The Red Squirrel in a Tamarack

Red squirrels are serious pests- they can be quite destructive to human property, and have a penchant for eating electrical lines.  The are pretty cute though!  This one struck me as a young animal- amazing color and no signs of age.  It had climbed one of the water-stressed tamaracks on the edge of the bog mat at Little Pond, a place where I have never seen one.  

-Tom

Mexican Gray Wolf

Mexican Gray Wolf - Columbus Zoo & Aquarium - Powell, Ohio

I was scrolling through my lightroom catalog, browsing for images of State Nature Preserves to keyword properly (for the day job) and this photo of the Mexican gray wolf subspecies caught my eye.  The RAW file was flat as flat could be, due to a smudged and dingy piece of glass that I was shooting through. But I thought the pose was just too good to let it sit on my hard drive.

From my brief bit of research on this subspecies- they were exterminated in the wild, and today, are extremely rare after reintroductions via captive breeding programs.  I typically focus my writings on bugs and birds- things that still exist in a landscape long after people arrive- but wolves are one of those things that would have been roaming the forests of Worthington several centuries earlier. Now, the closest I can get to one is the Mexican subspecies at our local zoo.

-Tom

Not Until Twilight

The beavers wait until the sun sets and twilight shimmers across Little Pond- you won't see them a minute sooner.  But if you're on the pond or at the dock during this magical time of light, you just might get to see one.

-Tom

This week I'm presenting images from our late August 2011 trip to Little Pond, Maine.

Rocky Mountain Roundup- Mammals of Rocky Mountain National Park

Coyote- Fairly common, there and even here in Ohio.  Notice it's posing behind Mountain Goldenbanner!

Best guess?  The Mountain Cottontail.  Any rabbit experts out there?  Does this one have enough hair in its ears?  This one was hanging out near our condo.

The golden-mantled ground squirrel that prompted Weston to say his longest sentence that I've heard to date.  "Hi Squirrel- How are you?" I was dumbfounded.  These things are RIDICULOUSLY tame, they're used to being fed, but there are plenty of signs that say "don't feed these squirrels!"

Higher up in elevation I found these interesting chipmunks.  I believe this is the least chimpmunk, which can be found throughout the park.

And here is my Holy Grail picture- A pika.  I was hoping for a better photo- can you see it?

And finally- the mule deer- this buck in velvet was hanging around during the wedding rehearsal dinner.  I took this shot just as we were loading the kids up in the car- I literally had put my camera into the trunk when it came into view.  Magic moment, right time, right place, and I had my camera!

 

During July (and August!) 2011, I'm writing about my late June trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.  I hope you enjoy this brief  exetnded swing to the western U.S.

Eastern Cottontail Rabbit

It's been one of those weeks- our two year old son Weston has had complications with his ear tubes.  One is jammed with dried blood that won't come out despite two a day ear washings with hydrogen peroxide.  Accompanied by horrible screaming, and I don't blame him.  And on top of this, the same ear is infected  His Momma is the best momma in the world- he's a lucky duck.  Second ENT followup appointment tomorrow a.m.

This rabbit has been hanging outside our office door this week- I just happened to bring my camera in to work today- thanks for the great pose.

Tom

Nature Isn't Always Pretty

I hadn't seen a eastern cottontail rabbit (Sylvilagus floridanus) in our suburban yard until this morning- and it wasn't exactly the encounter I was hoping for.  As I stepped outside onto our front porch this morning, I scared up a band of five crows huddled over something at the edge of our driveway.  As I walked over, it didn't take long to figure out what they were after.  Megan came out with Weston, and our friend Kathleen met us to walk to the Farmer's market.  They wanted me to dispose of the body, but I let nature take its course.  Upon our return, a few bits of fluff were all that remained.

Tom

One Frightened Rabbit

This is what a rabbit looks like when it has just discovered that it is sharing the same lush and grassy enclosure with a male Bonobo at the Columbus Zoo.  I watched this creature munching on lettuce placed intended for the pack of apes.  When the male Bonobo showed up, I thought the bunny's little eyes were going to pop right out of its head.  An instant after I clicked the shutter for this image, it bolted back into the higher vegetation. 

My only question is this-  Is this just your typical eastern cottontail rabbit that the zoo staff tolerates living in the Bonobo enclosure, or is this some type of other rabbit species that is actually a part of the zoo collections?

Tom

G'day Mate

I had the fortune to travel to Australia with Hiram College in 1999. We spent 3 months touring the eastern half of the continent, traveling in a motorcoach complete with a modern day chuck wagon trailing behind. What a trip. I even created a website all about it, and it really hasn't been touched since 1999. Go there soon, because Yahoo! is eliminating their free Geocities hosting. Although it was ten years ago, whenever I visit the Australia area at the Columbus Zoo, I'm brought right back to the home of Kangaroos and Koalas.

The kangaroo pictured is one of the big reds, Macropus rufus, which live in the interior of the country. Reds are so common that many people in the outback place large metal bars across the fronts of their cars, almost like an old cow catcher, to protect their cars from collision. Our bus hit several on our trip, unfortunately.

