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Moon Potato posted:A cheeky little American Robin that was trying to sneak in for a close view and figure out what my deal is: Oh this is soooooooo nice. 
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Dec 2, 2015 23:21
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Captain Invictus posted:Holy poo poo, did I get a fright. Walked out into the hallway to bathroom to prep for bed, and for colossal turkeys were just hanging out on the roof, staring at me through the window at the end of the hallway. I snuck around and got a closer look and some good photos and videos, it'll be a day or two before I can upload them most likely though. There were at least a dozen fully grown turkeys as well as one albino turkey. Really pretty! Not the most majestic of creatures though, as one awkwardly tried to change perch position on the fence he was sitting on and nearly fell off. A few were ten feet up on a tree, four were sleeping on my roof, and the rest were either sleeping on the fence or digging for food. My dumb dog barking scared the ones off the roof before I could take some photos of them sleeping there, but I think this is the same flock that has lived in our neighborhood for many years. Good to see they're still around, I hadn't seen them all year and was worried they'd been wiped out. Taken this morning, literally as I'm on my way to give a lecture that included why male turkeys form teams to court females.  UCB-turkey-male-coalition on Flickr
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Dec 3, 2015 00:19
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ArcMage posted:Wild turkeys are right in there with wild hogs for animals whose turf I don't want to be on without permission. I'd feel the same way if I were so tasty and one of the go-to animals for huge holiday feasts.
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Dec 3, 2015 00:30
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Kingfishers cast pellets containing the bones and indigestible tissues of their prey, just like owls. I was waiting for this one to dive at some fish yesterday, but it just sat there for a while, barfed, then flew off when a Peregrine Falcon showed up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHgbt8EWn68 The falcon is a regular that waits by the mouth of a tidal slough for either the harriers to break up a flock of shorebirds or the shifting tides to send handfuls of birds flying one way or the other. Neither of those happened before sunset, so it tried chasing a gull while the last bits of light faded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcDvpmZ13sA
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Dec 3, 2015 05:27
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Something about the recent rain storm made the beds of clams along the shore irresistible to diving ducks. Surf Scoter:  scoter-clam by Redwood Planet, on Flickr Greater Scaup:  scaup-clam by Redwood Planet, on Flickr Bufflehead:  bufflehead-rainbow by Redwood Planet, on Flickr A White-tailed Kite looking awesome while scouting for voles:  kite-head-on by Redwood Planet, on Flickr An American Bittern making a face at me:  bittern-face by Redwood Planet, on Flickr
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Dec 6, 2015 06:28
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Is that gull actually in any danger? It seems much bigger than the falcon and doesn't seem to be trying too hard to get away or fight or anything.
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Dec 6, 2015 07:06
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Also I saw this something-or-other hanging out at the pool the other day (Eastern Ontario)
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Dec 6, 2015 07:08
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Asiina posted:Is that gull actually in any danger? It seems much bigger than the falcon and doesn't seem to be trying too hard to get away or fight or anything.
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Dec 6, 2015 07:09
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Moon Potato posted:A White-tailed Kite looking awesome while scouting for voles:  i want this on a shirt
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Dec 6, 2015 13:31
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TURKEY TIIIIIIME    ALBINO TURKEYYYY   Gonna wait on the videos until at least I get my new computer because it will take literal days to convert them on my current one Asiina posted:Also I saw this something-or-other hanging out at the pool the other day (Eastern Ontario)
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Dec 6, 2015 13:54
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Why is there a toy landfill in your backyard?
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Dec 6, 2015 13:56
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That was the play yard for my mom's old daycare. I've been in the process of digging it out so I can donate the old toys from pretty much the worst poo poo ever that will ruin your life, Oriental Bittersweet, the vines grew into and through the toys making it near impossible to remove them, but I've been slowly cutting them out. Oriental Bittersweet is basically second only to kudzu; an invasive plant that grows so insanely fast and engulfs absolutely everything in thick vines. If it wasn't fall and all the leaves were on them still, you wouldn't have been able to even see the toys despite my efforts to extract them. The entire play yard was completely covered in only two years time. It has also strangled a bunch of the trees on our property line to death, it will literally squeeze them to death like the photo below. Pray you never get this poo poo:   This is what the root systems look like for one plant. They are basically impossible to remove.  I spent the entire spring and summer purging them, and I've barely made a dent. Literal tons of vines and leaves and I've only cleaned off a dozen trees and a small section of the property. There's an acre-sized block of impenetrable forest in the middle of the woods behind our house that's so thick with vines you literally can't get through it. It is a nightmare plant. And the lovely orange hut in the background, well, I want to tear it down, but apparently if we do, we will lose a good chunk of our property(like 10 feet from the current edge of it along an entire side), which we only own because that derelict thing is there. Land ownership laws are super weird, especially grandfather clauses.
