Perhaps this is a relative of the tiny turtle I teleported two years ago in the same section of the Dutchess Rail Trail:
Such fancy patterns!
I’m pretty sure box turtles don’t grow fast enough for this to be the same one …
Category: Oddities
Who’d’a thunk it?
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Medium Turtle Teleportation: Rail Trail
Turtle Teleportation – DCRT near Lagrange Trailhead – 2020-06-19 -
Spiders Discover Radio Astronomy
A view of the middle of the Very Large Array of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory:
A view of our back yard, one foggy morning:
Sheet spider webs on lawn – 2020-06-29 Coincidence? Ha!
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Maple Samaras
Today I Learned that maple seed spinners are properly called samaras:
Triple and Quad Maple Seeds The Norway Maple near the road produced a bumper crop of triples this year, along with the first quad
spinnersamara I’ve ever seen.Looks like the odds are ever in my favor …
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Robin Nest: Fledging Day
The robin nestlings fledged fourteen days after we spotted the first eggshell on the driveway below the nest. The first one may have flown away the previous evening, leaving three increasingly restless siblings behind:
Robin Fledging Day – three nestlings They’re recognizably robins now, covered in young-bird speckle camouflage.
Feeding continued apace:
Robin Fledging Day – feeding After feeding, robin nestlings produce fecal sacs, which the parents either eat or carry away:
Robin Fledging Day – fecal sac Robins aren’t big on facial expressions, but, speaking from personal experience, anything to do with diapers isn’t the high point of a parent’s day.
And then there were none:
Robin Fledging Day – empty nest with parasites The gazillion black dots on the soffit are pinpoint-sized insects / mites / ticks infesting the nest and, presumably, the birds. The earlier pictures don’t show them, so perhaps these missed the last bird off the nest and are now regretting their life choices.
Go, birds, … gone!
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USB Wire Color Code: Grand Prize Blooper
Despite knowing the wire colors inside USB cables need not follow any particular convention, this still came as a surprise:
USB Cable – reversed red-black wires Yes, that’s a negative indicator on the meter: it reads
-5.020V.No, I didn’t swap the test probe banana plugs on the other end.
A bit of continuity testing shows the green and white data wires are also reversed, so whoever assembled the cable simply soldered the proper wire color sequence backwards onto both connectors. As long as you don’t cut the cable to reuse the connectors, it’s all good.
Memo to Self: Stop trusting, always verify!
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Monthly Image: Rt 376 Overgrowth Clearing
NYS DOT cleared the Japanese Knotweed from the shoulder along Rt 376 north of Maloney last year:
The last image in that gallery is from the end of April; you can see the weeds just starting to grow under the guide rail.
Japanese Knotweed, being basically a weed on crystal meth, becomes a lush hedge from a standing start in five weeks:
Knowing how NYS DOT’s Region 8 Dutchess South Residency’s brush trimming has(n’t) worked in previous years, this took us by surprise:
Rt 376 Marker 1095 – 2020-06-10 Because chopping Japanese Knotweed to the ground doesn’t actually discourage it, we hope they’re scheduled to return every couple of months …
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Robin Nest: Hatching An Egg A Day
The robin nesting atop the garage door spotlights keeps a careful watch over her surroundings:
Garage Robin – standing guard Based on past experience, we though a blue jay had discovered the nest when we found this in front of the garage door:
Garage Robin – plundered eggshell A day later, a quick peek when she was off the nest told a different story:
Garage Robin – 2 hatchlings As with humans, only parents can love things like that …
Another pair of robins built a more conventional nest in a small front-yard tree, although they seemed content to start brooding atop only two eggs.
We wish both families well, along with the wrens nesting in the front bird box.
Go, birds, go!
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 