spider silk

Hot, foggy morning.  Dewpoint is high enough to form beads of water on each and every

strand of spider silk in this beautiful web.

 

grackle and turtle

Grackles Quiscalus quiscula forage on the ground. Food items might include seeds, acorns, fruits, and garbage. In summer their diet includes grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars, spiders, mollusks, fish, frogs, salamanders, and mice.  

Maybe this Grackle was so intent on diet he did not notice the Painted Turtle passing nearby on the shore of the pond.

toad

A 3-inch long toad Anaxyrus americanus makes its home in the garden at the edge of the wild wild woods, among the shady spots strewn with vegetable leaf litter.  Her job is bug control in an organic garden, since her diet consists of worms, slugs, grubs, ants, spiders, and other invertebrates.

NestWatch: 7 Wren nestlings

One of the nestboxes we watch is used this Spring by House Wrens Troglodytes aedon.  Seven eggs hatched on June 8.  Today the cam recorded the adults feeding three times within two minutes.  The adult Wren is only 4.5 to 5 inches long.  She feeds spiders, beetles, caterpillars, earwigs, flies and other insects to her tiny hatchlings.  (MP4 video)

In this video, you can see the wriggling legs of the insects she brings in.  Wrens keep their nests clean; they wait for the young birds to expel a fecal sac (birdie diaper, poop bag).  Until the young birds are 4 or 5 days old, the parents may eat the sacs since the baby's digestive tracts are not very efficient and the sacs may still contain nutrition.  Later, they'll carry them away from the box and drop them. This way, the nest lining stays clean and healthy for the crowded clutch of young Wrens.