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Dec 6, 2015 14:09
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Moon Potato posted:Bufflehead: Those colors  Do they crunch clams open or swallow them intact?
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Dec 6, 2015 16:51
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Moon Potato posted:An American Bittern making a face at me: This bird has officially replaced the american woodcock to become my new favorite bird. 
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Dec 6, 2015 19:55
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the yeti posted:Those colors vaguely posted:
Arus posted:This bird has officially replaced the american woodcock to become my new favorite bird. Captain Invictus posted:Oriental bittersweet stuff. Moon Potato fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Dec 6, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 20:49
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It sprung from people buying wreaths made of the vines and berries and then throwing them in the woods when they were done with them. I am not kidding when I say "nightmare plant", I have torn up thousands of feet of the poo poo in the last two years. I want to eventually set up a no man's land between the property and the forest so it's easier to keep that poo poo from invading my yard. It's difficult though because the vines can travel underground multiple meters, I pulled one root up that extended from the edge of the yard, underground 15 feet, and then crawled up a tree separated in the yard. Kudzu is still way worse but OB can spread super easily die to birds loving the berries that spread seeds. Anyways, yeah. Bittersweet sucks and it's partially why I'm replacing the fencing in the back yard too, because it intertwines in the pickets and tears them apart if there's any spacing. The tarps are down to starve those areas over the winter since the bittersweet had poison ivy intertwined with it, and gently caress pulling that up myself. The turkeys seemed to like the new fence too, they were all roosting on it earlier. 
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Dec 6, 2015 21:12
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So they're basically the plant equivalent of common starlings?
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Dec 6, 2015 21:38
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Mak0rz posted:So they're basically the plant equivalent of common starlings? Kudzu here in Alabama covers about 90% of the northern portions of the state, in my experience. They end up killing trees by smothering them completely.
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Dec 6, 2015 22:21
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GreyPowerVan posted:Kudzu here in Alabama covers about 90% of the northern portions of the state, in my experience. They end up killing trees by smothering them completely. At least Kudzu makes a half decent salad...
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Dec 6, 2015 22:23
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I don't know how well it keeps up in a wet environment, but if it doesn't rot really fast, you might be able to cut vines if they're decent size/shape and sell them to people for terrariums. The picture where it's strangling that tree is a bit too big, but a little smaller than that and it would go great for a dart frog/gecko terrarium.
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Dec 6, 2015 22:52
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Kilo147 posted:At least Kudzu makes a half decent salad... Dis poo poo can be eaten? Introduce it to the pacific Northwest and create a new super food. Make a million + 1 dollars!
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Dec 6, 2015 23:05
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Hah, OB has oily leaves and poisonous berries. Pretty much anti-salad material.OneTwentySix posted:I don't know how well it keeps up in a wet environment, but if it doesn't rot really fast, you might be able to cut vines if they're decent size/shape and sell them to people for terrariums. The picture where it's strangling that tree is a bit too big, but a little smaller than that and it would go great for a dart frog/gecko terrarium.
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Dec 6, 2015 23:23
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I have that Bittersweet poo poo on my land in Virginia. It's impossible to control. Poisoning it requires some sort of super strong poo poo that can kill pretty much anything, and you have to chop the vines and dunk the cut ends on the root side so they soak it up. And then you still have to rip the vines of the the trees.
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Dec 7, 2015 00:07
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OneTwentySix posted:I don't know how well it keeps up in a wet environment, but if it doesn't rot really fast, you might be able to cut vines if they're decent size/shape and sell them to people for terrariums. The picture where it's strangling that tree is a bit too big, but a little smaller than that and it would go great for a dart frog/gecko terrarium. No. Don't knowingly sell people atrociously invasive plants, for any application. Ever. That's what caused this mess in the first place! There are so, so many vines on Earth that you don't have to go about propagating awful ones. If you're already running water/ artificial lighting to an area, why not toss some passionflower seeds into a small pot? The flowers and fruits supposedly both contain chemical compounds that help  potentate the effects of marijuana and shrooms .
