23-APR-2009
Green frog (Rana clamitans)
Meanwhile, over in the BYG pond a large green frog was floating in the water, no doubt glad to be out of the leafy, muddy depths for another few months!
23-APR-2009
Eastern cottontail rabbit
Here is one that has survived the predations of dogs and foxes. I hope he lives a long life.
23-APR-2009
Diane building raft
Diane and I decided that today was the day to build the much talked about turtle raft. It was quite a chore hammering the very big, very long nails into the cedar posts, but eventually we were finished.
23-APR-2009
Turtle raft
After about an hour and a half, we were ready to launch the thing. It now sits awaiting turtles, frogs, herons, dragonflies, any critter that wants to use it.
23-APR-2009
Turtle raft
And here's a close-up of the raft.
19 April 2009
Scilla
Diane was at the FWG Sunday afternoon and spied these little blue scilla in the Butterfly Meadow. These non-native plants are common in gardens and along with crocuses, bloom early.
19 April 2009
Spring flowers
More of Diane's lovely photos.
19 April 2009
Cardinal, male
This beautiful male cardinal was photographed by Diane at the FWG. Cardinals are pairing up and will soon be nesting, if not already started.
19 April 2009
Vandalism at the Interpretive Centre
This damage was apparently caused Friday evening as people arriving at the centre on Saturday morning saw it then. While not a huge amount of damage in and of itself, the scorched area on the bulletin board is not a happy sign. I suppose we should be happy that only that got scorched and not our lovely pergola. We've had a lot of damage and vandalism at FWG this spring, and we're asking visitors to keep their eyes open and report damage to farm Security and to us (our contact info is at the top of the blog).
17 April 2009
Beefly (Bomblylius major)
Sandy photographed this beefly feeding on willows. You can see where its name comes from: It is a fly (Diptera), but looks like a bee!
17 April 2009
Volunteers at work
This morning began with the removal of firewood from "the" party site at the garden, and carried on with helping volunteers remove buckthorn. Here we're having a lesson in how to use the Weed Wrench, which is a dandy device for pulling up small trees by the root. The volunteers are removing the very invasive buckthorn (Rhamnus) from a thicket around our Old Field habitat.
17 April 2009
Removing buckthorn
As one volunteer pulls back on the Weed Wrench (the orange contraption), the other clips around the roots to ease removal of the root ball. With a bigger tree, an axe is needed to hack through the roots.