reptiles
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Tentative IDs
Wildness forensics continues: we found this skull in a kettle pond on the top of Highland Park. I think it’s raccoon: note those molars and check out this PDF to see what you think. On Cypress Ave, we found another mammal, this time definitely a raccoon, that was road kill. In nearby Machpelah Cemetery, where…
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Painted Turtle
The seasons turn. The years go ’round. Last March, I photographed a painted turtle, Chrysemys picta, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Japanese Pond. It was surrounded by numerous eastern red-eared sliders. This past Saturday, I found the same — or, hopefully, another? — painted turtle in the same area of the Pond (where the rocks…
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Virgin Gorda Reptiles
Virgin Gorda’s dry landscape was full of lizards, which was reason for rejoicing. (I haven’t seen so many since I lived north of Naples, Italy, in the early 1970s. I’ve yet to spot one of NYC’s somewhat famous Italian wall lizards, known to live in the Bronx and to be kestrel food.) Most were 3-5…
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Snake!
“There are m$%#er-f@!*ing snakes on this outwash plain?” Why, yes, there are. Contrary to urban myth, St. Patrick did not chase them all from the city back in the day. I found this one at Fort Tilden a couple of mosquito-ridden summers ago. Jamaica Bay and Staten Island have been other places I’ve seen snakes…
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Frogs
Some frogs from a recent trip to the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border: In a swimming pool. The clarity of the water allowed us to watch this green frog swim: it’s all in the meaty back legs, the forelimbs streamlined against the body. Two more green frogs in a small man-made pond. Up to five frogs have…
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Field Notes: Snapping Turtle
I was looking at the new lily pads in the Lullwater in Prospect Park when: Ol’ Snap appeared. Not the kind of turtle to run when you approach. Chelydra serpentina has a fearsome reputation, but that’s probably just bad PR. (Duckling-centric PR, since they are in legend supposed to decimate baby ducks.) Still, you don’t…
Backyard and Beyond 