How to Help Turtles Cross Roads
So you’ve found a turtle on a road. Now what? This is a very common question, and it is no secret that roads pose major issues for all kinds of wildlife, turtles included. Turtles are slow on land, and when startled, tend to just hide in their shells rather than flee, so unlike a squirrel […]
Species Spotlight: Wood Frogs
All across North America, the sounds of frogs ring in the start of spring. Listen to a recording of an early spring chorus with several species and you may be able to figure out roughly where the recording was made as every region has its own unique spring mix of amphibian vocalists. In Vermont where […]
Why Are We Afraid of Snakes and How Do We Overcome That Fear?
To this day, I don’t know what compelled me to return to the scene of the slaughter. Morbid curiosity? I didn’t know it at the time, but watching the neighbor kids ruthlessly attack and kill the Gartersnake we had found in a cow pasture that day in the early 1990s would set off a chain […]
Phantoms of the Forest: The Secretive Nature of Timber Rattlesnakes
Timber Rattlesnakes, although very dangerous animals when harassed, rely first on their camouflage for defense, and last on their venom (with several steps in between). They are very docile animals that, under most circumstances, go to great lengths to avoid biting humans. In truth, if their objective was to bite and envenomate every passing human […]
Enduring and Avoiding the Cold – How Reptiles and Amphibians Survive Northern Winters
This post was adapted from an older magazine article the Kiley wrote in late 2017. With each trip in and out of the snow encrusted Canadian waters, another layer of ice accumulated on my waders, forming a frigid exoskeleton around my legs. I knew from experience not to tie the laces of my boots tightly, […]