A Collection of Critters

A short and sweet post that addresses two concerns: I haven't posted in two weeks, and I have a small collection of animal photos from Yosemite National Park that I want to share.

First up, Western Fence Lizard, found next to the trail up to Inspiration Point.



The next two were both found along the trail to Sentinel Dome. First Mountain Chickadee in the shadows, and then Yellow-rumped Warbler in the sun,





The last two are of a Yellow-bellied Marmot, found at Olmsted Point, who was just as curious about me as I was of it.

Lizard

I have a feeling that many of my blog posts from this week might have boring generic titles. Like this post. The word "lizard" is probably very accurate, but the confidence I have in my identification of the creature I photographed is not very high. I think this is a Great Basin Whiptail. Trying to identify this creature using a very slow Internet connection, creative searches on Google and no field guide was challenging. Coming to the conclusion that the specific creature I photographed is missing most of what is normally a very long tail...well, that was even harder. Both photos were taken while hiking the Buffalo Point Trail on Antelope Island.

American Crocodile

While inside Everglades National Park, we saw plenty of American Alligators. I was assuming, however, that all of the large alligator-looking reptiles were, well...alligators. My assumption was quite wrong. It turns out that the only place in the world where you can see alligators and crocodiles in the same habitat is South Florida.

Tammy and I took a stroll around Eco Pond, near Flamingo, and there was an alligator laying out in the sun on a piece of wood. We overheard another person, however, talking about the crocodile. When we inquired about our apparent misidentification, we learned that what we thought was just one more alligator was, in fact, an American Crocodile. Later we got word that there was another crocodile hanging around the marina in Flamingo. When we checked it out, we were delighted to see another American Crocodile poking its head up out of the water under the dripping sprayer on a hose, almost like it enjoyed the mini-shower.

Nobody Home

During my September visit to Back Bay NWR I noticed this light colored, football shaped thing in some nearby mud. A look through my binoculars told me what it was: the bleached out shell of some variety of turtle. I have seen and photographed plenty of turtles, but they were always alive, sunning themselves or in a hurry to some important date. This is my first dead turtle. Or, what remains of a dead turtle. There is nothing left of this guy but his big bleached out shell. Makes me wonder where all the other dead turtle shells end up. Probably under water and buried.

Lizard with an attitude

Way back on the first day of our trip, when we visited Antelope Island and hiked the Buffalo Point Trail, Tammy and I came across a lizard that was sunning itself on the edge of the trail. Naturally I wanted to take pictures, but was very cautious so that I did not scare the lizard away. I slowly swapped lenses on my camera and then bent over him to take a couple of pictures.

That angle was not working for the photographs or my back, so I decided to sit down on the opposite side of the trail. I hoped to get a picture that was more down to the lizard's level, instead of from my level looking down. I was half expecting that the lizard would spook and run away from me as I lowered myself down to the ground, but that did not happen. No...he decided to run towards me instead.

At first I had a tinge of alarm as I imagined a panicked lizard running up my shorts, or something weird like that. But he stopped just in front of me. And then he looked me straight in the eye for a moment or two, long enough for me to get my picture, before turning around and heading someplace more comfortable and out of the way of curious photographers.

I did not do a good job compensating for the harsh light, but I think the lizard pose is too good not to share.

Snakes of Camp Hoover

You may remember me writing a few weeks back about the Rapidan Loop hike that I took in July. I have finally worked through the pictures that I took earlier in the summer and have "caught up" to the photos from the Rapidan hike. As mentioned in that earlier post, my friend Rich accompanied Tammy and I, and he also wrote about this hike. Even better, while we were enjoying the views from Hazeltop, he took a picture of me taking a picture. Then, when he got home he turned that photo of me into a banner for my blog. I liked it so much that I promptly incorporated it into my blog template.

The first third of this hike takes you down from Skyline Drive to Camp Hoover, where you can explore the history of the presidential retreat used by Herbert Hoover. A park ranger is resident in the camp, and he gives tours that describe the history of the camp, the various buildings that remain, and what they were used for. He also pointed out a couple of snakes that regularly sunned themselves on a rock in the camp.

Unfortunately, the snakes were halfway inside a shady crevice in the rock. We did not get great looks at the snakes. One was a Timber Rattlesnake, one of three poisonous snakes in Virginia, so we did not attempt to get very close.

In the first photo, you can barely see two snakes. The one of the left is a Northern Watersnake (the camp is right next to where Mill Prong and Laurel Prong come together to form the Rapidan River). The one on the far right is the Timber Rattlesnake. In the second picture, I was able to crop a photo to provide a closer view of the rattlesnake's head. He looks mean.

Balancing Act

I have just about reached the end of the photos from my July visit to DGCA that I wanted to share here. I have noticed that my visits to DGCA in the warmer months tend to follow this pattern: walk the river trail to where the boardwalk used to be, turn around and return to my vehicle, and then drive further into the park to visit one or both of the marsh overlooks. That visit to the marsh overlooks is where I usually get my last pictures of the day, and there are always turtles. Yep, today is all about turtles.

The turtle that caught my eye is the one doing the stretch-my-arms-and-legs thing on the log. He is laying there on that log, all splayed out and relaxed in the hot sun. It looks to me like he has balanced the bottom of his shell on the log and is sitting there like a perfectly balanced seesaw. One sneeze and he would flip over backwards into the green muck.

