Author Archives: Ellen Snyder

A Woodchuck….and Opossum

My friend John gave me a Bushnell Aggressor Trail Cam several months ago. I’ve moved it around our yard, turning it on from evening to early morning. We’ve seen a doe, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, cardinals, robins, and a raccoon.

Two days ago, while I was sitting in our backyard, I heard a high pitched whistle from under the old shed. Aw, the woodchuck was back. This fellow has been living next door, we think, with occasional trips into our yard. Early in the summer he dug holes under our woodshed and started eating some greens from our garden bed. I put up fences and plugged the holes under the shed. That seemed to work.

But he was back this week. I moved the camera so that it faced the old shed. The chubby fellow seemed to know the camera was there, striking some fine poses. I call it a male given his bulky nature.

The woodchuck eyes the camera.

He looks well fed.

He decides it is safe to emerge and forage in our back yard.

We try to live with various animals in our yard, even those that eat some of our fruits and vegetables. If physical barriers, such as fencing and raised beds, are effective deterrents, then we happily share. I like watching the woodchuck scurry back to his den on those short legs. Woodchucks are surprisingly fast.

Another animal appeared on the camera the same night. The woodchuck ventures out to feed during the day and sleeps by night. Our other visitor — an opossum — has also used the old shed before. They seem to be sharing the space now. The opossum hunts at night. I wonder how they have divvied up the space beneath the shed.

The opossum leaves at 7:38 PM.

The opossum returns at 10:25 PM.

We typically only notice the opossum in winter, when we can see its unusual track pattern in the snow leading to and from the shed. It’s nice to see this one on camera in September.

Cabbage Butterflies

The most common butterfly in our yard throughout the growing season is the Cabbage White, Pieris rapae. This is not surprising as it is distinguished as the most widespread butterfly in the world. It is quite adapted to all sorts of environments and feeds on Brassicas — broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale. I’ve discovered, slowly, that to grow any of these crops, I need to cover the row from seed to harvest with Reemay cloth to prevent the adults from laying eggs.

Cabbage butterflies mating

Despite the caterpillar’s ravenous appetite for our garden vegetables, I still like to see the adults flitting about our gardens, serving as pollinators and prey (for other yard denizens). They appear like white cloths skipping among the plants, landing for a spell before lifting off.

The cabbage butterfly is sexually dimorphic. The female has two black spots on the forewing, and the male only one. iNaturalist says that males are mostly white, while females have a tinge of yellow. My thought is in the above photo, the male is on the left and female on the right.

A Sac of Spiders

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Tuesday, September 10, 2024

The female yellow garden spiders in our meadow and flower gardens have each spun their final web and left behind a small brown paper sac of eggs. Each sac hangs by a series of thin threads. (Can a spider egg sac be cute? I think so.) I usually find a sac tucked among a cluster of tall goldenrod stems or other flowers. But not always. This year, one spider built her nest between a fence post and the electric fence charger. Very exposed to predators, weather, and the accidental whisking away by a human. Oops.

Yellow garden spider egg sac

Yellow garden spider egg sacI’ve not opened a sac to estimate the number of eggs. The literature says it could be hundreds or a thousand or more. We are in the climate zone where the spiderlings will hatch soon and either stay in the sac all winter or venture out this fall. Either way they are so susceptible to nature’s chaos.

I found another sac situated between a short fence and our Swiss chard patch. Again, not such a good place. I removed the rabbit-proof fence the other day. I forgot about the spider sac until I saw it hanging from the fence. I carefully moved it to a safer place, for now, among the chard. I’m hoping the warm weather will encourage the spiderlings to choose the move-out-soon option.

My biggest dilemma is what to do about the sacs in the meadow. We cut down and mow the meadow once a year. This helps keep it in wildflowers of goldenrods, asters, ironweed, Joe-pye weed, boneset, and free of unwanted woody plants. But I have to think about the spiderlings. Just as I move carefully through the meadow when the females have their webs strung across my path, I’ll proceed carefully with the fall cutting of plants. I’ll try to leave an uncut cluster around any sac I find.