Bird Bath

A few years ago we remodeled our bathroom and then repurposed the old cast iron bathtub as a watering trough for wildlife at our West Hill property. All types of wildlife visit this old bathtub and this red-tailed hawk used it as an extra large bird bath.

Penguin Encounter

Grandson Reed has a fascination with penguins...

So his dad arranged a penguin encounter for him at The Wild Animal Park in Chittanago NY.

This penguin encounter allowed Reed to have very close access to some very friendly South African penguins (Spheniscus demersus).

Feeding big fish to small penguins. These penguins can eat a lot of fish.

After a large meal of fish the penguins needed some exercise chasing bubbles.

The penguins were very friendly and curious.

After a long day of entertaining guests, eating fish and chasing bubbles, the penguins needed some rest.

Bobcat

Checking the game cameras at our West Hill property this weekend and got this nice photo of a Bobcat.

Eastern Painted Turtle

Another turtle found in the road. This time it was an Eastern Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta picta) in the road to our cabin, not far from our pond. This turtle had a shell of about 5 inches and was most likely looking for a place to lay eggs.

Snapping Turtle

While traveling between our barn and cabin I found this snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) in the middle of the township road. Snapping turtles very seldom leave the protection of water, but this is most likely a female turtle preparing to lay eggs. This was one of the more friendly snapping turtles I've encountered and almost appears to be smiling.

Snapping turtles can live about 100 years and this one had a shell of about 12 inches, which is average for an adult.

Since the middle of a road isn't a safe place for any turtle, I moved it into our lawn.