Diario de tworiversnwr

After Shipman Elementary School finished their field trip yesterday, we walked around cleaning up and checked on a few of the bird nests we have. Our wood ducks are moving along, one of our nests hatched while another has laid just about a full clutch. Meanwhile, our silly killdeer who like to nest along the rocky side of the driveway have hatched out.

For killdeer, their small speckled eggs closely resemble gravel. Shorebirds often nest on the ground making their camouflage sensible and evolutionary sound 100 or so years ago. Since we started building roads and constructing gravel driveways and walkways, their nesting habits seem to make less sense. I guess we're quiet enough out here in Brussels that our killdeer mom and pop weren't worried.

This red-eared slider was found sunning itself on one of the first warm days this year. Reptiles are considered to be cold blooded or ectothermic meaning their body temperature is regulated by the temperatures around them. One of the benefits of being ectothermic or cold blooded is that it takes less energy to maintain your body heat, you simply move to somewhere warmer or burrow. 300 million years ago when life first crawled onto land and amphibians and reptiles began to evolve there were no warm blooded or endothermic critters (like us and other mammals). Our turtle and frog friends see no reason to change now!

On Saturday March 31st, I almost thought April Fool's came a day early as my companion said she spotted 3 bald eagles in a tree across a field. We hopped out of our car and walked down the refuge trail to get a closer look. Sure enough there were three no wait four! Bald eagles resting in a tree. Two matures and two juvenile eagles kept sharp eyes in the rainy weather. If you go through some of the pictures you'll notice some of their feathers are a little ruffled from the rain. I like to think that after their eggs hatched these past few weeks, these eagles still made time to get together and gossip about the eagles that only winter here. Hopefully these two juveniles will stick around a little while longer too!