Seriously, don’t move; it’s a pain in the ass, takes forever, and results in far too many aches and pains. We’ve still got far too much to go, and Walkabout Studios is going to take a while to be in proper shape. So I haven’t much time to devote to posting, but I’ll slip in here and there as I have a few moments. And in like vein, I snag the occasional image here and there – strictly local, and more of the same ol’ stuff, but it’s not stacks of boxes, so your scenery is overall better than mine.
The new place has three elephant ear plants, but as yet I have not been able to determine the exact species (there are a lot of choices.) That, however, is not our present focus – another Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) is, as I came face-to-face with one while stooping down to photograph the bloom of the elephant ear.
There were a few days when we had rain four or five times a day, and this was early morning after one of those – the anole was a bit sluggish and didn’t seem too concerned with my presence, allowing me to stoop even further for a different perspective.
It would have been nicer had it been a brighter morning, but ya work with what ya get – and have time to pursue.
My computer at present is set up at the edge of the living room, which gives me a view through the foyer and out the front door if it’s open, and the other day I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye (how does a round thing have corners?) I looked up and watched a second deer pause directly on the front walk not ten meters away, then move on slowly. This was right at noon so a bit curious, but I called The Girlfriend over and we crept out the door to find a trio of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) – two fawns and a doe – right at the edge of the lawn, looking back at us cautiously. Two of them stayed in sight as I got the camera out.
Our experience has been that the deer are fairly spooky around here, so this was better than expected results. They were definitely wary, but we refrained from doing anything threatening. Nonetheless, the fawn gave a few warning flips of its tail as it moved forward.
The doe – I’m presuming the mama – wasn’t responding in kind so the fawn calmed down slightly, though they all decided that moving on was probably better and slowly vanished into the undergrowth. One of the fawns, however, paused to look back and I snagged a frame to show how well they disappear, even when they’re only twenty meters away.
It’s right there in the center – look for the dark triangle of the tail – but yes, they know how to use shadows to their advantage.
The property, so far anyway, does not seem to host as many green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus) as the old place, but it’s also late in the season so I won’t consider this definitive. We have seen three so far I think, including one not a week out of tadpole stage. A slightly larger one perched on the window this evening, and I went out to snag a few frames.
Now, in doing so, I inadvertently introduced an anole into the house, since I think it was snoozing on the edge of the door, and this required a little scrambling to get it back out before any of the cats realized it. After this was accomplished, the frog had moved from the glass onto the downspout, so a little coaxing convinced it to not face away from me and provide a brief action pose. Several minutes later though, I passed the same window and the frog had resumed its position in almost the exact same spot – the light was shining through brightly so likely the frog was waiting for insects attracted by that.
Overall length was roughly 30mm, so far from an adult, and it looked more like a leaf adhering to the glass from a short distance off. It’s still there as I type this, nearly two hours later, but it’s moved up and over a little bit, hopefully snagging some food.
More will be along as I get the time. It’s going to be a while before we’re “settled.”