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Dec 9, 2015 15:05
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Moon Potato posted:It's looking like we'll get enough rain to overflow the reed beds this winter, so I'll probably be able to get some nice footage and photos of them out in the open before long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d9b3ZFJ-EU This came up last spring when I saw a bittern catch one before, but these newts are highly toxic and the only known vertebrate predator known to be resistant to tetrodotoxin is the garter snake. Nevertheless, the bittern went about its business, didn't regurgitate anything and didn't become paralyzed. I'm going to send this off to some wildlife professionals in my circles to see if anyone knows what the deal is here. It left its reeds to hunt along a small stream that had formed, pausing every once and a while to pose like a reed and make sure the coast was clear. It started acting antsy when some joggers passed by on the trail, and I though they had spooked it, but it turned out to be a rival bittern hiding in the grass. This is the only time I've gotten a clear view of a male flaring out his shoulder feathers to signal aggression. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVB-HRACRUg The bittern defending its plot of flooded grass barked like a sick dog, but I didn't have a microphone hooked up since I wasn't expecting any vocalizations at this time of year. I'm not entirely sure what this is, but it happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5VKX3jnQDs Moon Potato fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 10, 2015 21:46
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I want Moon Potato to photograph my wedding. That is, while I get married he can run around and get photos of nearby birds.
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Dec 11, 2015 03:12
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Moon Potato posted:I'm not entirely sure what this is, but it happened. Is that the same bittern that ate the rough-skinned newt? Maybe he's tripping balls a little?
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Dec 11, 2015 03:38
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The Red Queen posted:Is that the same bittern that ate the rough-skinned newt? Maybe he's tripping balls a little? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYj6ThQ8ygw I sent the bittern video around some bird groups and local wildlife people today, and everyone else is as confused as I am. That was definitely a rough-skinned newt that it ate, but nobody seems to have an explanation for why the bittern survived. I took a walk in the rain to see if there was a dead muppet-heron floating around in the wetlands, but I saw three live bitterns in roughly the same spots as the three I saw yesterday.
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Dec 11, 2015 04:05
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It almost looked like he ate something whole and it was trying to get out 
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Dec 11, 2015 07:01
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Do bitterns normally flap their tails much? Besides the neck wiggle, that one was pumping its tail like an excited cardinal.
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Dec 11, 2015 07:06
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Arus posted:It almost looked like he ate something whole and it was trying to get out Abyssal Squid posted:Do bitterns normally flap their tails much? Besides the neck wiggle, that one was pumping its tail like an excited cardinal. Also, from the 'Bird Yells Into a Cup' thread:  Edit: we have an answer about the newt conundrum. Kate Marianchild responds: quote:Problem solved. I sent the video url to Edmund Brodie, the prof who has been studying newt toxicity since 1960. He's the one who discovered the coevolutionary arms race with garter snakes and caddisfly larvae. He wrote back this morning and said, "Many/most newts from that area do not have TTX." He appreciated seeing the video. Moon Potato fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Dec 11, 2015 |
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Dec 11, 2015 08:15
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   Its an amphibeeious critter. 
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Dec 11, 2015 21:41
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Those are some dope pictures.
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Dec 12, 2015 01:55
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Moon Potato posted:
This is perfect. I was also gonna go with 
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Dec 12, 2015 20:26
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Dec 12, 2015 20:32
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EmDuck posted:
I once jumped into a lake to save a bee, I am basically a hero.
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Dec 12, 2015 23:44
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Does anyone know what this thing is? I picked some moss to see what it looked like up close and there were several tiny yellow wormlike things crawling around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPw55Yb81Sc They're very small. Here's the entire clump of moss next to a quarter to give some sense of scale. 
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Dec 13, 2015 01:55
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I'm not an expert on fungus gnat larvae, but that's what it looks like to me, and they're said to be common all over the world. They also do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5XhSSaHtgM
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Dec 13, 2015 02:45
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Man, if I could get Kudzu up here I'd plant it indoors in a pot and just eat it when it gets too big. Plus, the flowers make great tea.
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Dec 13, 2015 03:02
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And then it strangles you in your sleep
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Dec 13, 2015 03:15
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