Thursday, May 19, 2005
On luna moths, yellow speckled king snakes, and hatchling box turtles...
First I want to correct myself. A bit ago as I was perusing the internet to put a luna moth link in the post below, I read that they are'common'...which disagrees with the nature guide we have here at our house that refers to them as an endagered type of moth. Also, it seems that in the moth stage of their lives, they do not EAT...thus they cannot be at fault for the quarter sized holes that decorate the fine screening over our northern exposure windows. They just have been unfortunate enough to pick the holes to rest over--thus looking like the guilty party, I guess!
Also wanted to mention the gorgeous yellow speckled king snake we encountered sunning himself on the gravel road yesterday. He was about three feet long. He is the FIRST yellow speckled king snake I have ever seen in the wild. Mostly we have the more irritable prairie king snakes on our land. (Be careful if you pick up one of those! They are quite disagreeable!) I hope we wind up with more of the yellow speckled ones on our land. They are much prettier than the prairie kings and have a sweeter temperament.
Day before yesterday, we saw a young male box turtle crossing our gravel road. (You can tell the males from the females by their eye color. Males have red eyes.) We haven't seen any hatchling box turtles this year. They are ADORABLE...their shells no larger in diameter than a nickel! A couple of Springs back, there were quite a few of them around. We kept one through the summer in a 'turtle garden'...a small area just outside our school room window that we bordered with a natural rock wall in a circle...with the top of a birdbath in the center (partially buried) to make a 'pond'. We let the growth inside the circle get pretty wild and added in an old log to burrow beneath. Our little turtle was really hard to find in the garden...kind of a living "Where's Waldo" game each day! We fed the little guy mealy worms regularly. By the end of the summer, he had grown enough to be able to scale the wall and one day ventured out into the wild on his own. We still have our turtle garden...but no new hatchling to foster in it! ¶ 5/19/2005 10:49:00 AM
Also wanted to mention the gorgeous yellow speckled king snake we encountered sunning himself on the gravel road yesterday. He was about three feet long. He is the FIRST yellow speckled king snake I have ever seen in the wild. Mostly we have the more irritable prairie king snakes on our land. (Be careful if you pick up one of those! They are quite disagreeable!) I hope we wind up with more of the yellow speckled ones on our land. They are much prettier than the prairie kings and have a sweeter temperament.
Day before yesterday, we saw a young male box turtle crossing our gravel road. (You can tell the males from the females by their eye color. Males have red eyes.) We haven't seen any hatchling box turtles this year. They are ADORABLE...their shells no larger in diameter than a nickel! A couple of Springs back, there were quite a few of them around. We kept one through the summer in a 'turtle garden'...a small area just outside our school room window that we bordered with a natural rock wall in a circle...with the top of a birdbath in the center (partially buried) to make a 'pond'. We let the growth inside the circle get pretty wild and added in an old log to burrow beneath. Our little turtle was really hard to find in the garden...kind of a living "Where's Waldo" game each day! We fed the little guy mealy worms regularly. By the end of the summer, he had grown enough to be able to scale the wall and one day ventured out into the wild on his own. We still have our turtle garden...but no new hatchling to foster in it! ¶ 5/19/2005 10:49:00 AM
