The Water Lilies Are Back!

The Water Lilies are back! Twenty years ago Lake Delavan went through a massive reclamation project because it was a dying lake. They dropped down the lake a few feet which meant that the entire bay on both sides of camp had NO water. We took the opportunity to deepen the bay on the north side of our island. So we dug down and removed about two feet of mud. There went the Water Lilies! They have been coming back slowly year by year but it wasn't until THIS year that they cover most of the far end of the marsh just like I remember them from before the reclamation. The are so pretty and they provide nice cover for our animals.

Can you find the camouflaged frog?

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Nature CSI Returns-Who killed Turtle?

Adult turtles are WELL PROTECTED with their hard shell. But they still occasionally fall prey to alligators, ospreys, crows, red-shouldered hawks, bald eagles, and especially raccoons. Their other big predator is people. It is not people in this case as a person would have eaten the turtle a little differently (no shell discarded on land for example) , NO alligators in this Wisconsin lake and NO osprey, bald eagles or red-shouldered hawks have been sighted in the area. It could have been a crow but this turtle is pretty big for a crow --so it must have been...THE RACCOON.

This female may have been coming up on shore to lay her eggs and was caught on land by a raccoon. If she had stayed in the water, the raccoon would not have been able to catch her as she is a very fast swimmer. On land she is slow and awkward--she can not escape her predators.


More information about turtles can be found at my favorite Wisconsin nature site EEK at  http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/ce/eek/critter/reptile/westernpaintedturtle.htm

For more information on House In The Wood please go to our website at www.houseinthewood.org

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