Dragonfly Season is Here

Dragonfly season has arrived!  Before I had a digital SLR camera, way back in 2006, I took photos of a dragon on the Olentangy that I believed was a rapids clubtail.  These bugs fly in early June, and are easiest to find when the river is low.  Unfortunately, over the last decade or so, I've never encountered another one, that us until this afternoon.  I took several photographs that should be able to seal its identification.  What a beautiful dragon it is!

-Tom

Hoover Reservoir Spillway Wood Duck

I've updoaded this image at 2000 pixels wide.  Click for a much larger image. 

Yesterday afternoon, I zipped down to the spillway below Hoover Reservoir.  You're looking at the drinking water for a major chunk of the Columbus area.  It also happens to be a place where waterfowl gather when much of the reservoir is frozen.  While yesterday's temps reached above freezing, we've had a fairly good stretch of subzero temperatures.

This drake wood duck stole the show yesterday.  It is just a simply stunning bird. This by far is the best look at one I've ever had, and it's simply beautiful.  Wood ducks are quite wary, and as this one approached, it had its eye on me the whole time.

The platform above the spillway is becoming such a popular and busy place, for both birdwatchers and fitness enthusiasts who climb the dam's long stretch of concrete stairs, that the ducks seem even less wary of people.  So, if you've never gone to Hoover, I urge you to, it's a great place to see waterfowl relatively closeup.

-Tom

On the Olentangy

Last Sunday, I had a chance to return to Kenney Park along the Olentangy River where it runs through the Beechwold neighborhood of Columbus.  I spent much of my free time here many years ago. It was nice to visit again.

-Tom

Kirtland's Warbler, Columbus Ohio

We've been quite lucky to host  in Columbus an extremely rare bird- a male Kirtland's Warbler.  Listed as Endangered by the Federal Government, this is the rarest of the rare amongst wood warblers in the United States.  First spotted this past Wednesday, I believe, it was still hanging out in an elm tree at 960 Kinnear Rd in front of a building owned by Ohio State.  I went with my neighbor Rick to see and photograph it this afternoon- it was still there at 2:00 p.m. What a great bird!

Tom

A Long Journey, but it's All Roses Now.

On an early morning outing on my day off at the Whetsone Park of Roses, a real gem of Columbus, I encountered this beautiful shelled creature. I went to photograph the rose garden for my microstock photography venture, but came back with a decidedly more interesting image. That is, if, you just happen to love turtles, and well, I just happen to love turtles.

This is a three-toed box turtle, a subspecies of the eastern box turtle. This girl's bland olive shell and only a small little bit of orange on the side of its face tipped me off right away that she released here in Columbus, and was enjoying her time at the park. A quick look at her only hind leg (the right one was completely missing) and my initial ID was confirmed- three long toes with sharp fingernails- and a perfectly flat lower shell and small tail meant she was a she.

I happened to talk to a few Columbus Recreation and Parks employees, and they said they encounter box turtles frequently, but they thought they were the native subspecies. Now my interest is really piqued. Surely, the turtle that I found was released by an unwilling pet owner. The three-toed subspecies is the one supplied in the pet industry here in Ohio, although I've not seen wild caught ones offered for sale in a while. This turtle was probably hatched somewhere in the Southern U.S. in the wild, caught by a dealer, sold to a pet wholesaler, who then sold it to a pet store, who then sold it to a pet owner who eventually got bored and released the turtle back into "the wild". Now that is a story that I should expand upon. Now she's able to cruise the woods, lawns, and rose gardens of Columbus' Whetsone Park.





Tom

More from Hoover Dam

The one in Ohio, not Arizona and Nevada!

Tom

Olentangy Pool

Olentangy Pool, originally uploaded by Tom Arbour.

Warm today! Wow. I couldn't believe it. My car thermometer read 66 on my way home from work. There was a semi-decent sunset, so I headed down to the park to get a few shots of the sun reflected in the river. Well, I didn't get there. But with the morning's rain, this large pool filled with water, making for a nice composition! Check out the green leaves at the bottom of the photo. They are from Amur honeysuckle, which surrounds the hillside behind the camera. The honeysuckle leaves are finally dropping and the forest is almost bare once again. Also, I uploaded several new photos to Flickr! this evening. You can see them by clicking on the photo collage on the right side of the page.

Tom

Art and Turtles in Downtown Columbus

I wore my turtle t-shirt to our trip to the Columbus Arts festival today, but I sure didn't think I would see any live reptiles! Megan and I traveled down to the arts festival this morning. We looked around a bit, saw some art, including several turtle themed pieces of jewlery, etc. and then decided we would head home. I wanted to walk down to the river, pictured below, to get a few shots of the Columbus skyline. Sure enough, as I glanced over the concrete side rail into the river, I spotted a giant cottonwood log. It had came to rest upon the retaining wall, and on it was basking a huge female map turle! Very cool.....as we kept looking, we saw no less than four other turtles on the log. Male map turtles are pint sized compared to the egg laying females. We saw at least one mature male, and some even smaller immature guys or gals. These little turtles have brighter coloration on there heads-in the photos look for the yellow lines. Finally, the ubiquitous Canda Geese arrived on the seen, lured by food tossed over the rail by art fair goers. The geese didn't bother the turtles. They sat basking right on the way through. The female turtle was truly huge. I would say it was pushing 16 inches, and the head alone had to be three inches wide! It was great to see map turtles in this segment of the Scioto. Yes, it isn't what a natural river should look like-at all (it is dammed and really is more like a lake than anything else), but seeing map turtles, a riverine species, brightened the place up just a bit for me. So, if you do go to the arts festival, look for the turtles on the cottonwood log along the riverside sidewalk at the north end of bicentennial park!

Tom