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Category: animals

Copperhead!

Copperhead!

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Wednesday was to be a day of heat and humidity, record-breaking heat, and it would be just that. But it began with a snake-sighting. Not just any snake, but a copperhead. 

This deadly viper is, as I’ve noted before, “Reston’s only venomous snake.” Cold comfort when you reach down into your garden bed and one of them sinks its fangs into you — which happened to a friend who’d recently moved to the area.

That the copperhead I found was most assuredly dead did not totally dispel my discomfort. After all, I traipse through these woods often. What other dangers lurk beneath its calm facade? Does this critter have sisters and brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins? I imagine so. 

Having just returned from a place where coyotes call, mountain lions roam and bears break into suburban hot tubs, why shouldn’t I come upon a copperhead?

Tiny Lizards

Tiny Lizards

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Every year when I’m in Florida I see the tiny lizards known as anoles. They’re cute little critters with big eyes, holes for ears and long tails that detach if you pull too hard on them.

These small reptiles scamper and dart. They puff up and slim down. When frightened, they freeze and hide themselves among the scrub. 

I’ve had time on this trip to observe anoles up close, to watch them do what appears to be pushups but I’m sure is not, to wonder what they eat. (The answer: crickets, flies, mealworms and ants.)

Today I spotted an anole camouflaged on the bark of a palmetto plant. He was missing the fingers of his right hand. It wasn’t slowing him down, though. He was clinging tightly with his remaining digits, and taking life as it comes.

Name That Bird

Name That Bird

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It tweets, whistles, sings and trills. I’m listening to it right now, though on my computer rather than in the field. In my wanderings on and near the beach these last few days, I’ve been spotting a gray bird with white markings. It’s the state bird of Florida, the mockingbird.

There are some who want to replace it with the flamingo, a bird more associated with the Sunshine State, though flamingos have been absent from the state until just recently. 

Without wading too far into this controversy, let me say that the mockingbird is a splendid creature with an array of sounds that amaze and baffle. It finds a high branch on which to perch and sing its heart out. It has my vote, in case anyone asks for it. 

(Northern mockingbird, credit Bob Baker via Cornell Bird Lab)

Patience of the Predator

Patience of the Predator

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Yesterday was a day for wild things. I spotted a doe and a box turtle in the woods, and then, while dining al fresco last evening, was visited by a red-shouldered hawk.

The bird landed on the deck railing, just a few feet from the dinner table, and scanned the landscape. I suppose he was wanting his own dinner, perhaps a chipmunk or squirrel. For a few chilling moments I wondered if it might be me. 

The hawk perched for what seemed like forever, long enough for me to slowly turn in the chair and keep my eyes on him, long enough for me to become restless. I had finished my dinner; he’d yet to have his.

My phone was inside, so I missed the chance to photograph him. Instead, I tried to memorize his details: the long, substantial chest; the yellow legs, hooded eyes and beak that meant business. He was completely still as he surveyed the terrain, able to spot the faintest trace of movement. 

What impressed me most was his patience. He was prepared to wait all night if need be. His was a patience born of need, the patience of the predator.

(A hawk I photographed several years ago. Last night’s visitor was much closer.)

Munch, Munch

Munch, Munch

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Yes, they have to eat, too. But does it have to be my day lilies? Or hosta? Or, based on the nibbled stalks I’ve spied in a neighbor’s yard, the cone flowers, too?

I snapped a shot of this little fellow munching some vine or weed in the woods. To him it’s all the same: impatiens or Virginia creeper. He can leap most fences and surmount most barriers. Stick with the wild stuff, I tell him as I pass on a walk. I don’t think he was listening, though.

A cashier in a garden shop told me about a customer who came in three times to replace the plants deer had snatched from her flower pots. Eventually she gave up and stuck plastic flags in those pots. The deer ate those, too. 

They Grow Up So Fast

They Grow Up So Fast

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Children do, of course. But so do goslings! I’ve been watching this year’s Lake Anne spring babies toddle into semi-maturity for the last few weeks. A few weeks ago, this pair struggled to follow their mom and dad down to the water, slipping and sliding much of the way.  No helicopter parents these.

By now, the spring babies have grown into gangly teenagers who would rather die than acknowledge their ‘rents. Notice the nonchalant way they graze and lag behind. You can almost imagine them grumbling, “Mom, puhleeeeeze! Don’t you have something else to do?”

Such is life. And such is parenthood … throughout the animal kingdom.

(Top photo: Sally Carter)
In the Mood

In the Mood

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Though I remain more of a dog and bird person, I occasionally visit with a tabby cat named Felix. He’s an agreeable fellow; he hasn’t bitten me once.

I like to watch him look out the window as he takes in a glistening, green world full of birds and squirrels that he might love to chase if only he knew they were real. 

Instead, he contents himself with climbing contraptions and scratching posts and an adorable little toy that looks like a laptop. If only he was in the mood, we could both be tapping “keyboards” at the same time. 

The thing about cats, though, is that they’re seldom in the mood. 

Photo Finish!

Photo Finish!

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A photo finish was just what we needed yesterday, or at least just what I needed. A chance to lose the self in the moment, the moment being the “most exciting two minutes in sports,” the Kentucky Derby. 

In this case, those two minutes were followed by several more minutes of uncertainty as judges studied a photograph of the race’s conclusion, the first time since 1996 that such a move has been necessary. When the ruling came down — Mystik Dan by a nose — the crowd erupted. The 18-1 shot had bested Sierra Leone (9-2) and Forever Young (7-1). 

To see those three thoroughbreds thundering to the finish line, looking for all the world like a single unit, was to see grace in motion.

(A 1953 photo finish of the first triple dead heat in harness racing. Photo: Wikipedia)

Capturing Birds

Capturing Birds

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Once upon a time, I wrote a book for parents, encouraging them to avoid the trap I’d fallen into, double-thinking my words and actions until I’d turned what used to be a joyous and natural activity — raising kids — into a highly fraught, expert-dominated procedure.

In one chapter I talk about what children bring to adults when they’re allowed to remain children, not miniaturized adults, how they remind us of the way the world looks when we’re just coming alive to it. 

I was reminded of this the other day when Isaiah asked his mother why his grandparents “capture birds.”

We keep parakeets in a birdcage, you see, but to Isaiah, we are stalking the Northern Virginia landscape in search of parakeets. Every time I think of this, I smile. 

It’s the child’s mind trying to make sense of what he sees around him — and it’s a joy to observe. 

(Two of our “inmates.”)

To the Fox

To the Fox

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To the fox, we are a meadow, a resting place. Our grass is not sprayed and coaxed to greenness. A few patches of plain earth make an appearance, as do clumps of weeds. We lack the hummus of the forest, but the randomness and vagaries of real life thrive in our backyard. 

The fox moved through earlier today, paused, as he usually does, taking in the scene. As I write these words, a plump squirrel, still as a statue, surveys the yard from the deck railing. Maybe he’s feeling as the fox does, that he can enjoy himself among the dandelions and the stilt grass, that our yard is his castle.

Some neighbors leave peanuts for wildlife. We don’t go that far. But we are lawn care minimalists, and for many animals, that is enough.