AiDan's nature blog

December 25th, 2020 Framingham, MA

Merry Christmas! Today i got a lot of stuff that i can use for my blog. One of them is a camera trap, so that I can mount it on a tree at Juniper hill, Nobscot, Callahan, and Wickford Bridge. For those of you who do not know, camera traps are cameras that activate when animal motion is present, and it starts taking pictures and video, until it passes.

This will be great for me and the blog, as i can get pictures of animals i would not normally see, like deer, raccoons, foxes, turkeys and coyotes.

The exact type of camera is a Meidase SL122 pro.

I also got a few really cool nature-related t-shirts.

I now have a suet feeder, so that i can better attract birds like woodpeckers. It came with a suet cake, the suet gluing crushed almonds, millet, and black oil sunflower seeds together. I hung it right next to the hopper feeder I already have. This way, the American Dogwood in my front yard will become the ultimate bird-hub.

I am also going to mention the fact that rather than being a White Christmas, today was a Grey Christmas. Almost all the snow was melted today, due to a steady, wet downpour all morning.

-Aidan Garrity

December 24th, 2020 Framingham, MA

Today is Christmas Eve Day, and I saw and photographed some Canada geese and mallards. Let me go back a second.

I was biking to Juniper Hill, when I saw a few geese and ducks in the river. I began taking pictures.

A passing car on the bridge threw an apple core out there window while I was finishing up my pictures. The apple tumbled off the bridge, into the river, and the geese swam over to it and began pecking at it.

It does not match their natural diet, but with the annual food scarcity occurring over the winter, they were willing to fight over it. Well, it was more like just very competitively pecking at it.

It is neat to think that two species that are so genetically close and geographically close, and share a diet can coexist. Especially with the threat of invasive Mute Swans populating the river (See Nov 3rd). My thought process is that one of them would inevitably out-compete the other. The only thing keeping this from happening is the few plants that only Mallards eat and the few plants that only Canada Geese eat.

Eventually, a couple in a canoe paddled just close enough for them to get spooked, and they little-by-little flew off. It was scary and I almost ducked, as at first it looked like they were flying directly at me.

I held my phone above my head, spamming the picture button while keeping it pointed at the birds. I was worried that they would look blurred, from the speed of their wing-beating, but they came out surprisingly clear.

I will upload the pictures in chronological order below.

I was actually trying to figure out what scared them, when I saw the canoe in the picture, which i had not seen before.

Around this time, Mallard ducks have probably already found there mate in October or November and are either breeding, or going to breed soon.

Meanwhile, the Canada geese will do this later in the winter or in march.

I cant wait to go looking for ducklings and goslings with their moms in the Spring.

-Aidan Garrity

December 23rd, 2020 Framingham, MA

This morning, I went to Callahan State Park (the back side), hoping to see deer. The only animal I saw, though, were a bunch of different birds, including a downy woodpecker, a few blue jays, and the common crow.

While I did not see any deer, I found tracks, Similar to the tracks seen at Nobscot.

I also saw two invasive plants on my way in, that I have been meaning to post about for a while, but i did not have any photos of burning bush.

These plants both can grow in big masses, smothering out existing, native plant life. It would be satisfying, ide imagine, to just burn it back, which is exactly how people get rid of these plants, since they grow so thick, It would be way to much work to pull it up.

You can help fight these plants by not planting them in your property, and killing them if you do find some on your property.

I walked down to the part where I expected to see the deer, but there was none, I did take a few pictures of the logged part of the forest, where I expected to find deer.

This really shows off the eastern white pines that are in the pictures. I also photographed the hemlock on the way out. It is cool to think that these kinds of trees, the evergreens are one of the only organisms that don't really change anything about themselves during the winter. They look exactly as they would in June!

The reason why the disappearance of old growth forests do not concern me much, is that if parks and state forests like this stay up for more time, they can BECOME old growth, we just have to leave them un-disturbed.

-Aidan Garrity

December 22nd, 2020 Framingham, MA

Yesterday, I had an encounter with a Pileated Woodpecker(Dryocopus pileatus). I was hiking at Nobscot Scout Reservation when we heard a pecking noise. The woodpecker was pecking at a huge cavity in an oak tree.

The woodpecker kept taking a few pecks, and then would look to the left, then a few more pecks, and look to the right: clearly a behavioral adaptation to look for predators.

You would think that a woodpecker would get concussions, smashing it's beak against a tree with so much force, but this is not the case because they have a tongue that is arranged like slingshot in their skull, acting like shocks on a bicycle.

They also have a behavior where they shut their eyelids, a fraction of a second before their head hits the wood, and then re-open them. This prevents flying wood flakes from getting in their eyes.

Contrary to popular belief, most woodpeckers do not grab their food in their beaks, and instead have a long, sticky tongue like a chameleon. The tongue only comes out though, when the bird sees an insect, to prevent it from being stabbed by it's beak.

You might also wonder why woodpecker beak's do not become dull over time and this has a pretty simple and obvious answer compared to above. They heal the same way our cuts heal.

I walked closer, taking pictures as I went, this ensures that assuming the bird will eventually fly away at a certain distance, I will have the best possible picture, and despite the loud crunching of the snow, I got unbelievably close.

I know that it is a male because of the maroon stripe on his head, rather than a female's black stripe. I do not know if this hole will become a nesting cavity for his mate in the spring, or if this one is just for food. I will check in on it in the spring, to find out.

You can also see above, a pile of wood flakes at the bottom of the tree. This is a bi-product of the woodpecker's cavity making. Pileated woodpecker's cavities actually benefit other birds too, as they provide easy access to the insects that birds like nuthatches, woodpeckers, and creepers prefer. They also drill cavities that not only make suitable nests for themselves, but other birds too, like owls and other woodpecker species.

If you want to check this out for yourself, the GPS coordinates are approximately, 42.351024, -71.440726.

-Aidan Garrity

December 21st, 2020 Framingham, MA

This morning, At around 7:30, Me and my mom went for a short hike at Nobscot Scout Reservation. Today has the shortest day and longest night of the year. On our way in, I took a look at a stream that was completely dried up about a month ago. Now, It is filled with flowing water, probably due to recent snow melt.

I also decided to go up the hill, and check out the pond. The Pond also looked very different. Below, you can see the comparison. The red maple seen at the top of the photo has lost it's leaves, and so have many of the oaks and birches in the background. Snow covers the area like a blanket. You can also see that the pine trees on the left are brighter than on the right. This is soully due to cloud cover, and not seasonal changes. I am going to take pictures in spring and summer as well, so you can see the differences.

I also saw a pileated woodpecker(Dryocopus pileatus) Picking for insects in a White Pine. I will go more into depth about the woodpecker in tomorrow's post.

I also saw my first ever evidence of white tailed deer living at Nobscot.

This is interesting because it means that there are deer there, but they are rare enough or discreet enough to not be seen.

That's one of my goals this year: to find a deer at Nobscot

We also smelled sulfur there, coming from the creek. Turns out that organic matter in waterways can produce hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotting eggs.

This could apparently be linked to how life started on earth.

Geysers at Yellowstone National Park have a similar effect.

-Aidan Garrity

December 16 - December 20th