The Wildlife Is Vanishing

Yes, true worldwide, but I'm thinking of the local ones.  And specifically my yard.  

I keep a mostly organic yard (OK, I spray individual poison ivy plants).  But I do things to help the birds and bees and other stuff thrive.  Half my backyard is left semi-wild.  Lots of small trees for bird-nesting.  I have black oil sunflower seed in one feeder for most songbirds, 2 thistle seed feeders for the purple and gold finches, and 2 nectar feeders for the hummingbirds.

I have 5'x3'pond for frogs.  With plants and debris at the bottom to support aquatic insects.  I have butterfly bushes, pollinator plants, and plants that insect larvae can develop on.  

I used to see some possums and raccoons at night.  I used to hear thousands of Spring Peeper frogs in the swamp across the street in the Spring.

But that has been changing.  I noticed a few years ago that the Swamp was quiet; no Spring Peepers calling in the thousands.  I used to see deer in my front yard and the neighbors in snow prints and visually.  I used to see snow prints of other various critters.

When I moved here 37 years ago, there were no cardinals, finches, etc.  But when I set up feeders, I got up to 6 pairs of cardinals, a bunch of purple finches, a dozen goldfinches, and various smaller birds (titmice, wrens, woodpeckers, etc).  Sometimes, the sunflower seed feeder was mobbed by starlings (I did tend to chase them away as they would just empty the feeder in a few hours, leaving nothing for the other birds and the stuff is somewhat expensive).   I haven't seen it mobbed in a few years.

I think we are in trouble.  If my generally organic semi-wild yard can't support cardinals, finches, and other small birds with good food, something is going very wrong.  If there are no frogs in the pond, something is very wrong.  If the deer (those damned landscape-eaters) are becoming more rarely seen,  something is very wrong.  

My hummingbirds haven't come back this year.  I haven't seen a single butterfly.  I haven't seen a possum on the deck at night.  I haven't seen many bees (Honey or Bumble) and it has been warm enough for a month.  I haven't seen any hornets (not that I love them).  But still, that is not a good sign.

Something is going bad, and I think we are causing all this.  As Pogo said "We have met the enemy and it is us".  

 

Snake

If snakes give you the "willies", stop reading.  But this one is harmless and eats only mice and moles...

So I went out to get my mail today, and saw this sitting on the driveway.  I looked at it for a while.  I wasn't sure if it was alive or not.  I mean, it was "LUMPY".

While I was looking at it, a guy drove past and then backed up and got out of his car with a camera.  We considered it.  I said it wasn't dangerous because it wasn't a viper.  I thought it is a black snake.  He said he just kills any snake he sees and I said they are rather beneficial (though I sure wouldn't want to step in on by surprise).  Even non-venomous snakes have teeth.

But it wasn't moving and it looked odd (lumpy).  The other guy said, he didn't think it was dead becuase its head was up (that was a really good observation I had missed).

So after taking a couple pictures each, I tapped its tail with my newspaper .  It twitched!  After another tap, it started slithering away, and went up a TREE! 

I was working under a tree once and felt a slight stinky spray.  I looked around and saw nothing.  Then a snake (just like this one) fell onto the ground right next to me.  HEY, IT PEED ON ME!

But I just shoved it with my boot and watched it slither away.  Well, it was no threat to the cats or me, so I admired it.  Snakes are fascinating.  There are few creatures who have completely unique ways of moving around.  Bipedal humans, kangaroos, and snakes...

Here is the snake climbing up in a small tree...

It wasn't there 15 minutes later, so I suppose it was a lot more worried about ME than I was of it.

May it catch many mice and moles...   Live long and eat well, black snake!