northeast-flora-and-fauna

On this day in late July, Duke Farms was hopping with Eastern Cottontail rabbits, and here are 3 of them. One deficiency of these pictures is that you really don't get a view of their "cotton" tails. There are probably more of them around than most of us see since they're considered to be crepuscular and nocturnal , both times we have difficulties spotting and/or photographing them. These guys were seen around 9am in the morning. They're mostly herbivores, eating lots of grasses, clovers, plantains, and dandelions. They'll also feed at an accessible vegetable garden too. These are probably a little behind Gray Squirrels (very common and active during the day) and White-tailed Deer (very conspicuous) as the most commonly found wild mammals in central NJ, though Eastern Chipmunks are up there too. (I suspect that mice, shrews, and voles may have larger populations, but they're small enough that most of us don't spot them often.) July 25, 2021 at Duke F...

For Throwback Thursday, here's a Short-eared Owl I met back in January of 2019. As you can tell from the photos, these birds are all-in when it comes to social distancing - at least with regards to nosy bird watchers. They would sometimes get fairly close to one another and the Northern Harriers that were hunting in the same fields. And if all goes well for the owls, they get really close to the voles, shrews, and mice in the field; those are their main sources of food. These owls are a classic crepuscular bird, doing most of their hunting a little before and after sunset. They're very maneuverable birds, and may remind you of fighter jets as they hunt over fields. This picture was from a part of Duke Farms that is usually closed to the public; I was there on a special program they were doing.