A much more rare Aussie animal, and one that I never saw in the wild was the Koala, Phascolarctos cinereus. Koalas are from the forested regions of southeastern Australia. We did see them in sanctuaries, but we didn't spend enough time in the forested regions to see any wild populations. The history of Koala-human interactions is quite interesting- during the 19th and early 20th centuries, koalas were hunted for their fur, and eventually large culling programs were initiated. Hard to believe that such a cute and cuddly looking creature has had such a complex history with people.

Oh yeah, back to my title. The Aussies really do greet each other with "G'day". It's not just a joke or a stereotype. Here in America, guys like me talk about our friends or buddies, but if you're an Aussie and you're about to go have a VB (Victoria Bitter, great beer, extremely rare in the U.S.) with your buddies, you'd call them your "mates".

Tom

That concludes the images from the Columbus Zoo series. I needed some time away from blogging on Ohio nature for a little bit, but we've recently had plenty of interesting natural encounters, look for them this upcoming week.

There She Blows!

Like most young people interested in biology from an early age, marine mammals always grabbed my attention. If you like nature, I'm not sure how they can not. I got my marine mammal fix by working at Sea World of Ohio as a teenager. It's not there anymore, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.



But dropping the whole marine mammals in captivity argument, which we could talk about forever, let's move on to the open ocean. We are fortunate enough to live in a time in the earth's history during when with two of the largest animals that have ever lived on the earth, as far as our best science tells us. To think of all the gigantic dinosaurs that once roamed around the continents, and to know that the whales of the ocean today rival them in sheer size, is fairly spectacular. And it really isn't that all that difficult to see one of these species-
one of the best ways to see whales from southern Maine is a berth on the Odyssey, a whale watch vessel that sails right from the Old Port.

Which brings us to Portland, Maine. If you've never visited, it is one of the east coast's little big cities. A major port, it boasts a mix of the very old and very new. The picture above is of the US customs house, built in 1874. It is one of my favorite buildings in Portland, and I can't seem to photograph it enough.



Portland is ultimately a port city, and the seafood that can be had along the old port is fresh and delicious. It is captured daily along the coast by people like this man, heading down to the docks to begin a day on the water.



The dock along which the tour boats park was full of people on this Friday morning. I'm glad Megan and I had a reservation. Several other people were taking harbor cruises rather than the four-hour whale watch. In my opinion, you get your best bang for your buck with a whale watch. Built in harbor cruise, sea birds, and whales. What more could you ask for?

So let's just cut to the chase. It seemed like hours (well, that's because it was two hours) but we cruised out into the ocean, at what seemed like full throttle, for a LONG time. On the way out, we saw these creatures:

Two harbor porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, a mother and calf.



Several common eiders, Somateria mollissima.


The greater shearwater, Puffinus gravis







And several northern gannets, Morus bassanus:




Then, finally, after two hours heading straight out into the Atlantic Ocean, the blow of a finback whale, Balaenoptera physalus, the world's second largest living animal, ever. And not only one, but two, a mother and her 30 foot long calf.









These animals are amazingly long- the woman's head in this shot provides great scale.




And that was our whale watching experience on the Odyssey. If you're in Portland Maine, I'd recommend it highly. $45 gets you a four hour adventure, full of whales, porpoises, pelagic birds, and the sights of Portland Harbor.

This is my contribution to the July 18th edition of "Camera Critters"

Tom

13 Lines + Squirrel =

The thirteen-lined ground squirrel!

Central Ohio is home to the easternmost populations of the thirteen-lined ground squirrel, Spermophilus tridecemlineatus. How about that for a scientific name?

 

 

 

 

My buddy and co-worker Rick G., who many of you know and love as Ohio's Natural Heritage Botanist, and his lovely wife, were out gallivanting this weekend near Circleville, Ohio, and spotted this quite photogenic creature. Fascinating, isn't it? Ohioans, have you ever had an encounter with these? How about our friends on the plains? Apparently, the Minnesota Golden Gopher is actually a thirteen-lined ground squirrel. I guess the nickname "The Minnesota Spermophilus tridecemlineatuses" was too long, so they went with the golden gophers. Thanks Rick for these awesome images.

Also, if you are out and about, and happen to capture some great images of Ohio's Natural History, but don't have enough time to do a blog yourself, send them to me, and I'll feature them here. My e-mail is in the sidebar on the right, just above my facebook badge.

Tom

How the Squirrel Found the Feeder

A Furry Woodland Creature

April 21, 2008.

The best image of a fox squirrel (Sciurus niger) that I have managed to get to date. I was scoping out some map turtles on the bank of the Olentangy when this creature came running my way. It was quite surprised when it saw me, but it stuck around for about 30 seconds, allowing me to fire two salvos with my camera. Looking at this relatively cute looking, fluffy animal almost makes me forget a warm early summer evening last year when Megan and I watched from below as fox squirrel raided a blue-gray gnatcatcher's nest with both parents scolding the creature as it ate their eggs.

Tom