Mark & Teri's Travels: May 2020

Saturday, May 30, 2020

The Fruits of Our Labor

We spent the last two summers volunteering at Green Lake National Fish Hatchery in Ellsworth, Maine. Both years were wonderful experiences. The staff is the best we’ve ever worked with, we had a variety of jobs to work on, the area is beautiful and our RV site was very nice and secluded.

Fred was the biologist we worked with the most and he had a lot of ideas of things he wanted us to do.

We have kept in touch with Fred and this morning he sent some pictures.

Last summer we made 12 bluebird houses, attached them to poles, and set them in the ground in two different areas of the hatchery. (See Blog Post June 24,2019 - If You Build It Will They Come?)

Fred wrote that Bluebirds have set up housekeeping in one of the houses and Tree Swallows are staking out another house. It’s great to see that they have found the houses the first summer available!

We spent two summers putting in pollinator gardens (two the first year and two the second year). (See Blog Post August 28, 2018- Pollinator Garden)

Our first completed garden.

Due to the bitterly cold winter in between years, our first gardens had quite a bit of plant loss. We replanted the first 2 beds and got the 2 additional beds dug-out and planted in time for a very successful summer. (See Blog Posts August 7, 2019 - OurPollinator Garden and September 20, 2019 - Monarch Success).

Fred sent pictures showing the gardens are popping out and ready for bees and butterflies.

2020. Picture by Fred.

Our first summer we resurfaced one raceway but didn’t have time to get to the others (See Blog Post September 27, 2018 - Offto the Race(way)s!). One of our last projects last summer was to resurface 3 raceways. (See Blog Post August 16, 2019 - Off to the Race(way)s - DejaVue).

Before resurface.

After resurface.

Fred sent pictures from this Spring showing the raceways in use. They look great!

With fish. Picture by Fred.

So many times, we leave a volunteer position and never get back to that area. We often wonder if all our hard labor was useful or just a waste of time.

We appreciate Fred taking the time to show us that the fruits of our labor have been successful!

Teri

Friday, May 22, 2020

Who is Out There???

Once Teri and I learned that we would be staying in Medina for an extended time, we decided to create a bird-feeding station back in March. In addition to a variety of feeders we've placed a bird bath on the ground and added a small solar-powered fountain to keep the water circulating. It's been a big hit with the birds who drink and bath daily.

Pine Siskins enjoying a bath.

But something is happening at night. We often find the birdbath totally dry in the morning, with the fountain upside down or even out in the grass. So we set up the trusty game cam to capture the nighttime activity.

We knew that there would be loads of White-tailed Deer, and were not disappointed.

They come alone, in pairs, and sometimes in larger groups. And they come all through the night from dusk till dawn. Click any picture to enlarge.

The bucks are just starting to re-grow their antlers, and you can make out the "nubs" on this one.

Just as common as deer are North American Raccoons.

Occasionally they seem satisfied with just getting a drink, but more often than not they prefer to get right in and mess around. No doubt the source of the fountain relocation problem.

To us, anything other than deer and raccoons is a bonus animal. We've seen several, including the Nine-banded Armadillo, Virginia Opossum, and a Gray Fox.

Our most unexpected find was a House Cat. We don't know if it belongs to someone or is feral, but this one seems to have caught a mouse.

Depending on when I remember to turn the cam off in the morning, we can get some daytime shots as well. This Cottontail Rabbit lives under the porch and got caught coming home.