Big ol' Toad

Rained all of today. This evening, just as it was getting dark, thought I'd bring in the night's supply of firewood, we have a small stack against the rockwall straight out the door, covered with a small tarp. There are some small stones to hold the tarp in place, I was grabbing them and setting them aside to pull the tarp back. When I grabbed for one of the "stones" I immediately realized the cold rubbery thing in my hand was not a rock. It was a big ol' toad, lovely specimen. I brought her inside for a better look, and to take a picture. I set her in a plastic tote while I brought in the firewood, in the few minutes it took she warmed up and got lively. I got the little camera and tipped her out onto the carpet by the door, then tried to herd her with my right hand onto my left. ("Her", had small ears.) Finally got her cornered, she had to climb onto my hand, then settled long enough to take some quick snaps. I was wanting to measure her but she'd have none of it, so I took her back out and set her back atop the tarp where I'd found her.

I'm having to watch my step when I come out the door, the green frogs are on the move, sometimes 2 or 3 on the walkway. Tanka sees them hopping and then tries to get his big nose on them, they just hop into the goutweed groundcover and hide behind the flowerpots. The peepers have been calling for over a week, there's one outside the window as I type this. It must be sitting somewhere at the side of the house but I haven't found it yet, when I open the door it quits calling.

Flying Squirrel

This afternoon Dad and I wandered into the woods off our lane to check on some dead trees that we'll be cutting for firewood. It started to rain, so we trotted back out again, and just before I got to the road I spotted this dead flying squirrel lying belly-up on the forest floor. It looks as though some predator got it, from the marks probably some bird of prey. We had been talking loudly back and forth and tramping along, not my usual try-to-be-quiet prowling and looking, so we didn't notice whay may have gotten the squirrel. I scooped it up to examine it back at the house, it wasn't warm as it should have been had it a fresh kill, felt more like it had been laying there a while, although when I set it upon a newspaper the fleas started to come off it, so it hadn't been there long. My "Mammals of Ontario" describes the northern flying squirrel's belly hairs as being gray at the base, as this one does, so I'm thinking it's a northern. Makes me sad to find one in this condition, they're beautiful little squirrels. I had a live one active near my cabin last summer, saw it land on the trunk of pine, and I could hear a soft *thump* on my cabin roof now and then before I went to sleep, no doubt one of them landing on its way to and from the big oak tree. We have 3 big oaks in a clump near the house, I should put a little feeder platform on one of the trunks and put a couple handfulls of sunflower seeds out after dark, see if I can attract some to where I can photograph them.

Caterpillars

August and September are good months for finding caterpillars, they're coming into the mature stage and fattening up for winter, either overwintering in their present state or more often going into cocoon. I spotted some red-humped oakworm caterpillars on the side of the laneway on a small oak tree (* my guidebook says they're almost identical to the white-headed prominent but even the expert writing the book has difficulty separating the two, so for the sake of ease I'll refer to these as oakworm.)

Caterpillars are far too often overlooked, many of our species can be quite beautiful, sporting bright colours and lovely patterns.

Among my favourites are the tussock moth caterpillars, like this hickory tussock. They're like soft furry little teddy bears, silky to the touch, not spiky and in some cases stinging like the io moth caterpillar. I grabbed an io caterpillar once by mistake when picking up some leaves, the tips of my fingers were numb for a couple of days.

Couple others that I've found and have had time to photograph are this green and yellow striped black arches moth, and an orange with black headed caterpillar found on red oak, as yet unidentified. Looking at the pic of the orange caterpillar I'm seeing the "stitchery" of some critter that glued leaves together with web, I've been meaning to investigate that further, haven't gotten around to that yet.

Stinkpot turtle

The highlight of my day today was finding a stinkpot turtle. Stinkpots are a relatively rare species in Ontario, and are rarely seen due to their secretive and nocturnal habits. I've always suspected that we had some in the lake, seems to me we found "mud turtles" years ago when I was a kid, but couldn't say for sure if they were all just snapping turtles. Today I have confirmed their presence. It was a beautiful sunny day, light northerly breezes, Dad and I were working on various things. I've been fighting a horrendous cold all week so have been plodding about. This afternoon after having finished most work I took something over to my cabin, and dawdled about looking at flowers, then wandered down to my dock watching the fish in the calm water. Something moving on the bottom of the lake caught my attention, a small turtle was crawling over to the rocks at the base of my dock, and stopped and half hid when it saw me moving closer for a look. By the shape of the shell I realized right away that it wasn't a painted turtle, and hoped it were a stinkpot. I ran and got my fishing net, knelt on the dock and carefully scooped up the turtle. To my delight it was indeed a stinkpot, and I carried my prize up to the house to show it off to Dad. I grabbed camera and measuring tape, took some photos of the indignant creature, then took him promptly back to the lake and set him gently in the water, where he quickly headed for the bottom and immediately dove into the weeds and mud. I say "he", the cloaca was near the end of the tail.

Using the barn door tracker

We FINALLY had a clear night last night, no moon, no humidity, and I had a chance to play with the barn door tracker. I had tried one night a couple weeks ago but had the hinges on the wrong side. Last night I got it turned correctly, sighted on Polaris, then proceeded to take some pictures. Much better results when you've got it set up properly. The results were not bad for a start. I was hoping for a few more clear nights so I can practise with it before Comet Hartley shows up, but we're back into cloudy weather for a few more days, and then the moon will be getting brighter next week. Maybe if Henry's gets me my adapter tube for the camera I can set up the scope and shoot the moon til we get clear skies again. In the meantime, these will have to do.

Lightning

We had a wicked storm a couple nights ago, the good thing about it was the lightning. Not that I'm fond of getting zapped, and it can be a bit scary, but a storm like this at night is a great opportunity for photography. I started shooting the storm from the dock, but as it got nearer and the rain started pelting down I hightailed it for the safety of the house. It's too bad our view had become overgrown over the years by the trees. I need to find some way to park my truck down by the lake where's there a clearer view, and shoot through the driver's side window.