Neighbors

This is 'Brutas,' a gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) that I see every evening on my walk. He lives atop the highest of our sandhills. He's quite large and probably quite old. He has a massive burrow that extends at least 50' with at least two entrances that I've found.



Brutas doesn't like me taking his picture. He runs toward a hole he's made in a fence (below; at the fence post) and disappears into the woods when I get too close. The fence is 4' tall for scale. This evening I saw another gopher tortoise near Brutas, so perhaps that is his mate. That was the closest I've ever seen two gopher tortoises. I always think them to be solitary creatures. Now I'll be watching for baby tortoises.



Just down the hill from Brutas' burrow is a swamp where this pair of Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) has started to make a nest in the muck of the drying swamp. I was surprised by this shot which is pretty good considering I was about 1,000 feet from the cranes when I snapped this image.



BELOW: I'm seeing more and more rabbits. This Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) thought himself invisible to me. When the camera flashed he hopped away.



BELOW: This shot is a little blurry of a Polish Chicken under a neighbor's orange tree. The Polish chicken is a European breed known for its crest of feathers.



BELOW: This is one of several geese I see while walking. They kind of scare me. They're quite large. Geese belong in the family Anatidae (which includes swans and ducks).



BELOW: Feeding time for a bunch of ducks, geese, swans, etcetera. They're diving for a handful of dog food (apparently American dog food is a delicacy for many types of wild animals).



BELOW: Another bird that kind of scares me; a big rooster strutting toward me. I see lots of roosters as I walk in the evenings.