The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Tag: Wildlife

Other creatures in our world

  • Craftsman Hedge Trimmer: Laying on of Hands Repair

    Craftsman Hedge Trimmer: Laying on of Hands Repair

    It being the season for hacking down decorative grasses, our ancient Craftsman Hedge Trimmer woke up dead, a decade after I fixed its switch and predicted it’d be good for another decade.

    After verifying the failure isn’t in the wall outlet or the extension cord, haul it to the Basement Laboratory Repair Wing, clamp the blade in the bench vise, remove a myriad screws, and pop the top:

    Craftsman Hedge Trimmer - innards exposed
    Craftsman Hedge Trimmer – innards exposed

    I should have removed the screw in the extreme lower right corner and loosened the similar screw at the rear of the bottom plate; they’re two of the three machine screws engaging nuts embedded in the shell. Everything is greasy enough to let the nuts slide right out of the plastic and no harm was done, but that need not be so.

    After poking around a bit and finding nothing obvious, I checked the resistance across the plug: open-circuit with the switch OFF and nearly shorted with the switch ON.

    Huh.

    Put the case back together with just enough screws to prevent heartache & confusion, unclamp the blade, plug into the bench outlet, discover it works fine again, reinstall the rest of the screws, and continue the mission:

    Decorative grass bunches - early spring clearcut
    Decorative grass bunches – early spring clearcut

    We moved the Praying Mantis oothecae to nearby bushes for science!

  • Dutchess Rail Trail: Beaver Lodge & Dam

    Dutchess Rail Trail: Beaver Lodge & Dam

    A beaver family built their lodge next to the Dutchess Rail Trail:

    Beaver Lodge - DCRT N of Golds Gym - 2020-02-23
    Beaver Lodge – DCRT N of Golds Gym – 2020-02-23

    It’s just to the right of the fence post, on the far side of the pond.

    Dutchess County’s aerial survey in 2016 showed a dry-ish area west of the rail trail, with a culvert to the north:

    Beaver Lodge - DCRT N of Golds Gym - 2016 CIR image
    Beaver Lodge – DCRT N of Golds Gym – 2016 CIR image

    We went back the next day and stopped at the culvert. Their dam spans the entire near side of the pond, upstream of the ditch (just above my hand) leading to the culvert:

    Beaver Lodge and Dam - DCRT N of Golds Gym - 2020-02-25
    Beaver Lodge and Dam – DCRT N of Golds Gym – 2020-02-25

    The helmet camera pictures look west from the rail trail, with the lodge in the northernmost open area. The wide-angle camera lens exaggerates the distance, but the lodge is only about 35 feet from the fence.

    A stand of birch trees near the lodge now looks like a combination buffet and construction yard. When beavers discover ferrocement, their structures will become much more obvious.

    Go, beavers, go!

  • Praying Mantis Ootheca

    Several of this year’s praying mantises set up shop in the decorative grasses bracketing the front door:

    Praying Mantis - brown wing covers - in grass
    Praying Mantis – brown wing covers – in grass

    We found their egg masses, formally called ootheca, attached to the stems in mid-October:

    Praying Mantis egg mass A
    Praying Mantis egg mass A

    They feel like rigid urethane foam and seem eminently protective:

    Praying Mantis egg mass B
    Praying Mantis egg mass B

    We’ll cut around the masses when it’s time to clear out the dead grass next spring. I was tempted to bring one inside, but dealing with a gazillion tiny mantises in a few months would be daunting.

  • Monthly Image: Spider vs. Marmorated Stink Bug

    Fortunately, Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs haven’t been as catastrophic as predicted when they arrived a few years ago, perhaps because native critters have learned to deal with them:

    Spider vs. Marmorated Stink Bug
    Spider vs. Marmorated Stink Bug

    Looks like a week’s worth of spider chow!

  • Chipmunk Fatality

    This chipmunk didn’t die in bed, either:

    Chipmunk - tail segment - side
    Chipmunk – tail segment – side

    Similar to the previous example, one of the hawks surely dismantled the tail to get at the good parts, although we haven’t seen any gibbage.

    Looking into the end, you can see where the next segment would attach:

    Chipmunk - tail segment - end
    Chipmunk – tail segment – end

    Somewhere nearby, there’s a recently vacated nest with a pantry full of carefully chosen seeds and nuts, just waiting for another critter to move in …

  • Vole Fatality

    Voles apparently live only a few months, so this one may have run out of gas while crossing the driveway:

    Vole - dead on driveway
    Vole – dead on driveway

    Or it just caught a heart attack?

    It definitely wasn’t playing possum; nobody can lie still with ants up their nose.

    It had vanished when we returned from our afternoon ride, so somebody further up the food chain also noticed it. As my buddy dBm puts it, “In Nature, nothing goes to waste.”

  • Praying Mantis vs. Bumblebee

    The Butterfly Bush outside the living room continues to attract flying insects, but, with the arrival of this year’s bumper crop of Praying Mantises, it has become something of a killing field.

    If I hadn’t seen this, I wouldn’t have believed it:

    Mantis vs Bumblebee - grapple
    Mantis vs Bumblebee – grapple

    Perhaps grabbing the bumblebee at the tip of the abdomen neutralizes the sting, but I only saw the flash of motion, not the actual capture.

    The mantis changed her (?) grip several times while removing various accessories:

    Mantis vs Bumblebee - disassembly
    Mantis vs Bumblebee – disassembly

    Although a bee’s leg may not seem edible, she chewed through them like Pocky.

    Minus most of the bits and pieces, serious eating commenced:

    Mantis vs Bumblebee - lunch
    Mantis vs Bumblebee – lunch

    Having watched several insects go through this process, the mantis proceeds from the head downward, eventually squeezing the abdomen like a tube of toothpaste.

    A mantis can eat a bumblebee in about twenty minutes, from capture to discarding the empty husk. After a few minutes of body maintenance, ranging from leg cleaning to eye scraping, she begins waiting for the next meal to arrive …