Readers’ wildlife photos

October 17, 2014 • 12:30 am

I have received some readers’ wildlife photos, but posting them may be slow, as will be all posting when I’m in Bulgaria. I do my best.

From reader James Billie:

Here are some  of our local friends catching the last warmth of fall.  Taken yesterday, 15-Oct.

James Billie

And from reader David: 

Please find attached pic of an Eastern Grey doe (Macropus giganteus) and her joey that I took last weekend up at Warrumbungles N.P. (central northern NSW). The joey must be soon leaving the marsupium as its legs and tail can no longer fit in the pouch.

David Moloy

This makes me sad:

There are many roos up there as I unfortunately found out on Sunday. A buck (a male kanagaroo) jumped out from the vegetation at the side of the road and into the front of my car, causing the damage shown. He hopped off but was not well. They are an ubiquitous hazard on Australian roads.

image

 And David’s foster cat as lagniappe:
Thought you would also like a picture of the cat I have been house-sitting for the last two weeks. Appropriately called “Koko”, he is a Burmese and an attention seeker of the highest order. I have never encountered a cat that demands so many pats and scratches, particularly on the hind quarters.
2014.10.05.09.17.15-Koko (1)

39 thoughts on “Readers’ wildlife photos”

  1. What a regal looking cat!

    Assume they are terrapins Malaclemys terrapin in the first picture? Do they hibernate in mud at the bottom of the pond? What happens if it freezes?

    2. Dominic, they are midland painter turtles. Chrysemys picta marginata

      I built that floating platform (anchored to the bottom of our pond) for the turtles to haul out on safely. it has a little ramp for them to climb up on.

      We’ve had as many as 16 on that little platform at one time.

      I love how they stack themselves!

      1. I’m so jealous of your pond! I one day want to dig out a big one in the front yard so I could have turtles and frogs. The neighbours have a nice natural pond and sometimes the leopard frogs and painted turtles come crossing over on their way to the stream down the back of my property. I really love turtles and I’m always rescuing them from roads. The last one I tried to rescue got run over just as I was going to help him. I felt very upset for several days over it.

          1. I remember running over a large # of crabs at night on a road West of Caracas. Horrible sound, all the crunching…

    3. They do hibernate over the winter, burying themselves in the mud at the pond bottom.

      They love to bask: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_turtle#Daily_routine_and_basking

      This is what the oracle of wikiness says about their hibernation:

      The painted turtle hibernates by burying itself, either on the bottom of a body of water, near water in the shore-bank or the burrow of a muskrat, or in woods or pastures. When hibernating underwater, the turtle prefers shallow depths, no more than 2 m (7 ft). Within the mud, it may dig down an additional 1 m (3 ft). In this state, the turtle does not breathe, although if surroundings allow, it may get some oxygen through its skin. The species is one of the best-studied vertebrates able to survive long periods without oxygen. Adaptations of its blood chemistry, brain, heart, and particularly its shell allow the turtle to survive extreme lactic acid buildup while oxygen-deprived.

      We also have snapping turtles, Chelydra serpentina, some of which attain truly enormous size. We see pairs mating every year (quite s sight as they tumble in the water) and both of the pair are on the order of: 20 inches (50 cm) long by 14 inches (35 cm) wide (shell only) and I’d estimate at least 30 pounds (14 kg)! Their heads are as big as my fist (I’m a very large male). We have watched them lay eggs in our flower beds and “beach”.

      1. Snappers live a long time too. When I was a kid, my dad rescued a big one off the road & put it in the trunk. He handled it with a shovel as they can whip their necks right around and bite you one. When I worked at a park as a student, there was once a big snapper that people moved off the road into the park by tumbling it out of the way. It was grumpy about the handling, but it got the job done.

        1. We had an adult (female, I assume, looking for a nesting site) get caught in the up-turned bottom of our paddle boat. Luckily:

          1. My son and his friend saw her and told me
          2. There was water in the cavity

          I slowly tipped the boat up until she flopped out and then we all withdrew. She sort of shook herself off and wandered back into the water and swam away.

          I have handled them by the tail. If you handle them by the sides of their shell, they can bite you, as you noted. But, if I can, I use a shovel too — it’s safer.

