Identificaciones de happyhat

This is the famous Davie Poplar, approximately 350 years of age.

At dusk, hundreds and hundreds of Chimney Swifts swirl in vortex above, before darting into the hollow trunk to spend the night. An Eastern Gray Squirrel, however, awaits their arrival, fulfilling its classification as an omnivore. [see 3rd photo].

30 years ago, Dr. Jerome Jackson had amongst the slide set for his students of Ornithology, a photo that elicited primal gasps of horror and shock. The photo showed in gruesome detail an Eastern Gray Squirrel holding a male Northern Cardinal like an ice cream cone. The head of the cardinal had been devoured.

The memory of that photo sprang to mind when I espied the Eastern Gray Squirrel lingering around the hollow into which the Chimney Swifts would descend. And then it quietly slipped in to greet them upon their arrival.

The ventral surface was largely white. I failed to obtain a photo of this, as the Cicada objected to my attempt to do so. This I found satisfying, for I had been worried about its health earlier in the morning when I had picked it up from the sidewalk so as to prevent it being accidentally trodden on. At that time, it made very little movement, only grabbing onto the holly foliage where I had placed it, and where, a few hours later, I took these photos.