Perhaps having read my previous post where I dumped on February for being so dismal and rainy, it responded by producing a quite nice day today, as in, no jacket required, so take, take me home. The handful of leftover pics I had slotted to throw up here are now superseded by the ones I actually got today, and there’s just a few, so settle in.
We need to start with, the weeping willow (Salix babylonica) that I received last year is now kicking it for spring.
Unlike some of the other trees, the willow was very subtle about its early spring activity, producing only these very small buds tight against the branches like flattened thorns – until now, anyway. I don’t think the tree has quite topped four meters yet, but it’s close. And this is a wildly subjective thing anyway, since by nature it’s a floppy, droopy tree so the tallest branch may vary by half a meter or more depending on the wind and rain. I’ll try to get a size comparison soon, but right now, it’s slurping up all the rain in the boggy area we planted it within, specifically so it could – willows like wet ground.
Another tree was budding out enthusiastically too, but don’t ask me what.
I probably should know what this is, since it’s right on the edge of the pond and has been photographed before, but I really don’t know. Maaayyybe swamp maple? Regardless, it’s pretty brilliant against the clear sky.
I played around a little with what the sunlight produced, while nearby.
I noticed the yellow cow lilies (Nuphar lutea) were already springing back, visible under the surface but ready to overwhelm the pond again – that is, if the nutrias and the beavers let them, which is a big question right now, given how often those mammals are visiting. Of course, I had to back off a bit to get the bold reflections of the white trunks (another unidentified tree) in there. And then, the far more subtle part, the image is crossed horizontally with the shadows of other trees nearby, just making all sorts of interplay. That makes it fartistic, donchaknow.
The turtles had wasted no time taking advantage of the day, to be sure.
A small eastern painted turtle (Chrysemys picta picta) found one of the few dwindling basking spots in the higher water levels of the pond, while another painted and several yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta) hog Turtle Island in the background. We really do need to make a few more basking spots, perhaps some kind of floating platforms (though maybe not – the winds may simply lodge those someplace shady and make them worthless.) I was shooting with the long lens to avoid spooking them, and snagged a closer frame of the little guy in the foreground.
Probably a little bigger than my hand-span in size, which makes it roughly half what the adults can achieve. I think the painteds are more wary than the sliders; the other day when The Girlfriend had the kayak out, she passed extremely close to a pair of sliders on Turtle Island who didn’t move until she was within three meters, which impressed me.
The turtles are definitely struggling with the higher water levels. I mean, they don’t care about the water per se, it just eradicates more of their basking areas.
Compare this image to this post (exactly a year ago!) when nineteen of them were all using that island. We really have to create something for them…
The Canada geese (Branta canadensis) were quite active today as well, congregating in pairs and, for the most part, just hanging out on holiday.
They’re still not up to the level of trust that they had last year, curiously, and maintain a moderate distance when we’re around, but otherwise aren’t concerned. It’s a nice quiet spot for them and pretty protected, so they seem satisfied with it. They gave me a few nice framing opportunities too.
The turtles look wary here, as if ready to bail if the geese got too close, but then a little later on, I captured this image:
The two turtles are still there to the left, if you look, and not at all concerned with being overrun. A little after this however, another pair of geese swam in from The Bayou and purposefully headed up here (the northern, opposite end of the backyard portion,) getting a little territorial with the ones seen here – nothing serious, but definitely herding them away a little. Those two then settled in on the other tussock with the broken snag (I think we’re calling it Goose Island now,) and so might have been the pair that looked like they were considering nesting there. Still monitoring this whole situation.
While we’ve seen some of the wood ducks close to the nest box, we’ve yet to witness anyone checking it out, but their nesting season is a little later on, I think. No, actually, we’re right on time (this post would go a hell of a lot faster if I didn’t keep searching for past posts that related.) But I took the opportunity to do a fartsy shot as one of the Canadas passed it by.
I’d raised that nest box this winter, not getting it as high as I’d intended, but I also hadn’t realized until looking at the posts from last year that the water level is up higher than I’d thought – it appears to be a solid 25cm or more. We think we now know why, too, but that’ll wait until I can get some pics to feature.
Okay, two more. First thing I was after, stepping out today, was to see how that lone sunspot was progressing, just to compare.
More visible now, with a companion, but not where I expected it to be – I need to check and see just how the sun’s axis is aligned in relation to Earth.
[This is slightly tricky. First off, the axis of both the sun and the moon, and Venus and Jupiter and all that, appear to realign as the day or night progresses, mostly because we’re seeing them from different angles as the Earth rotates – we just think “up” when looking at them in the sky, but that’s not the same as “towards celestial North” in any way. And then the viewing latitude makes a difference too, and our own planet has an axial tilt. So where the sun’s north pole sits in this image, I have no firm idea.]
And finally, a curious find that I want to check out better, but when I went out a couple of hours ago to try and find further examples, I came up empty-handed.
No more than a centimeter in length, these little unidentified snails were very visible just under the surface of The Puddle, catching the light quite well, but at full resolution here, some odd details are revealed. I initially though that what we’re seeing on the lower portions of the shells were mere reflections of the external parts of the snails as they – possibly mated? – but that doesn’t seem to align with what’s actually visible. So I suspect we’re seeing what’s inside the shells here, the anatomy of the snail that maintains contact when extruded, because the shells are that translucent. The two frames that I have are inconclusive, so I need to capture one or two to confirm this. Thus, there may be a followup to this, but not until next month (which is now just over an hour away.)
So that’s, what, twelve more images for February? That helps bring the numbers up for a relatively slow month in the winter, and I still have those leftover pics too. Plus, the busy season looms, so things should start picking up seriously very soon. And I need to jump on various spring projects too. Getting to be that time.