Fuzzy Boys

Aside from the fawns the ever-vigalent trail camers have been capturing pictures of the fellas sporting their velvety antlers.

Lengthening of the days means more testosterone which means antler growth.

 click on image to enlarge

More Evidence of Aliens

Further evidence of the presence of aliens.

When they engage their force field the landscape becomes eerily creepy...

click on the spooky image to enlarge

Little Ones

Been getting some pictures lately of this year's crop of fawns.

The one in the second photo is huge compared to the first.  Maybe as much as a month or more apart in birthdays...

  clcik on images to enlarge

Wile E. Coyote

The location of this trail camera has produced some great wildlife photos considering there's nothing there in particular to entice the critters.

No bait, no scent, no nuth'n.

Check this out...

 click on Mr. Coyote to enlarge

Play Ball!

Door County Baseball League.

Spent part of the afternoon watching the Kolberg Braves defeat the Egg Harbor Indians - 1 to 0.

 click on images to enlarge

Admission for two adults - $8.  Two beers, a brat and a burger - $12.  Total out-of-pocket - $20.

A great dollar value.

Flash of Color

Out with the Labs for a run this morning to make the trail camera circuit.  Swapped-out the SD cards, checked for battery life and repositioned a couple of the cams for better angles but mostly because the grasses are getting so tall the field of view is obstructed.

On the return leg we were checking the cam at a new location on the north side of the creek.  I was lamenting the fact that the dogs were frolicking in a huge patch of poison ivy.  Note to self:  shampoo the pooches later.

Then...a flash of color caught my eye.  A huge patch of Blue Flag Iris (wild iris) growing in the shady damp.

click on image to enlarge

Iris versicolor, sometimes called the Northern Iris, grows in clumps or patches along bodies of water.  Iris is from the Greek word for rainbow.  Appropriate considering the wide variation of colors that wild iris portrays.

Meet the Cranes

With the burnt grassland greening-up real nicely and all of the trees leafing out we haven't had an actual real time visual sighting of the crane family for weeks.

The ever-vigilant trail camera has been capturing some sporadic photos of the cranes although they have been few and far between.  They all included one little one.  

Aside from accepting the reality that the cranes were raising only one offspring we were concerned that the entire family had vamoosed.  Until yesterday.

The dogs and I fetched the memory cards from the cameras on Friday and performed a battery replacement on a couple of them.  (They were dead).  I uploaded the pictures to the laptop last evening and...voila!

The cranes are still here.  At least as of five days ago.  The two colts are putting on some size too...

click on image to enlarge

Deer Here

A whole bunch of photos of the resident deer herd. From all four camera locations.

In consecutive order...

 

Snap!

The Frau took these picture the other day of a humongous female snapping turtle.  A common snapping turtle.

 click on the images to enlarge

Our best guess is that this is a female because they've been around this time of year before to lay eggs in the leafy litter around the shop building, the apple trees or the ancient lilacs.  No respectable snapper would have anything else to do with the joint this time of year. 
Snappers will travel great distances to lay their eggs.

Predictably, there will be silver dollar-sized turtles before too long running all over the place.

Chelydra serpentina.  These reptiles are omnivores, consuming invertebrates, small birds and animals, snakes, other turtles and anything else they can scavenge.   They are know for their belligerent attitude too.  

I wouldn't grab a snapper for anything.  And what was creepy about this snapper was that it had moss growing on top of its shell.  Gross.

Go figure...

Lab in Motion

Nothing more pleasing to the eye than the gracefulness of a Labrador retriever in motion.

 click on Girlfriend to enlarge

Velvet Buck

Testosterone levels are rising and this buck is growing a new set of antlers.

  click on image to enlarge


It will be interesting to see if his travel take him this way regularly.  That way we can monitor the antler growth remotely.
 

Hen

Hen turkey that is.

 click on bird to enlarge

Nice picture taken with a trail camera in a new location.

More About the Aliens

A week ago I mentioned that aliens had arrived again to visit The Platz.  As evidence of this I posted a picture taken by one of the trail cameras that showed the arrival of the aliens by means of their transporter technology.  These  transporters convert the aliens an energy pattern.  Then they "beam" it to a target, where it is reconverted into matter.  You've probably seen this on Star Trek.

They're still at it...

click on the creepy alien image to enlarge

Meet The Cranes

A week ago I mentioned that a family of cranes had taken-up residence here.

Here is a picture of a parent and one of the little ones.

 click on image to enlarge

 Baby Sandhill cranes are called colts because of their long, strong, well-developed legs.

Racoonasaurus

This masked marauder has been showing-up on this camera rather regularly.

Predator of my valued ground-nesting and nest box dwelling birds I shall have to keep my eye out for him.