While I Was Gone

If you’re a regular visitor to In Forest and Field you know I was hospitalized for all but a few days of the month of May. All the time I was in the hospital three camera traps on the hill above the house continued capturing the comings and goings of some of the wildlife that inhabits the hillside.

Here are the videos taken during May and June by those camera traps. Videos from each of the three cameras are grouped separately. There's an abundance of videos of white-tail fawns as well as some videos of bucks growing their new antlers.

Last, but far from least, is a video, taken on June 24, of a cinnamon-colored black bear; this is the only video I’ve ever gotten of a bear of that color. Cinnamon-colored black bears are uncommon to rare in Pennsylvania but are much more common in some western states.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy this video –

The camera traps on the hill have often gotten videos of both red and gray fox, but during these two months there was only one appearance by each of the two species.

Morning at the Beaver Pond

It was back in mid-April when I spent a morning sitting beside my favorite beaver pond. The waterfowl migration was tapering off, but a couple of green-winged teal had stopped on their way north and a male wood duck and a female hooded merganser were in residence –

A late migrating fox sparrow stopped on a pond-side shrub –

Great egrets don’t nest this far north, but every year we see a few that have overshot their breeding grounds by many miles. There was one at the beaver pond this morning. It searched for fish and frogs along the edge of the pond –

And then flew up into a dead tree –

As I sat beside the pond and the day warmed up a number of painted turtles clambered up on a dead tree that had fallen into the pond –

Later an early-migrating palm warbler searched for insects among the sedges bordering the pond –

The entire time a number of tree swallows squabbled over a dead snag that had several old woodpecker nest holes –

The swallows didn’t settle their contest over the snag while I was there and the squabbling probably went on for several more days.

There’s always something interesting happening at a beaver pond and it’s always worthwhile spending time sitting along the shore.

National Moth Week - 2025

This year National Moth Week was July 19-27; it’s an annual event during which people share photographs of moths they've found with science sites.

Moths are some of the most diverse and successful creatures on earth. Since new species are being found each year, no one knows how many types of moths exist, but it’s been estimated there are between 150,000 and 500,000 species.

Moths come in a wide range of shapes, sizes, colors and patterns – some moths are amazingly colorful, others are extremely well camouflaged.

Although most moths are nocturnal and are only active after dark, some are active during daylight hours. It’s widely believed that butterflies evolved from day-flying moths about 45 million years ago.

Almost any kind of light will attract moths – a porch light, a flashlight, a blacklight or a mercury vapor light. Moths can be attracted to a bait concoction of mashed overripe bananas or peaches, brown sugar, maple syrup and beer or wine.

Here are some of the moths I’ve captured around the house so far this year –

This has been the worst year for moths since I began catching moths at our outside lights – WHY ??? Perhaps it was the gypsy moth outbreaks of the last several years depriving other species of food. Perhaps it's part of the general decline in insect populations in North America and Europe. Perhaps it's because more than half of the lawns on our road are treated with herbicides and pesticides, making the world safe for Kentucky bluegrass but little else. 

Moths will continue to be active until the cold weather of late-fall/early-winter, so there’s still time to search for moths in your yard, a local park or extensive woodland – why not give it a try?

Predators

Predation - the killing of one living organism by another for food

Predators make a living by eating other critters. Most of us have seen robins pulling an earthworm from a lawn or perhaps a Cooper’s hawk take a junco at the feeder. By the way, unless you’re a vegetarian, you too are a predator – once or twice removed from the killing part if you’re not a hunter.

Predation is a hard way to make a living; therefore almost all predators are also scavengers because it’s both energy efficient and safer to feed on something that’s already dead and doesn’t have to be caught or that might fight back.

Virtually all predators eat a lot of vegetable matter as well as their prey. Apples, berries, grass and forbs all make up a part of most predators' diets. 

Predators are usually not very common on the landscape and are usually opportunists, taking whatever’s easiest to catch and kill. Most have their eyes aimed forward, giving them binocular vision like ours. Binocular vision enables them to accurately gauge the distance to their prey.

And most predators are also quite intelligent compared to prey species.

Prey species, on the other hand, usually have their eyes toward the side of their head which gives them a wider field of view so they can see danger approaching.

As a rough (very rough) rule of thumb there are 100 individuals of any prey species to every individual predator – any fewer and the predator will run out of food. In general, prey abundance controls the predator population, not the other way ‘round as many people mistakenly believe.

If you’ve often visited In Forest and Field you may have gotten the impression that I tend to favor predators - you'd be correct. Most of my favorite wild critters are predators: black-capped chickadees, common ravens, eastern coyotes, short-eared owls, bobcats, the list goes on but those species are at the top of the list.

Weeks 5 and 6 at Home

It’s now been eight weeks since I came home from the hospital after low sodium caused me to collapse and hit my head on a piece of furniture and a hard floor. That produced a traumatic brain injury and a brain bleed; and somewhere along the line a bacteria that normally inhabits our skin infected my bloodstream.

Such is my tale of woe, but I’m much better now – the infection is gone, the pain and stiffness in my neck is much improved and the blood around my brain is mostly resorbed. I can walk fairly well, H had driven me to have coffee with friends and out to the lake and I'd been taking photos around the house.

Here they are, some of the most interesting photographs taken during the third two week period I’ve spent at home, all taken within 50 feet of the house –

As summer heats up insects become more active and so this set of images has an abundance of “bugs” even though there are only two true bugs (members of the order Hemiptera) in the batch.

The squash vine borer is one of the clearwing moths that have transparent sections in their wings.

The spotted lanternfly is one of the true bugs (the other is the red-banded leafhopper), it’s an invasive insect that originated in southeast Asia and feeds on many crops and ornamental plants.

Dead man's fingers is a fungus, the fruiting bodies of which vaguely resemble the fingers of a dead person. 

The garter snake’s blue eyes indicate that it’s preparing to shed its old skin as a new skin has formed beneath the old. Snakes shed their skin as they grow larger as well as to repair injuries or get rid of parasites.

The chipmunk in the photo is a juvenile, newly on its own and gathering leaves to line its burrow.

Now I can drive again and get out in forest and field where I walk very carefully – the old noggin can take just so many falls.

The time spent in and around the house and yard prove, once again, that it’s not necessary to travel far and wide to take interesting photographs – they can be taken anywhere.