R L Bailey & Company

3 September 2020, Thursday - No activity to report from the critter cam since the end of last month. A combination of wet, windy weather and a very bright full moon (“Corn Moon”) has kept the critters away. One of the most sun-loving animals that we have around us are turtles. We see them catching the rays almost all times of a sunny day throughout the spring and summer. Below is a picture of some ducks and many turtles on a log. Apologies for the quality - We only had our cell phones with us yesterday morning. August was an active month so check out the link, or browse the Archives. Naturalist note: Visits to our hummingbird feeders are few and far between now. This time last year, hummers were still flocking to the feeders.

sun bathing turtles 3 Sep 2020

3 Sep 2020 tag

4 September 2020, Friday - Lots of activity on the critter cam last night - 25 videos of one or more rabbits. Editor’s note: If you have seen one rabbit video, you’ve pretty much seen them all. Take a look at the August 25 video for a refresher if needed. A recent walk in the neighborhood revealed a paper wasp nest hanging from a lower branch of a maple tree. Please see the photo below. We felt relatively safe examining the nest from a distance because paper wasps will generally only attack if they feel threatened. The fertile queen or queens will winter over in an abandon burrow or an attic or behind bark, then restart the colony in the spring. The rest of the colony members will succumb to the winter temperatures and lack of food, and the nest itself will degrade over time and fall to the ground.

paper wasp nest 4 Sep 2020

4 Sep 2020 tag

7 September 2020, Monday - Glossy Black Tar Spot - now that’s a descriptive name. It is the common name of a fungal infection that can infect leaves of maple trees. In late summer and fall, some leaves on the lower branches of silver maple trees around our neighborhood develop glossy black tar spot. According to Washington State University Extension service, tar spot infections do relatively little harm to the host maple tree. They suggest that the infection can be managed by raking and destroying fallen leaves so that the fungus will not over-winter and re-infect leaves in the spring. We did not notice the tar spots until just five years ago or so. Now we look for it every fall. Some years it is much more apparent than others. Below are front and back pictures of one of our neighbor’s infected silver maple leaves, and a close-up of one of the tar spots.

glossy black tar spot 7 Sep 2020

7 Sep 2020 tag

18 September 2020, Friday - Most eastern cottontail rabbits captured by our critter cam show easy-going creatures quietly munching on plants in our garden. On the 14th, critter cam captured a blur that turned out to be one very spooked rabbit. The video below has three clips - the original clip with the speed unaltered, a slow motion of the same clip, and the unaltered original again. Enjoy!