Neighbors and Visitors

He/She has never been able to fly more than a few feet.

A desert tortoise from Africa

I have noticed this week: Our resident gray frog that lives in the BBQ and jumps to cling to the deck railing for the hours that we use it, has gotten larger this year. He communicates with two other frogs that live in the trees in the backyard. While grilling, the cook can hear their conversation, but not really understand what is going on. It does sound lovely. 

There was a PAIR of Brown Thrashers on the back lawn early yesterday. This is very unusual as we only see them a few times in the fall and never together. They have an elegant velvet brown body and spent less than an hour violently turning over leaves looking for food. 

We have numerous box turtles in our woods and today I saw a bright yellow one crossing the backyard in search of some leaf or bug. He is young and unmarked and hubby is mowing today, so we must be careful. 

The Flickers are back in abundance looking for worms and bugs in the open areas on the side of the driveway. They are noisy and wary and fly to the oaks and tulip tree branches when I am out and about. 

The two in the photos above are captive and were at the festival the other day. The turtle is kept by a local petting zoo and the Screech owl cannot fly and is being kept by a naturalist.