The Marsh Project Week #24

Graduation is over, so it's time to get back on schedule.  It's harder to see birds because of all the foliage; I'm hearing their chatter, but it's hard to locate the actual bird. Other critters, however, are making their presence known.  The early mornings and the later afternoons seem to be the busy times; the rest of the day, it's dragonflies and a few butterflies. The dragonflies are finally out in droves but I'm not seeing as many butterflies this year as I have in the past.  When I drive into the nature preserve, the gate attendant usually warns me about the heat and I reassure him or her that I have plenty of water.  Much of the trail is shaded, which makes it slightly cooler.

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Recently I've noticed that some of the vegetation in the Marsh has been trampled on.  I had my suspicions, but they remained unconfirmed for a few weeks.

Then, as I walked down the boardwalk the other day, I found the culprit: nutria/coypu.  The first time I saw a nutria, I thought it was an American beaver, and I went home all excited, immediately downloading my photos to my iNaturalist project.  As soon as I started looking at the photos, however,  I saw the long tail that meant that my creature was no beaver; it was a nutria. Well, darn.  I did eventually find a beaver, but it wasn't here.  The nutria don't seem skittish, but they also aren't interested in sticking around so I can stand there and watch them eat cattail roots.  When I enter my nutria observation into iNaturalist, I'm informed that this particular critter arrived in my area via anthropogenic means.

Another situation which has recently been clarified: the red bellied woodpecker evidently has a nest in a tree.  Both yesterday and today, I spied a red-bellied woodpecker delivering a meal - it looked like it was an insect of some kind- to the hole, and it perched there for a few seconds before entering the hole and disappearing from view.

Seen on the trail: Raccoons  (lots of raccoons; they are venturing out in the late afternoon hours), armadillo, red-bellied woodpecker, coypu/nutria, green tree frog, red eared slider, western ribbon snake, diamondback water snake, broad banded water snake, cottonmouth, painted bunting, indigo bunting, Carolina chickadee, little blue heron, yellow crowned night heron, great egret, snowy egret, great blue egret, lots of dragonflies (Eastern pondhawk, slaty skimmer, smoky shadowdragon, neon skimmer, red saddlebags, spot-winged glider, variegated glider, some butterflies (queen, viceroy, one funereal duskywing).