Spring is in the air!

This week has ended with lots of sun and warm air. All plants are stretching and pushing themselves up and into the air. Next week I will welcome my sister again. Längtar!!!

Stamp of the day: Foxes and coyotes

This morning I saw a young red fox that had been run over by a car. It was laying dead on the road.  Such a waste of a good life.

A few days ago LA and I saw an equally disturbing sight - along a rural road on a snow covered field an animal much larger than a fox was running.  It was a coyote, with big ears.  But it was so emancipated and its fur so thin that it looked more like a greyhound, and its tail was thin, thin, thin.  Mange, scabies, rabies, who knows, but something was afflicting it severely and you wondered how long it would survive.

We have had living visitors here too in the last week. A fat, ugly and white-faced oppossum occupied our porch for an hour one night and refused to leave.  They really do play dead if threathened.  It finally went away after LA stood on the outside of the porch railining poking it with a stick, hard and repeatedly. 

Racoons you mostly see dead too here in New Jersey, run over at night.  Grey squirrels do their thievery at the bird feeders or look for their hidden nuts that they can't find in the forests.  I saw another interesting thing today, an emu!    It is at a farm just a few kilometers from here. 

Deers are the absolutely most common wildlife mammal here, both dead and alive.

During 1 March to 15 May I am part of a personal bioblitz effort and challenge, where we will try to see as many species as possible of any living thing on Earth.  It started this morning and my first species was of course, Homo sapiens.  Second - blue jay, out the window :)

Happy Birthday, KV!

We have known each other and been friends 3/4 of our lives now.  :)

Here is a special flowering plant for you!

It is the fruit of the lipstick plant, Bixa orellana, also known as annatto. And yes, it is added to lipsticks for color.