Tag: animals

Muskrats on Ice

How did muskrats get their name? Evidently they get the word musk because of the strong smelling odor they give off to mark territory and keep away intruders. I have never smelled anything when around them, but I do not get too close. The rat in their name is because their tail is said to resemble a rats. At one point they were known as musk beavers because of the flat tail.

Muskrats on Ice

This small pond has at least 5 muskrats. This is the first time I have seen the muskrats on ice in decent lighting conditions. When I arrived in the late afternoon I saw two.

They keep the area on the pond where this one is clear of ice. Most of the pond is iced over, except the other spots they come up from the water. From this spot they scurry up the hill and get grass and other plants from areas they have cleared of snow.

Muskrats on Ice

Muskrats build lodges like beavers, or they build a tunnel from under a pond to a chamber above water on the bank of the pond. Because they may tunnel on a pond bank , it could cause bank destruction or collapse.

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Barn Owl

I have always wanted to see a barn owl. We do have them in New York, but the Ebird reporting site protects the location of where they are sighted as they do exist, but are rare in the state. Going to a castle in England was my best shot at seeing one of these owls.

Some castles have many different activities to bring in money. They may have tours, host large concerts, put on Medieval or other historical shows, have high end lodging, etc. However, my favourite event to see are the falconry shows.

This falconry show at Warwick Castle does not disappoint. They had four falconers flying the birds. They had owls, falcons, hawks and eagles. Unfortunately it was raining that day. I did remove the raindrops from these photos. However, it messed with my autofocus and most of the flight shots did not pan out. I think the size of the owl came into play as well.

If I ever return to England, I hope to spend a few days visiting this castle. They have many shows and multiple falconry shows a day. I would also like to see a barn owl in the wild some day. Have a great rest of your week.

Coyote

You could not miss this coyote. It walked across a busy road. It looked like it was following after something, but I never saw what that was. No, this is not in England. I took this tonight on my way home.

Coyote- Nice enough to pose for a couple of shots

It is not the best image. It was at night after a rain storm in low light. I had my camera in its bag in the back seat. I had to pull off and take it out. I saw the coyote go into a business parking lot, so this is where it is in this image. Note to self: I need to have my camera in the front seat readily available.

The coyote looks very scruffy. Could this be the result of a disease? May it be the battle scars of fights with other animals? It did not look to weary of people. It actually left a popular rail trail and was in a business parking lot. It stood there letting me take a couple of pictures. Sometimes I wonder what tales an animal could tell. If I had known it was going to do that I would have set my camera to a 1/800 of a second instead of 1/2000. What do you think it’s story would be?