Althea has become obsessed with box turtles and manages to find and harass them every time we go out. I know she’s found one when I hear her barking, at which point I go over, right the poor turtle that she flipped, and pull her away, leaving the turtles in peace. No turtles have been harmed thus far.
Can you spot the invasive species in this beech tree? It’s the umbrella cockatoo (Cacatua alba), also known as Sydney the escapee. His flight feathers came in, allowing him to soar off into the forest when Althea made a run at him last Sunday. He landed in a beech tree in a steep, difficult to access part of the forest, and he spent the night there. I finally managed to retrieve him the next morning. At some point during the night, he’d moved to a smaller tree, a young sugar maple, and I followed him as he went to a succession of small maples, eventually ending up on the forest floor. He was shivering in fear when I finally retrieved him and I think he was glad to view the forest through a large glass window again after his night on the lam …
