Notes About Nature

06 February 2013

Today was pretty nice in Columbia. Since the temperatures were in the upper 50s I took a walk on the Hinkson Creek Trail during lunch. The birds were pretty active even though there wasn't a wide variety of species. I only saw 13 species during the 23 minutes I was out. Here is the eBird checklist.

I leave work at about five minutes to five to try to avoid the worst of the traffic. That doesn't mean I don't get stuck in traffic anyway. While sitting at the stoplight just east of the football stadium, I looked to the South and saw a large kettle of Turkey Vultures. I've been seeing a couple for most of the winter, but there were more than a couple here. I did two quick counts and came up with a total of 138 birds. It seems a little early for a kettle that large, but it's obviously not.

This evening Jenna and I decided to see if we could find any herps. It hasn't rained 29 January, so I wasn't expecting to find much. I was hoping to at least find a couple of frogs. I also wanted to try out the new light apparatus I made for my camera. I've been practicing in the closet at home and thought I had my settings down pretty good. Here is a picture of the setup.

 

We got to the area and looked around. For the first few minutes I thought we were going to be skunked. Except for a flock of snow geese flying high overhead, we were seeing nothing. All of a sudden I saw a couple squirming shapes on the edge of my light's reach. Newts! I had never before seen an adult Central Newt. I have seen young newts, which are called efts, many times. Before the night was over, we had found 32 Central Newts. Adult newts tend to be primarily aquatic while the efts spend a lot of time on land. However, contrary to many people's beliefs, adult newts can and do leave the water if it becomes too low or to warm. They may also leave the water to help rid their skin of parasites (Petranka 1998). 

A little while later Jenna found a spot where there were several Smallmouth Salamanders. We ended up with 6 Smallmouths for the night. One of then was almost entirely brown. It escaped into a crayfish hole. I reached for it but only pulled our the crayfish, so I wasn't able to get a picture. I didn't take the time to look at the crayfish, but there were at least two different species observed tonight. There were also quite a few leaches in the water as well as five or six deer that kept crashing in the woods. As I discovered, taking pictures in a room with white walls reflecting the light around is totally different than taking them outside where the darkness of night absorbs every bit of spare light. I still need to practice. Here are a couple of pictures from tonight. Not too great for practically laying in 8 inches of mud! Oh well, they were old clothes.

 

Central Newt (Notophthalmus viridescens louisianensis)

 

Smallmouth Salamander (Ambystoma texanum)