Timber Rattlesnake - the first I have ever seen. I was driving on Mountain Road in Albany Township when I was surprised to see a snake on the road. I thought it was roadkill, but I stopped to photograph it anyway since snakes are not something I get much chance to see. The quality of the images is not what I would like, but my interest in lingering in close proximity was lessened when a passing bicyclist stopped and said, "That's a rattlesnake, isn't it?" I decided he was right and that the critter did not appear injured, just content - for the moment - to lie still on the pavement. That's when I left.

 

Timber Rattlesnake - Crotalus horridus horridus - I estimate the length at about four feet or a little more, but I didn't think it was a good idea to get the tape measure out and confirm this.

 

White Water Lily in the garden at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary near Kempton. This is one of the rare photos here which has not been cropped to improve the composition of the shot. Unless I am trying to isolate a particular item, as I do for my species reference photos which seldom appear here, I try to give a scene some context.

 
Downy Woodpecker - Picoides pubescens - spotted at Tilden Industrial Park last week.

 

Capitol skyline in Harrisburg. The interior of the Pennyslvania Capitol - you can see the dome just left of center in the photograph - was used as a substitute for the US Capitol in the Eddie Murphy film The Distinguished Gentleman. It is a bit over-decorated for my taste, but it's worth a look if you are into such things. Pay particular attention to the massive sculptures of nudes around the exterior. Sort of a monument to prudery, you will notice that lumps of plaster have been added to a certain spot on adult male figures giving the impression that they are all wearing Speedos.

 

Marina on an island in the middle of the Susquehanna River at Harrisburg.

 

Biggest butterfly I ever saw!

 
Thomas The Tank Engine it's not, but the whimsical smiling face certainly makes a Haines & Kibblehouse locomotive hard to mistake for one from some other line.

 
Spicebush Swallowtail male approaches a female in the pasture here. This is a very good opportunity to notice the difference in color on the rear part of the hind wings. The female shows pure blue while the male has a greenish cast.

 
Another suitor arrives on the scene to turn our potential couple into a triangle. This led to some aerial antics between the two males, but the magic of the moment was lost.

 
Spicebush Swallowtail female returns to feeding after a brief flirtation.

 
European Paper Wasp has chosen the wrong fence post to look for wood fibers to chew up to build a paper nest. This one is on the top of a post manufactured of recycled plastic. We used to sell these until the manufacturer in Canada dropped this product from their line.

 
Today's selections taken yesterday afternoon concentrate on the stormwater detention pond at Tilden Industrial Park. Here we see a Great Blue Heron. In some other shots of the far end of the pond (not good enough to share), I saw what appear to be two immature Great Blue Herons sticking very close to the dense mass of cattails near the shore.

 
Green Heron in flight - perhaps not the sharpest of the dozen or so I snapped while it was in the air, but the best illustration of the typical heron flight posture with neck folded into a tight "s" curve and the legs extended straight to the rear. The larger Great Blue Heron is sometimes mistaken for Sandhill Crane, but cranes fly with necks extended. This is an example of the sort of subtle cues by which a dedicated bird (or butterfly) watcher makes can sort out one species from another even over great distances and with a moving target.

 

Wood Duck standing on one foot and using the other to scratch the underside of a wing. The duck population at this site was mixed last year, but almost entirely limited to Wood Ducks this year.

 
Bullfrog, perhaps, or something else? At any rate, this seems too large to be a Green Frog. In another shot of the Wood Duck above, I counted this fellow and four more very like him in the water surrounding the rock on which the duck was perched.

 
Green Frogs on a lily pad. I am not 100% certain of the identi= fication, but these appear consistent with the photos and descriptions I have read. I took another photo yesterday on the same visit where these two and seven more just like them - plus the frog in the next photo below - are visible on lily pads and what appears to be five more of these sitting on the shallow bottom with their heads barely out of the water. That photo was done on film and so far has only been scanned at very low resolution, not good enough to share with you here.

 

Another kind of frog?

Or is this the same sort as the ones with which it was sharing the lily pads?

 

The abundance and diversity of life at this site is further illustrated here. These small white birds were barely visible on the ground at the far end of the pond until a Green Heron flew in low and ssent them into the air.

 

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail - Papilio glaucus - male - nectaring at a Tiger Lily. Before Sunday afternoon's outing, I had never observed any butterflies visiting these beautiful and abundant flowers. I was startled to see a Spicebush Swallowtail doing so on a shady gravel road in Greenwich Township. A few hundred yards farther on I found this ETS doing the same thing. The light was better here - woods on only one side of the road and the flowers on the open side - so this is the one I chose to share.

 
Talk radio bloviators have their own cemetery waiting for them in Centre Township.
Click on the photo for a larger image to make it easier to read the name of the cemetery on the arch over the gate.

 
Green Heron - immature - is my best guess for this one after sifting through photos of over a hundred species on several websites. If I am correct in this, then another bird I saw at the far end of the same pond a few days earlier (the photo was not good enough to post here) may have been an adult of this species. This is a species I am reasonably certain I have never photographed, or even seen, before.

 

Construction of the new Tilden Elementary School from another angle. All may yet be well, but judging by the "improvements" to the Hamburg Area High School a few years ago, the school directors of our district have done more harm to architecture than anyone since Harry K. Thaw shot down Stanford White in New York a century ago. I don't object to the octagonal floorplan although it seems a curious choice for a school. But, what is the concrete block tunnel extending out the front and how does it enhance the design?

 
Goldfinch - male - clinging to a branch in the pasture. The blossoms of the Canadian Thistle are mostly faded now, so the Golfinches have been gathering the thistledown for nesting material.

Looking At Life Through A Rearview Mirror - I think that was the title of a country song. I've tried it a few times with less presentable results, but this one turned out reasonably well.

 
Yield to horses - I always do, but I didn't realize they had signs for it until I found this sign at the entrance to a trail that follows the abandoned railroad roadbed north from the main parking area at the Kernsville Desilting Basin. This parallels the active Reading & Northern line and crosses over it on the bridge you may see in the background of some of my photos from the Blue Mountain Wildlife butterfly garden.