Thursday, January 19, 2006

Strange weather

It's been cool again the last couple of days, but last week you'd have thought spring was well underway.

The honeybees (Apis mellifera) must have thought so too.

Except that when they were tricked into leaving the warm hive, there were no flowers. So they had to substitute... chicken feed?



I doubt that there's nectar in the layer ration pellets. But something must have attracted them. They seemed lethargic though. Torpid. I thought that the chickens, who in warmer months chase moths and flies all over the yard (to great comic effect), would make a quick meal of them. But they just ignored them.

Then out by the pond, I felt about as slow as the bees.



Why is the mud walking?



Finally it dawned on me that it was a snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina). Guess he realized it was too early to wake up.

9 comments:

KFarmer said...

I think everything is confused- my daffy's are coming up and my climbing rose is turning green. I am wondering if we will get any cold weather and have a second bloom? Strange, that's what this weather has been- just strange.

Lené Gary said...

This must be why I never see turtles. :)

robin andrea said...

I've been reading on many of my favorite blogs how the weather has been very warm and strange. It is worrisome. I don't know anything about turtle behavior, but it sure would be fun to see a moving mound of mud.

Anonymous said...

Great shot of those bees. It's unfortunate how hard life has become for them in recent decades. It's good to see some even if they are after corn whiskey.

Crowe said...

The weather seems to be weird everywhere. I just saw on the news that Russia is experiencing its coldest weather since 1927. Here I wore a t-shirt today when I walked Charlie. In northern Europe, in January ... It shouldn't be this way.

R.Powers said...

That snapper needs a bath...and maybe a little turtle wax.

Weather is pretty normal for January around here.

threecollie said...

Great pictures, as always. Our white breasted nuthatches were singing their summer song yesterday way up here in upstate New York. Of course it was fifty degrees, which may have had something to do with it.

Rurality said...

One of the worst things about all the warm winter weather is that the bugs will be so much worse in the spring & summer now.

We even heard two types of frogs singing over the weekend!

(Turtle wax, hee hee!)

Anonymous said...

the weather certainly is strange, but only a change in us and the earth