Category: Wildlife

This is a very busy photo

On By CarynIn Flora, Wildlife
So much going on!

On a walk at a local park, I stopped to take a picture of thistles. I love the look of these thistles! The leaves are silvery, and I like the tassel; yes they are prickly, but at a distance that has its own kind of charm. I ran the photo through the iNaturalist app to figure out what kind of creature was sipping nectar, and it suggested thistle, and two very different insects. Huh? Then I looked closer and there are two insects in the picture! The bee fly on the bloom to the right, and the back end of a flower scarab in the bloom on the left. I have not documented either creature, so it is quite the exciting picture!

Zoom in on bee fly
Zoom in on beetle bum

I have finally added an “About Me” page, accessible from the menu on my page ofchickensandcraft.home.blog. It rather highlights my fractured nature, but if you have been reading my posts for any length of time, you have probably picked up that I am easily distracted and try many things!

Egg thief?

On By CarynIn Wildlife
Western Rat Snake trying to eat an egg

Well, attempted egg thievery. I went out to check the chickens around noon and found a 4 foot long Western Rat Snake in a nest trying to eat an egg. I ran back to the house to get my phone, turned on the video, with light, and she (?) still didn’t care I was there. The egg was too big, though. I called for my eldest to bring the snake grabber (yes, I went into the house for my phone and not the grabber), and we gently removed the snake from the nest and relocated it outside the coop.

Relocated Western Rat Snake

I think the snake slithered in the coop door during the day. I was afraid of squishing bits with the grabber and dropped it a couple times and it didn’t seem to have a bolt hole. But that may be another factor in our decreased egg collection. Although, honestly, a few eggs is a good salary for something that keeps rats and mice away. This guy will need to grow a bit before it can eat the eggs. Maybe it was stealing the 44g eggs and couldn’t take the 46g.

Momma Wolf Spider

On By CarynIn Wildlife
Female Wolf Spider with babies

Ok, so now that you’ve shuddered after imagining all those babies on her back making a run for it, you probably don’t want to read further about the Wolf Spider. So I’ll let you look it up. I will share that my husband found her, we all paraded out to see her, because, wow, and my youngest, upon seeing it, said “We need to move.” Yes, the spider was on our house, hanging out in the shade of the honeysuckle (the bricks are 2 3/4″ tall high). I took the image with the longest lens I have, and although I wanted the image to be sharper, no way was I going to piss her off by getting closer. Sleep tight! (And as a final note, wolf spiders are a beneficial species, so we just left her alone.)

Fish

On By CarynIn Wildlife

So my eldest was taking pictures in the back woods for a school art project and found fish in the tiny stream! I’m not sure how the raccoons haven’t caught them; there isn’t but a couple inches of water. In fact, as she was looking, one of the fish beached itself trying to get away. She helped it back into the water.

Beached minnow (photo credit to my eldest)
Minnow under a stick (photo credit to my eldest)

Spider in the spider plant

On By CarynIn Wildlife
Grass spider making a web in my spider plants

I saw the grass spider in my houseplant and honestly it was just too cute to have a spider in the spider plant. He was catching and eating the irritating gnats left over from a failed indoor herb planting, and he was not in the way.

Grass spider web

However, when his web started extending past the plants and over taking the window, and he was looking a little gaunt because all the gnats were gone, I gathered him between two cups and released him outside.