Basking Lizard

Way back on July 3rd I took the day off from work and visited Dutch Gap Conservation Area (DGCA) to find birds, take photos and to practice digiscoping. While I was practicing the digiscoping with a pair of nesting birds as my subject, I noticed a lizard crawl out onto a nearby tree and begin to soak up some sun. I really did not need to use the digiscoping setup to get pictures of the lizard because it was much closer than the birds, but I also did not want to switch back to my regular photography setup just to get a picture of the lizard (it takes just enough time to be annoying, and is not something you can in a couple seconds).

So, here is the digiscoped lizard in all his glory. He is clinging to the side of a tree in a gravity defying pose, letting the sun re-energize him. Like all of my digiscoped photos, this one is not super sharp (but certainly not blurry). I am trying to figure out if that is user error, gear related, or just the norm for digiscoped photos.

You would be irritable too, if you had an ant crawling on your eye

Towards the end of our hike around the reservoir at Ragged Mountain Natural Area, I noticed a Black Snake sunning itself beside the trail. I immediately seized upon the opportunity for pictures since you just do not find non-venomous snakes posing beside a trail every day.

Of course, later the next week my friend Dennis pointed out that since I was not dead sure that this was a Black Snake, my photographic tom-foolery was more of a gamble than I was admitting. Er...dammit. Mom, you should not pay any attention to Dennis. I think he is just causing trouble :-)

In trying to figure it out now, I cannot really tell whether it is a Black Rat Snake, or an Eastern Racer. Either way, it was not venomous. See Mom? Not venomous!

Anyhow, this snake was sunning itself beside the trail. As I crept closer for a lovely snake portrait, he started flicking his tongue out at me to keep track of where I was. Non-venomous or not, I did not want to get so close that he fled or decided to strike, so my big lens did all the work for me. I am not sure what is more creepy...the snake and its tongue, or the ant crawling on its eye.

Mr. Speedy

Two weekends ago (the one before Memorial Day weekend) I made a morning bird watching visit to Dutch Gap Conservation Area (DGCA). Specifically, I walked what I call the "River Trail" (this is called the "Henricus Park Trail" if you follow the previous link to the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail website, but that website's description is out of date because the boardwalk they mention no longer exists). This is an out and back walk that totals 2.5 miles. A few weeks back Google announced the capability to create your own Google maps, which I promptly used to depict the trails within DGCA. Take a look here. The "River Trail" is the red one.

While on my little jaunt, I came across Mr. Speedy. He is a turtle of some variety who was making his way across, or perhaps along, the trail. Here is a fairly good description of our encounter:

1. Locate turtle.
2. Photograph turtle.
3. Get distracted by nearby bird activity.
4. Remember turtle.
5. Worry that I might step on turtle.
   
6. Return to step #1.

Eventually some part of that chain failed because I did not step on the turtle, and at some point I either failed to remember he was there or failed to relocate him. Here is a picture for posterity. Good times.

Lizard

What an astoundingly plain post title. In my defense, I am much better at identifying birds. These are "just" lizards to me. I caught this pair sunning on a tree in Acadiana Park in Lafayette.

Gators

Last weekend I was in the Orlando Florida area. I am still trying to make time to go through all the pictures I took and hide the junk. The stuff left over after that process will be ideal candidates for a few blog posts.

I did finish going through the pictures that I took at Orlando Wetlands Park, but I only have time for one blog post this evening. The subject matter of choice for this one post is alligators. They were easily seen as you walked through the park. Here are three:

Warm March Saturday = DGCA

Today was an above average warm day in March. Even better, it was a Saturday and it was very sunny. If there was any downside to be discovered, it was the wind. It was quite windy today. So windy that it was sometimes annoying. For example, it can be hard to hold a camera on subject and keep it focused when the subject is flying around, and the wind is gusting hard enough to push you a bit, and you are using a 400mm lens.

Anyway, because it was so nice out, Tammy and I decided to visit Dutch Gap Conservation Area (DGCA). Actually, to be precise, I announced that I was going to DGCA last night and asked Tammy if she wanted to come along. She politely obliged. She tolerates me very nicely. And if you have not noticed yet, my "I am going bird watching at the last minute" location of choice in the Richmond area is DGCA.

Here are a couple pictures from the trip. The first is of a Red-shouldered Hawk. He was hanging out in a tree near the visitor center parking lot. If I remember correctly, there have been nesting Red-shouldered Hawks very near this parking lot the past two springs. As I walked below this particular hawk to take pictures, he watched me...well...like a hawk.



The second picture is of a festival of turtles. Or something like that. That log was quite the popular turtle sunning station. There were probably another four turtles, further to the right on this log, that had found spots to soak up the sun.

Giant River Serpent

This is some kind of a giant snake! It is soooo long that its undulating body is poking out of the water in several places. Kind of freaky!

Actually, these are just some type of fish, flailing about in water that is a tad too shallow for them. Still is freaky.

Creature

This is, I am assuming, some kind of turtle. I do not know the name of the species, but he is quite interesting looking. Especially that nose. This was taken in Merritt Island NWR.