Par-tay!

Zebra swallowtails on bear scat.

Otter Fare

Some otter has been eating well as evidenced by this well rotted scat. We found several similar piles around the edges of an old borrow pit down the road from the house. I can't tell you what kind of fish the otter's been eating, only that its been eating lots!

Old Millpond

 

Across the road and just through the woods, there is an old millpond. Yesterday's warmer temperatures and rainfall melted the ice that had covered the surface following Friday and Saturday's very cold temps. Today there were mallards, black ducks, and wood ducks swimming there. In the warmer months it's a good place to find a variety of snakes and turtles, including spotted turtles. It's always a good place to find an assortment of predators -- or at least evidence of them...

 

This owl pellet was along the shore line of the old pond. Rodent teeth, long bones, and bird beaks give evidence of some of the small animals that live around the pond. Nearby there were a couple of bobcat scats containing hair and a few larger bones, most likely rabbit.

 

I like knowing that across the road and just through the woods there is an old millpond...

Calling Card

 

We had some visitors to the yard...and they left their calling cards! A tidy little pile of bobwhite (quail) droppings - the birds tend to roost in a sort of circle with their heads pointing out and their tails pointing toward the center. As a result, you end up with a cute little collection of droppings.

Denizens of the City

We spent last weekend at my sister-in-law's house. (She is mom to the infamous Ratdog.) SIL lives in the city of Charlotte in the piedmont section of the state. As cities go, Charlotte is a pretty one - at least in places :) It tends to be a city with lots of trees and many of those trees are oaks of various species. The picture below is a shot of the willow oak in SIL's front yard. Whenever we visit we always check out what's hanging out in or around the tree. This trip yielded various insects, a female hummingbird, the ever-present mockingbird, a robin, and oodles of squirrels.

Here's a little evidence of the eastern gray squirrels that romp among the branches. Squirrel scat!

By the way, the eastern gray squirrel is the state mammal of North Carolina. If you were a fourth grader here you'd be expected to know that.

This Poo's For You

Seems I'm the go-to girl for pictures of bear scat. Who knew? So, for the folks who have been searching for pictures of bear scat lately, here's some fresh poo for you. I stuck my foot in the pictures for scale. My foot is not dainty...I wear a women's size 10 - that's equivalent to a men's 8 for those of you with a broken chromosome ;) Please note that the second, uh, pile, is positively purple. Black bears do love blackberries...

The Evil Eye

Another, less desirable, critter was on the pond Sunday. The beastie giving you the evil eye in the photo above is a nutria or coypu, Myocastor coypus. These are not native to our area and they compete with our native muskrats. Not an animal that I like to see when I'm out on the pond.

Here's a shot of nutria scat. In Mammals of the Eastern United States, by John O. Whitaker and William J. Hamilton, the droppings are described as "...oblong, about 5 cm (2 inches) long, and finely grooved longitudinally."

How Pretty

Perhaps I should start a bear scat of the month feature this year...
Seriously, it really was pretty -- full of greenbrier (Smilax sp.)berries. Love those bright red seeds and the dark blue berry skins.

Plus, there is an added appeal to piles of scat like this. In another section of the swamp I found where a bear had planted an accidental garden, all little greenbrier plants...

Sometimes you find beautyberry thickets, dense stands of pawpaw, a wild tangle of supplejack vines or loads of baby swamp gums. All courtesy of some intrepid pooping bear :)

Tower of Poo

Bear scat has character, there's no doubt about it. Last week I found eight piles of scat within about a tenth of a mile along one of our roads. This one was my favorite though. It was studded here and there with purple beauty berries, white gum berry seeds and the occasional persimmon seed. It rose an impressive 6 inches tall - a veritable tower of poo.

Not So Pretty Poo

Someone has been searching for an image of opossum scat. Well, here you go. 'Possum scat comes in quite a few variations - depends on what the little critter's been eating. But, no matter what it's been eating, 'possum scat isn't pretty ;)

As for the fly - no clue as to genus/species. I haven't had time to look it up.

(Treebeard is currently recouperating from outpatient surgery. I am staying home from work to keep him out of trouble and to see that he mends in a timely fashion. So far, so good. He seems to be behaving himself. We will see how things progress as the week goes on...)

Hitchin'

First, there was the evidence: treefrog scat clinging to the side of my truck, just below the bed well on the side rail. Then the discovery:

This sneaky little green treefrog has made itself quite at home in my truck - hiding out in places too tight for me to reach into. By my count, this hitch hiking froggy has logged at least 256 miles. I managed to catch him once and put out on the side of the house. He made his way back into my truck. If I catch him again, I'll put him out on the front porch.