This heron flew up from the pond and landed pretty much on the very top of this medium-sized pine tree and sat there gaping and vibrating its cheeks. Not sure what that behavior was.
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Saw this gray catbird while walking around one of the ponds at Meadowlark Gardens in Vienna, VA. They get their name from A) being gray, and B) making a distinctive "meow" call when not imitating other birds. Yes, they can do the mockingbird-like thing as well.
Aren't you happy I finally stopped posted photos from West Virginia? Well this is one very happy tub of Trader Joe's Ultra Chocolate ice cream. Enjoy.
The green frog is a common frog found in ponds all over the eastern United States. Its call is a single loud GRUP and can be head on most any summer night near water.
There were quite a lot of amphibians of two species in this pond. Five individuals are visible in this photo. Can you spot them all?
Sometimes you just look at a tree and know there HAS to be a bat colony in there. In this case there was a colony of northern myotis bats under that big flake of exfoliating bark.
I don't normally ID things to the subspecies level, but it is somewhat needed for this snake. There are about 9 different subspecies recognized for ringneck snakes, all of which are slightly venomous with rear fangs, except this one. The Northern ringneck snake is a docile and non-venomous small snake that prefers the dark, so typically it is only out at night and underneath something or in a burrow during the day. So imagine my surprise to see one swimming across Lake Buffalo near Durbin, WV in the middle of the day. There are a lot of bass in that lake so I was wondering if it would make it. It swam completely across the lake, and safely made it to shore.
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Keith Christenson Wildlife Biologist Archives
September 2021
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