Nature Ride

An interesting ride on the Western Maryland Rail Trail yesterday- started by seeing a Box Turtle walking across the trail, got to the west end of the trail and rescued a Wooly Bear caterpillar (it was probably safe, but I moved him anyway) and then on the way back to Hancock on our first leg we almost ran into a flock of seven Wild Turkeys. We couldn't have been more than five feet away from them, which for Wild Turkeys is pretty amazing. I suspect this was a bunch of juveniles, born this year, so they haven't smartened up yet. Right after that I moved a small Black Rat Snake off the trail- it was probably absorbing a bit of warmth from the nice warm asphalt. Didn't even try to bite (I've been nailed by a few of them- it draws blood) but seemed to think my nice warm hand was a good thing. The icing on the cake for the day was when I had a Mink run across the trail after we had lunch- this was a first for me.

Dinner Guests

We had dinner guests tonight- five juvenile Raccoons showed up to see what was for super. They decided the suet feeder was it. After a bit one of them reached out to the cord the feeder is on and hauled the feeder up "paw over paw" so all of them could nibble away. I was about 10 feet away- they kept making little "chuck" noises at me as they fed. We finally chased them away after they munched for a while.