          1. Yeah, some of them are very flexible. They won’t bite in the water, I am told but I don’t want to mess with them to find out! 🙂 I wish they’d understand that I’m trying to help them. “Look turtle, just lay off making your point, I’m helping you here.”

        1. Love the turtles. Growing up, I kept painted, map, softshell, sliders, mud turtles and snappers. All are fun to keep and easy to care for. I had them in aquariums, but don’t think that’s cool anymore. Now I just have a turtle pond with 3 red-eared sliders…all females. I wanted to get a male so I could try and breed them, but got unlucky when I picked them out. You can tell the sex by the male’s claws- much longer than the females. But when they’re young, you just have to guess- I guessed wrong. So 3 turtles is max for my pond’s size, and I don’t want to trade/give any away. One I’ve had since 1990. She’ll probably outlive me! Well, I hope not, but still.

          Diana- be careful with frogs and turtles cohabiting. Turtles nom frogs and tadpoles. Probably would be ok if the pond is really large.

          1. I want a very large pond and I’d just let the animals go there naturally. I don’t want to pop ate it myself.

  2. Re: the roo. I lived in Melbourne in the late ’70s early ’80s, and from what I remember the kangaroos were basically the ecological equivalent of our deer: present in, and somewhat adapted to suburbia. You’d occasionally see them in parks, some back yards, etc… and have to watch for them along roads if there was ‘nature’ on one side or the other.

      1. It may just be the contrast between the sharp, in-focus joey face and the fuzzy-looking wool of the mother that makes it look a bit odd.

        Your resident PS expert, Ben, should probably weigh in on this. 🙂

        1. Don’t think it’s faked. The belly hair of the mother and the joey is too perfect. Hair can be faked, but it’s very difficult to get right. Like jblilie said, the contrast and focus are causing it to look out of place imo.

      2. I have been away photoging international rugby this weekend so I have not been able to defend myself till now against these suggestions I have somehow photoshopped the joey’s head. I can’t believe we would have conspiracy theorists resident on WEIT. Firstly here are my other shots of the pair: https://www.flickr.com/photos/125524007@N08/15582722832/ Secondly how would I also go about photoshopping the joey’s legs to get them extruding from the pouch? The only photoshopping was to push the exposure and some minor sharpening.

        1. For the record, I never thought there was anything fishy about that shot. 🙂 I was wondering more about things like, how on earth does a joey that big get in the pouch in the first place, let alone turn around?? 🙂

          1. Yeah, human parents complain about their older kids still living in the basement, but look how much their concerns pail when confronted with this mom & her joey! 😀

          3. That’d be a great cartoon…a doe with 4 or 5 joeys sticking their heads out of the pouch, and she’s thinking, “man, these sleep-overs are killing me!”

          4. My son had a book called Joey (we probably still have it) in which Joey did invite all his friends into Mama’s pouch, and also a piano. She’s finally had enough and shouts OUT, everybody OUT! And that was the beginning of the empty nest…

  5. Love the look on the roos’ faces as if posing for the camera.

    The kitty is very pretty too.

  6. Sorry about the kangaroo damage to the car. That must have been a shock!

    It does bring to mind a recent 4-day work trip in eastern Oregon.

    Day 1: We just barely missed a deer and later a group of at least four elk. All of them just materialized in front of the car in the dark.

    Day 2: In the morning, we missed hitting five deer (in a group).

    Day 3: In late afternoon we didn’t hit five turkeys, a cow, two elk, and a deer, missing that last by just a foot or two as it changed its mind at the last moment about which side of the road it wanted to be on. (Do we get to count the elk twice? They went off the road to the left, then crossed back and ran up the hill on the right.)

    Day 4: Relatively unexciting, fortunately.

    And yes, we were driving at a reasonable speed, which became slower and slower as the trip progressed!

      1. Sounds interesting! Though perhaps beyond my skill range. All I managed to do on this trip was slam on the brakes and hope the elk wouldn’t be quite where my car would be in a moment.

  7. Thanks for all the photos.

    Smashed car, smashed turtles, smashed crabs. Cars are dangerous to wildlife, but what’s a human to do?

  8. “This makes me sad”
    It’s the way of things in Australia, as my Dad found out recently. His car got smashed after a roo was sitting in the middle of the road just over a hill.

    One of the saddest things I’ve seen was a roo that was crippled on the side of the road. All it could do was move its head, the rest of the body was just laying there in a mess.

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