Tag: nature

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I went hiking at the marsh preserve this weekend and was astonished at just how many different types of birds I saw. Five species of ducks alone (it is winter, after all) — not just the more common mallards, but shovelers, teals, wigeons, and one I hadn’t heard of before called redheads (for obvious reasons). The usual coots, egrets and Canada geese. Red-winged blackbirds, sparrows, a heron that was standing so still I started to wonder if it was a statue, and a very patient hawk that sat in a tree completely ignoring me and my camera until I was finished and it flew off to another tree.

I also heard frogs all over the place, but couldn’t actually see any of them. I asked about them at the visitor center and apparently the pacific tree frog can be very small, about the size of a quarter, but they can still be very loud when singing in a chorus. Next time I’m there, if the frogs are still in season, I need to at least record the audio.

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I swear I’m not trying to turn this into a squirrel-themed blog, but here’s another encounter that I thought was worth sharing.

Most of the squirrels I see are really skittish around people. This one, in a city park, walked up to me and posed. I’m not sure what it was doing in the first shot, because it can’t have been trying to psych out a boxing opponent. But a few seconds later, after I’d knelt down with the camera for a better shot, it adjusted its pose into a perfect Oliver Twist, “Please sir? May I have some more?”

Tough Squirrel and Please, sir? on Flickr. Also posted on Pixelfed and on iNaturalist.

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I saw this squirrel running across the grass, then got my camera out and caught the first photo as it ran up the side of a tree and paused, looking at me as if assessing whether I was a threat or not.

Then it ran the rest of the way up to look at a gap in the tree, perhaps assuring itself that its stash was still where it had left it.

I walked around to see that there was a hollow between the two major branches, and the squirrel turned around and planted itself firmly, staring at me as if ready to defend its hoard.

My photos taken, I walked away.

Squirrel poised defiantly in front of a hollow in a tree.

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I’ve joked about how iNaturalist is like Pokemon Go for real animals. Well, since I started playing the game, I’ve been combining walks for both. And on yesterday’s hike in the local botanical gardens, I took some photos with a few Pokemon in their, um, natural habitats?

(Still not sure why I found so many Electabuzzes in the botanical gardens, though.)