Not a real fan of snappers in my pond for a lot of reasons I don’t mind a couple of sliders they help keep the pond clean The problem is just keeping it to a couple of sliders. I was not able to trap them last year. So they went wild. I started with my new trap April 1 as of May 31. I have relocated 22 and still going. I just give them a short ride to the river. It’s only about 400 yards away. There’s actually four turtles in that bucket. It looks like three but one is acting as a doormat for the big one.
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If all the weeds are put in a pile to breakdown, he/she will likely crawl in for the heat. The garter snakes here love to make a home out of my compost, manure, and grass piles as they become so warm.
It looks like a garter snake to me, but that might just be my association since it makes up the majority of snake species up here. A little more of the head in the shot and we could confirm the number of upper labials and narrow down the species/sub-species.
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what type of turtles are these ? im bad at identifying lol. Painted?
Shocked to hear they keep ponds clean since the RES i grew up with was the dirtiest animal ive ever lived with lol. i had to clean that tank like 3x a week
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Yep, turtles definetly are the dirtiest thing we keep in glass boxes of water. Extra filtration and water changes compared to fish. I have 2 turtle tanks on my client list. They are amazing at making lots of poop.
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They are probably mostly Yellow bellied sliders and red eared sliders. I can tell the difference if I look at them closely most of the time I don’t look at them closely also, some are really hard to identify because they’re a mixture. Yes turtles are very nasty in some ways. Just put them in the bucket takes me forever to get the stench out of it and they poop all over. My pond is artesian well fed so the water stays really clear except the summer. When I talk about keeping it clean. I’m talking about cleaning up fish heads, guts from Fish clean or any sort of dead fish. Don’t get me wrong if I have my way I wouldn’t have any, but they’re always gonna be there or they’ll be back very shortly never ending battle the bass will eat the babies I have found several bass with fishbowl turtles in their guts
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It would be nice if the hammerheads ate the lanternflies!
I’m overrun with lanternfly nymphs here, but thankfully haven’t seen any of those weird worms.
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Now that I’ve listened to their calls and my neighbor showed me one regularly hiding in his sun umbrella on his deck, I’ve decided the tadpoles I reported above ( Wildlife in our gardens - #2804 by zendog ) are Cope’s Grey tree frogs. We have never noticed them before, but they are clearly here in large numbers now. Their calls are amazingly loud at night, especially after a rain, and it sounds like we have the windows and doors open, even though they’re closed. Fortunately it is just for a little while at dark.
The original batch of tadpoles look like they are about to get their hind legs and the frogs just laid a ton more eggs over the last few nights.
Oddly, we never really remember these in the area in the past, at least we never heard them in any numbers. We also have a ton of gnats this year, way more than previous years. I don’t know if it is just the local ecology shifting or possibly a natural cycle and next year there were be fewer. Either way, I’m hoping they have a taste for lantern fly nymphs.
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snakefly larvae
found in a box in the attic?!? put outside where he belongs. we have had a lot of the adults this year, i like them a lot.
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Straight out of a horror film a dead tree not far outside my newest orchard full of crows. I don’t ever go this part of the orchard and they have claimed it. They are welcome to stay and most things fear these 3 large birds. It has been years since I have been there.
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My hollyhock has a lot of guests at the moment.
Some of them…
Rhopalapion longirostre - hollyhock weevil
Ephemeridae - mayfly
Predatory Deraeocoris ruber - red-spotted plant bug
nymph
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Well, crows are not welcome Around my place. They devastated my pears last year. They will pick a small pear and eat around and get the seeds. They are back this year. I have them on my game camera. However, so far the bags and the fake dead crow discourage them from getting in the tree. They just get on the ground.
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If they steal pears I rock the crows and they leave. They don’t do much of that anymore.
Most people don’t like blue Jay’s either but I love them.
A northern house wren has taken up residence in a bottle gourd that is suspended from my tomato trellis. The bottle gourd was started from seed last year and hung this spring. The opening is stuffed with sticks - typical for house wrens. Hard to tell if there any chicks. Apparently they will sometimes use decoy nests.
I hear the wren every day starting from around 6 am.
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I went to check on my graft of Wabash (at the top of this pawpaw) and a bird has built a nest inside the tree!!
I was about 5 feet away and I did not see a bird but I snapped this pic and left quickly because I didn’t want to disturb the bird. Anyone know what kind of bird might do this?
The tree is only about 3 feet tall.
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I think vireos often do that though id compare different species in your area to try to narrow it down
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Those house wrens make their nest just about anywhere they can.
They are making a nest under my travel trailer on the frame, right now. I’ve had them make nest in my tractor exhaust pipe, in a pipe of a trellis, they threw all my mason bee tubes out of the house and nested there. It’s amazing where they will make them.
My shop is pretty much mouse tight, but every now and then I’ll find a start of a wren nest is a box or on a shelf where they snuck in when the garage door was open.
Their song is delightful and I’m glad to have them around. Thanks for sharing.
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