Drumlin Farm hook up

Okay youngsters (are there any young people left on LiveJournal?) "hook up" means getting a behind-the-scenes tour at a zoo, clean out your mind.


Right away I got to see my old friend Orville, a turkey vulture who used to try to rip strips of flesh off of me despite me not being dead yet. He did not do that this day, maybe he's mellowing with age (he's got to be in his 50s now) maybe he's relaxed now that he has a partner. That white duck is one of these baby ducks! all grown up.

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3:00 snapshot #1661: Sunday -- Mushroom Walk at Drumlin Farm!

Here's the gang from the June 15th mushroom walk! Another great batch of folks who really were engaged and interested and asked questions that showed that they were listening to me and cared what I said. I hope they take me up on my offer to answer any lingering questions or attempt to id any mushrooms they get good pictures of. I know I at least have to address the question of what mushrooms are the most dangerous to dogs in the yard.

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3:00 snapshot #1662: Monday

Zoo guests at the Giraffe Savannah.

A dog wearing sunglasses is always funny

I had to buy some new sunglasses. Charlie looks better in them than me.

Big black

If someone says they have "big black ants" it's almost always Camponotus pennsylvanicus. These carpenter ants are the largest and most common wood-damaging ants in North America. The main nest is in the dead wood of a living or standing dead tree. Workers take some of the larvae with them to create satellite colonies in other trees, or in the water-damaged wood of a house or other human-built structure.

The adults are unable to eat solid food, so they feed solid food to the larvae who regurgitate liquid that the adults can consume. In this case (and in at least one other case I've dealt with) the food source was live crickets being kept to feed zoo animals. The carpenter ant workers use their powerful mandibles to chop up the helpless microlivestock into small bits.

The long-term fix for a carpenter ant problem is a carpenter. Remove all the water-damaged (fungus-infected) wood and replace it with dry wood, and the ants won't be able to live there.