Mystery Photo
Do you recognize the spotted jelly-like blob on the lower right leaf of this Turtlehead (Chelone glabra) plant? If so (or even if you want to make a wild guess), go to the Naturally Curious blog (www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com), scroll down and click on “Comments” to submit your entry. Look for the answer in the next Naturally Curious post. (Hint: Turtlehead likes its feet damp.)
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Mystery Photo: Young Eastern Black Walnuts
Congratulations to “Deb” – the first person to correctly identify the subject of the most recent Mystery Photo as young Eastern Black Walnuts!
Eastern Black Walnuts (Juglans nigra) produce abundant tiny male flowers on long, dangling, finger-like catkins. Female flowers, located on the same tree as male flowers, are fewer in number and are slightly larger. Being wind-pollinated, Black Walnut produces female flowers with stigmas (the top-most, pollen-receiving structures) which have a large surface area designed to catch pollen drifting in the wind. (These are the “rabbit ears.”) The stigmas often persist while the fruit matures — they are barely visible on the left walnut in photo.
By September, the walnuts will have matured. They then fall to the ground where their outer husk slowly decays. The fruits are well-known for leaching chemicals into the soil that inhibit the growth of other plants, an interaction known as “allelopathy” (literally meaning “making your neighbor sick”).
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Mystery Photo
Identify these mystery objects with ¼-inch “rabbit ears” by going to the Naturally Curious blog site (www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com) and clicking on “Comments” at the bottom of this post. Answer will be posted on Friday, July 6th.
Tom Turkeys Strutting Their Stuff
Congratulations to Penny Jessop, who submitted the first correct Mystery Photo answer!
In the Northeast, male Wild Turkeys begin gobbling and strutting in late February. Their courtship ritual usually starts before females are receptive, and continues into late March and early April, when mating typically takes place.
At this time of year males are bedecked with blue wattles (flap of skin on throat) and snoods (fleshy piece of skin that hangs over beak), and bright red major caruncles (bulbous, fleshy growths at the bottom of the turkey’s throat). Displaying these adornments while slowly gliding around a female, the male fans his tail, lowers his wings with the primaries dragging on the ground/snow (these primary wing feathers are responsible for the parallel lines either side of the trail of tracks), elevates the feathers on his back and throws his head backward the female. If she is receptive, she lowers herself and crouches on the ground, signaling to the male that he may mount her.
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Mystery Photo
This is one of my favorite late winter/early spring animal signs. So much so that readers who have been following Naturally Curious for four or more years may well recollect who made this two-foot-wide trail of tracks in the woods. To respond, please go to my blog (www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com) and click on “Comments.”
On another note, my apologies for the lack of a post Monday. Computer malfunction prevented me from posting.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to https://naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Mystery Photo
Recently at least three creatures found food and/or shelter in my woodshed. Can you identify any of the three from the signs they left behind? Please enter responses by clicking on “Comments” at the bottom of this post on my blog at www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com. (Hint: this photo was taken before chipmunks emerged)
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Fisher Dines On Two Flying Squirrels
Although Coyote tracks led me to this kill site, the Coyote was only inspecting the remains of two Flying Squirrels. Fisher tracks and scat confirmed that it was the predator.
Deciphering the story in the snow was possible through a familiarity with certain details of both the predator and prey. A Flying Squirrel’s tail is distinctively flattened, and the fur on it is very light and silky. There is no mistaking it for any other animal’s. (This would be difficult to discern from a photograph!) One entire squirrel’s tail was in a depression, where the squirrel had unsuccessfully sought shelter in a tunnel it had started to dig. The second tail had been ripped into bits and pieces. The Fisher claimed its kill and/or territory by depositing its characteristically small, twisted, pointed scat at the kill site. (Not an uncommon practice of many predators.) Always fun to be able to piece together some of the drama that occurs nightly in our woods and fields.
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