Discoveries Around the Yard

Camouflaged frog.

I am between projects at the moment.  I just completed my folk art lamb soft sculpture and am taking a bit of a breather before I jump into a new project.  To avoid burnout, I am taking a week or two off in order to unwind before jumping into something else.  While I am relaxing, I am experimenting with a few craft products just to see what happens when I do this or that.  I will post some more on that next blog post.  For today, I thought I would post some photos of our backyard's fauna.  It is surprising what you will find when you get outside and see what there is to see.

Lizard egg.

Finding interesting things is a matter of paying attention; looking a little closer.  Usually we are in such a hurry that we go right by things without even noticing them as we hurry on to our next task.  I find that so much of our time is spent on what we are doing next that we have lost not only situational awareness but our actual connection to the world around us.  By slowing down, and making a conscious effort to be aware of what is actually going around us, we can reconnect with being amazed by the diversity of our bio-system and our world.

Eggs are at left and center.  More were covered in the loam.

My husband spied this toad sitting on the trim of our shed.  Usually toads are shades of cream and brown in a camouflage pattern.  This one had chosen to change his color to match the trim on the shed.  Fortunately, my husband took the time to ask me to come out and see this unusual sight. I did not know that toads could change color.  I did not really know that they could climb either.  The piece of trim the toad was on was several feet off the ground.  I went online to look at photos of tree frogs, and this definitely looked more like a toad than a tree frog.  Anyway, I am grateful that my husband would take the time to pull me away from a task to show me something interesting.  It was worth it to take a moment to reconnect with the environment.

Young Eastern Cottontail

While cleaning up the around an old stump that is coming apart, my husband found another item of interest in the yard.  As he approached an old pine stump to pick up the loose bits around it he noticed a lizard run from the stump.  When he started to clean up around the stump, he came across a number of small eggs, presumably the lizard's clutch.  He brought one in to show me.  I took a photo of it, then he placed it back in the powdery wood from the disintegrating stump.  There were numerous eggs there.  We decided that cleaning up the stump could wait for a while in order to allow the lizard eggs to hatch.  We do not know if the lizard attends its eggs.  But, since it ran off it and caught my husband's attention, we think it might be keeping its eye on the eggs.  The question was interesting enough that I went online to look it up, but the answer was not definitive.  Many reptiles lay their eggs and abandon them, but some make nests and protect their eggs and young.  Without more information on what type of lizard it was, we cannot tell.

This year we have a couple of baby bunnies in the yard.  Well, they were babies earlier.    They are juveniles now.  When they were small they would jump under the day lilies if they heard us come out the door.  We do not approach them, and to a certain extent they have become used to our comings and goings.  Many times they will not hide if we come out the door.

I had noticed early in the spring that the mother rabbit frequently would graze out at the back of the property with a groundhog.  They seemed like companion animals.  When I went online to look up information on cottontail rabbits, I found that they did not make burrows, but made a shallow net in a depression to birth their young.  The article also said that cottontails would frequently shelter in a ground hog burrow in bad weather.  So I guess they are in some sort of symbiotic relationship.  The ground hog may benefit from the rabbits hearing to avoid predators, and the rabbit benefits from shelter in a storm.  This is information that I would not have known if I had not taken time to watch what was going on in the backyard and taken the time to go online to read about it.

There was one other thing of interest that I saw in the yard this week.  Actually, this was on the front porch.  I came out the door and saw a large insect.  The insect was about an inch and a half long. It was bright red with a black thorax with one black stripe across its back and abdomen.  (I am presuming the band went all the way around the abdomen.  It went around as far as I could see.)  Sadly, I did not have a camera with me, so I decided to observe the insect rather than run for a camera.  I took one look at it and decided that given its coloring that it might be lethal.  However, I did not try to kill it.  It was outside, so it was in its own environment.

The insect was definitely aware of me.  As soon as it saw me, it ran off the porch, down the steps, and into the grass.  It was having trouble getting off the concrete and into the grass and it took several attempts before it was able to get into the grass and run away.  I was not trying to chase it or swat it and I think it might have understood because its first attempts were frantic, but it slowed down once it did not feel in immediate danger.

After the insect disappeared into the grass, I went online to look it up.  It was called a cow killer ant.  The name is a misnomer.  First off, it is not an ant, it is a wasp.  The females are wingless and can sting multiple times.  The males are smaller and have wings.  Secondly, while the sting is toxic and painful, it is not likely to kill someone unless they are allergic to bee venom.  The name derives from some old description that the sting is so strong that it could kill a cow.  It generally won't kill you, but the pain is said to be so strong that anyone stung will be screaming.    Speaking of screaming, the cow killer and makes noises if it is frightened or perhaps as a warning if you get to close.  I am posting a link to photos of the insect since I don't have my own photos.https://www.google.com/search?q=cow+killer+ant+lancaster&tbm=isch&imgil=7-PadRbQDc4viM%253A%253BIXsJ7sxv8MAVOM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fkotunews.weebly.com%25252Fmain%25252Fvelvet-ant-or-cow-killer-ant&source=iu&pf=m&fir=7-PadRbQDc4viM%253A%252CIXsJ7sxv8MAVOM%252C_&usg=__6LCoD7iNcoWLYsQHQgq-CDIY94w%3D&biw=1366&bih=635&ved=0ahUKEwii1YGS1frNAhXTMx4KHetJDTwQyjcIMQ&ei=R5CLV-KVBNPneOuTteAD#imgrc=7-PadRbQDc4viM%3A

I realize now that I had actually seen males of the species a few years ago.  I had meant to look them up then, but was busy and eventually forgot about them.  We had taken down a hemlock on the property and I saw a few of them moving around on our back deck.  They looked like bumble bees except that they were red and black.  So if you see anything that looks like these creatures, you probably don't want to touch them or step on them. 

The cow killer lives pretty much everywhere.  According to Wikipedia, there are about four hundred species in North America, so there may be an ant somewhere near you.  

Anyway, those were some interesting things in the back yard.  Next blog post I will show some more outcomes of my playing around.  Pretty soon I will be getting back to work on some serious art.