Greetings!

The thermometer finally climbed enough yesterday (Saturday) afternoon to entice me outside for a long-ish walk to some of my favorite local spots.

The ponds are still iced-over, but here and there small patches of clear water have emerged.  This gives birds such as this Great Blue Heron an opportunity to go fishing;

but only at the risk of walking across the ice!  I must admit I was torn between hoping it would be successful on the one hand, and possibly seeing it break through the ice on the other!  In fact, it did neither, at least not while I was watching.

On a smaller pond even closer to home, I was very surprised to see a Painted Turtle walking across the ice.

Like the heron, the turtle has long claws, and seemed to have no trouble obtaining tracti0n.

These two creatures have made it through the winter so far, but on the same walk I found the skull of an animal that had succumbed at some prior time.

In fact, I suspect it had died long before this winter, because the skull has been stripped clean of any trace of flesh, and there were no signs of any other parts of the skeleton close by.  Certain parts of the skull are missing, probably as a result of some other creatures – like squirrels – having gnawed on it to get mineral nutrients.  (I did move the skull onto the wooden walkway to simplify photography.)  For scale, the visible part of my “Concorde” penknife on my key-ring is about an inch and a half long.  Some research on the web suggests that it is most likely the skull of a Red Fox.  (See, for example, http://www.skullsite.co.uk/Redfox/redfox.htm  )

 

To end on a happier note, I also saw our local wild parakeet,

which has survived at least two Virginia winters by flocking with our sparrows.

Have a great week!