    It did remind me of the ocellated turkeys I saw in Central America in Belize and at Tikal in Guatemala.

   They were in very good places in a very bad region for turkeys.

    The turkeys in Central America are ocellated turkeys, and they can be seen only in protected areas because they have been so over-hunted.

    Here's a picture I took of one at La Milpa in Belize earlier this year. He liked to follow me everywhere I went in the vicinity of the dining hall. 

   The bottom picture is a close-up of his head. 

   I am told that female turkeys find it attractive.  He probably had a similar opinion of me.

   

   

Updates galore on the last day of May

   

    

 

    I am sitting at my window, well before 7 a.m., watching for a snapping turtle that I'd seen earlier crossing the brook in my back yard.

   At one of my feeders, a female ruby-throated hummingbird slurps down the nectar.

    My eyes, however, are on the nesting boxes just beyond my backyard.

   I have checked the screech cam, and the owlets are fast asleep, but I wonder if I might glimpse their mom.

   The owlets are getting so big that they seem to have an organized way of sleeping even as they lay flat in the box. (see image above.)

    Last night the owlets dined on frog and (I think) gosling, among other creatures. Their appetite is huge these days.

   To the left in my morning view is the wood duck box. It has now been more than six weeks since April nor'easter that flooded our back yard and allowed the wood ducks to swim by and discover the box.

   Wood duck babies should be jumping out of the box any morning now, and I spend my early mornings waiting for the female to arrive and call to her fresh-hatched young that it's time to meet the world.

   For now, I wait and watch, and take it all in.

Mrs. Ace and the kids

  I felt bad about messing up the videos last night, so shot this one this morning.

   Hard to believe that Mrs. Ace stills fits inside that box.

   Don't worry. All four owlets are fine -- Mrs. Ace is just blocking the view a bit.

Download MVI_1011a.avi

Turtle eggs

    In the image above, there are five eggs. Can you identify them?

    Clue #1: The three brownish round ones were found in the mulch pile in the Celery Farm parking lot.

   Clue #2: The roundish white egg, slightly smaller than a Ping Pong ball,  and the bigger bluish once came from my pocket: They are replicas from an outfit called Bone Clones.

    The answers: The three little eggs are snapping turtle eggs.

    The whitish one is a screech owl egg replica.

    And the light bluish one is a great blue heron egg.

    Raccoons or other night creatures raided our backyard the other night and dug up (and ate) some 50 snapping turtle eggs.

   Judging from our dug-up front yard, side yard and back yard, the snapping turtles' strategy appears to be to lay eggs everywhere and hope that some hatch.

   

Owlets May 30

    All four owlets are doing well. Mom and Dad are keeping busy feeding them.

   No videos today -- I was trying to take some night shots from my window yesterday evening with the camera set for "night image" and the video on, and all I got was the old black cat in a coal mine shot.

   I forgot to change the settings before I shot footage of the little guys jumping around, and the result was less than happy.

   I have learned all sorts of camera lessons over the past 11 weeks, including:

   Make sure the camera has a memory card (or film).

   Make sure it has a battery.

   Make sure the settings are right.

   Take the picture, then figure out what you are seeing.

   When in doubt, take the picture.

   Always carry a spare memory card (or roll of film) and an extra battery.

   Most important: Always bring your camera.

\

Snapping turtle laying eggs

    

   

   

    The backyard was a maternity ward this weekend, with at least two turtles laying eggs simultaneously at one point. 

    My friend, photographer Jerry Barrack, helped with the shots (that's why the quality is better than usual on some).

   The sequence is of one of the snapping turtles laying eggs, with the shot above of the other turtle.  Look closely at the last image and you can see the eggs.

Owlet update May 28

   

   

   I am happy to report that the owlets are doing great, even the smaller ones.

   I had been worried because when the four of them wait for their mom or dad to return with food, the bigger owlets are like NBA power forwards blocking out smaller players from going up for the rebound.

   At dusk, Mom and Dad fly in with dead moths for the owlets, and the bigger owlets always seem to snare them.

   But the adults make sure the smaller eat enough, too, by flying in later with bigger prey, tearing it into pieces and putting it into the mouths of all four nestlings.

   Here's a video of one adult feeding the kids, and the other showing up with a small side dish.

Download MVI_0987a.avi 

 

   

   

Mrs. Wood Duck -- check out 2nd video

   

As I promised yesterday, I have a video of Mrs. Wood Duck flying into her wood duck nesting box -- to show that a full-size duck really can fit through that little opening.

Download MVI_0879a.avi 

  But in an odd turn of events, Mrs. Wood Duck flew out again at 3:30 p.m. and returned around 6, just as we were finishing dinner with friends and family.

   Our 5-year-old friend Annabel was about to sing an after-dinner song -- a song she was rehearsing for her kindergarten graduation on June 15.

   I asked could she please wait until after  the wood duck flew into the box, but the wood duck seemed to be taking forever, and Annabel couldn't wait any longer.

   What you see and what you hear on the following video happened simultaneously.

   This was not planned.

   It just happened.

   No overdubbing, no sleight of computer.

   I thought it might be worth sharing.

  It somehow seems even more fitting today, Memorial Day.

Download MVI_annabela.avi