Gray Fox are seen here at the Museum throughout the year. I sometimes see their tracks in the mud on service roads and there is a den in the woods near the Dinosaur Trail. The frequency of sightings usually picks up in mid-winter. Over the past few weeks there have been numerous sightings by myself, Museum [...] Read more...
I’ve been working on a couple of new entries to the blog and had hoped to have them posted by now. The recent snow which came to town on January 30 closed the Museum for a few days and I haven’t had the time to complete my work. I did, however, manage to get a few [...] Read more...
Although the temperatures for the day were still below normal for this time of year, January 13 did bring with it a slight break in the cold we’ve been experiencing lately. I was able to shed one layer of clothes for the day. Further proof of a definite warm-up was evidenced by a Groundhog seen browsing [...] Read more...
Of the mammals that reside on the Museum property, two have been conspicuously preparing for the oncoming winter season. They are both members of the same family (Sciuridae) but each has a different life style (one is a tree squirrel, the other a ground squirrel) and they have different strategies of how to cope with the cold. Gray [...] Read more...
Groundhogs are being seen throughout the outdoor exhibits, especially at the Bird Feeder Exhibit in Catch the Wind. Another less frequently encountered mammal on the Explore the Wild/Catch the Windloop has been seen at the feeders as well, a Gray Fox. On August 28th one was seen directly below the feeders with one eye on the seed [...] Read more...
A family group of Raccoons was observed making the rounds in the Wetlands on the 29th of the month. Each day, raccoon tracks can be seen in the increasingly wide, muddy shoreline which encircles the Wetlands. Often, tracks can be seen crossing the pavement where the raccoons had, the night before, left the water and [...] Read more...
I discovered a Shorttail Shrew on the path just around the bend from the Lemur House. The shrew was DOR (Dead on Road). This is the second time one of these little shrews was found at this location, although the last was in 2008, nearly one year ago (see Shorttail Shrew, Explore the Wild Journal, [...] Read more...
Finally, a Gray Fox! On May 15, as I was walking down the path from Catch the Wind towards the Wetlands, a beautiful Gray Fox came down out of the brush from the direction of the Lemur House, trotted across the pavement and up into the woods on the other side of the path. I [...] Read more...
Buds and Birds
Some pre-spring happenings at the Museum… Get outdoors and have a look around for yourself, and let me know what you see! Read more...