Based on some web searches, I haven't been able to positively ID it. My best guess right now is the Green Frog (Rana clamitans). Anyone have any other thoughts on it?
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Weekly Nature Photo: Frog in the BWCAW
Here is a picture of a frog at the margins of a lake from our most recent trip to the Boundary Waters:
Based on some web searches, I haven't been able to positively ID it. My best guess right now is the Green Frog (Rana clamitans). Anyone have any other thoughts on it?
Based on some web searches, I haven't been able to positively ID it. My best guess right now is the Green Frog (Rana clamitans). Anyone have any other thoughts on it?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Trip Report: Boundary Waters over the Fourth of July weekend
Kellie and I decided to take advantage of the long weekend to head up to Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). The Boundary Waters is always glorious, although in many distinct ways. This weekend we had hot weather - it was the warmest it has ever been when we've been up there.
We put in at Sawbill Lake, and stayed there for three nights, taking just day trips and not moving camp. That gave us lots of time to look around at the north end of Sawbill, which is really a cool lake.
The first evening, we decided to check out an inlet into Sawbill in which we'd spent a long time watching a mink hunt on a previous trip. Unfortunately, we didn't see any mink, but we did get some great looks at the beavers that live there. When we first spotted them, I thought that one of the adult beavers had a log in its mouth. However, it turned out that it was carrying a young beaver in its mouth!
It seemed an odd way to carry around the young, but the adult did it repeatedly! We were just sitting there in the canoe, watching in amazement, but the beavers kept swimming around. At one point, the adult even seemed to be brining the young close to us, and then left it behind as it swam a little farther away! I wondered if the parent might be showing its young what a canoe is and showing whether it is something to be afraid of or not. It is hard to say what is going on in their minds, but it was fascinating behavior. Rest assured that beaver babies do also ride on their parent's backs.
A little later on that same paddle, we saw a Moose! Such a large creature, but so good at hiding themselves! We lucked out and happened upon this Moose when it was in a small bay near our campsite.
As one might expect, we did see some very nice sunsets.
The trip was quite buggy, with both flies and mosquitoes being abundant. This kept the predators happy, and we saw plenty of toads!
On the trip, we bought a new field guide (Insects of the North Woods, by Jeffrey Hahn). I'll be sure to give a full review once I've used it a bit more, but one of the things it allowed us to was ID some of the insects we saw. To be sure, with a field guide that only has 444 species, you'll never be 100% certain of your ID, but it was fun to have the book to give us a hand when seeing insects. It did always to identify this dragonfly that we rescued from the water as a Dragonhunter (so named because it is a large dragonfly that hunts large prey, including other dragonflies!):
We put in at Sawbill Lake, and stayed there for three nights, taking just day trips and not moving camp. That gave us lots of time to look around at the north end of Sawbill, which is really a cool lake.
The first evening, we decided to check out an inlet into Sawbill in which we'd spent a long time watching a mink hunt on a previous trip. Unfortunately, we didn't see any mink, but we did get some great looks at the beavers that live there. When we first spotted them, I thought that one of the adult beavers had a log in its mouth. However, it turned out that it was carrying a young beaver in its mouth!
It seemed an odd way to carry around the young, but the adult did it repeatedly! We were just sitting there in the canoe, watching in amazement, but the beavers kept swimming around. At one point, the adult even seemed to be brining the young close to us, and then left it behind as it swam a little farther away! I wondered if the parent might be showing its young what a canoe is and showing whether it is something to be afraid of or not. It is hard to say what is going on in their minds, but it was fascinating behavior. Rest assured that beaver babies do also ride on their parent's backs.
A little later on that same paddle, we saw a Moose! Such a large creature, but so good at hiding themselves! We lucked out and happened upon this Moose when it was in a small bay near our campsite.
As one might expect, we did see some very nice sunsets.
The trip was quite buggy, with both flies and mosquitoes being abundant. This kept the predators happy, and we saw plenty of toads!
On the trip, we bought a new field guide (Insects of the North Woods, by Jeffrey Hahn). I'll be sure to give a full review once I've used it a bit more, but one of the things it allowed us to was ID some of the insects we saw. To be sure, with a field guide that only has 444 species, you'll never be 100% certain of your ID, but it was fun to have the book to give us a hand when seeing insects. It did always to identify this dragonfly that we rescued from the water as a Dragonhunter (so named because it is a large dragonfly that hunts large prey, including other dragonflies!):
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