April 12th, 2007
recently read or seen – and enjoyed
This is the scene that greeted me when I sat up in bed to take a look out the north-facing window into our garden early this morning. Not a pretty sight! Shortly after, I saw three large “V” formations of Canada geese winging their way southward over the house. They looked rather *determined* — like they were hoping to make good time for points south. The Robins scratching in the leaf mulch in the garden look just a little annoyed by this latest development. The Environment Canada weather report looks pretty gloomy for the next few days. I hope they’re wrong about the snow and rain and overcast skies, but when I checked the longer range forecast, it looks like everyone is calling for about another 8 or 10 days of this mixed bag of weather.
It’s not that there’s much snow – just a scattering really – and it will no doubt turn to rain later today — but the sight of even a little white stuff does become tiresome after awhile. Just yesterday, I was thinking of how things were finally starting to green up a little. The buds on the poplars are beginning to swell. I found two Woolly Bear caterpillars wandering over the grass, and brought one indoors along with some suitable foodstuffs. I also checked the drainage creek for signs of Wood Frog activity, but there was nada. A year ago today, some of you may remember me writing of finding Wood Frog eggs in the creek. Such is not the case this year. So far, the frogs have yet to put in an appearance. It looks as though it will be a late spring, which will definitely present some challenges for the Blogger Bioblitz coming up in a little over a week’s time.
But I’ll keep busy today. I have to scare up some photos of invasive species for a group that has asked if they could use some of my images in a booklet to be distributed to the public. I’ll spend part of the day looking through photo files that will remind me of what’s to come very soon – once the weather decides to be cooperative.
Well, back to the subject of this post. As usual, I’ve read and seen some interesting posts, websites and photos over the past week or two. Here is a small collection that I’d like to share:
* Marcia Bonta has written a most fascinating piece on Opossums. I particularly enjoyed reading about research into the reproduction and also the intelligence of these little creatures. And while we’re on the topic of Opossums, check out this post on Cindy Mead’s WoodSong which features a wonderful photo of a female with her young.
* Aydin Orstan from Snail’s Tales has been blogging while traveling in Florida. He has photographed some very interesting creatures. Read about them here and here.
* Here’s something very special. Mon@rch at Mon@rch’s Nature Blog posted a terrific photo essay on the migration of Spotted Salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum). Don’t miss it!
* I hadn’t been over to Thingfish’s Taming of the Band-Aid blog for awhile, but when I visited, I was soon reminded of the incredibly beautiful caterpillars such as this and this, and also beautiful moths.
* This morning, I came across a stunning photo on Jimmy’s Details of Nature blog. Jimmy is a super nature photographer who captures many unique images. His “Photo of the Day” for today is a Nursery Web spider with its young spiderlings. I don’t think this image will stay at its current location permanently, but here’s a link that should take it to you. See the large female in silhouette below.
* Pamela at Thomasburg Walks has just posted about Tweed Green-Up, a new environmental group in her municipality. It was great to read that one of their initiatives has been to successfully raise funding for reusable shopping bags, such as those now used in the village of Perth, that I wrote about a few months ago. Tweed Green-Up has it’s own new blog, and after quickly perusing through its first few posts, I can see that the group has got a lot of good stuff on the go. By the way, here are a few interesting factoids from one of their blog posts on recycling of cans and bottles:
Every tonne of cans recycled saves 3.6 barrels of oil. Every single aluminum can recycled saves enough energy to power an average television for 108 minutes. Every glass bottle recycled saves enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for 4 hours!
Doesn’t that make you wish that *everyone* recycled all cans and bottles — and used reusable shpping bags!
That’s all for today.