Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy

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I went out in search of trilling toads and while they trilled away when I first found them the day before, they stayed silent throughout my podcast. Lips were sealed!  The photo here is of one of them, clearly just waiting me out

Nonetheless, Episode #17 is all about our most common toad here in Loudoun, the American Toad – some pretty cool facts to learn about these backyard visitors.

They breed through March and April so this time of year you can see them in shallow ponds and as long as you don’t plan to record them, you’ll likely hear them trill.

I’ll continue to try to get a recording but in the meantime, here are some recordings by others of our American Toad.

Source for much of the material for this podcast was found on The Animal Diversity Web – a great source of animal information!

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In this episode we have a reading from The Virginia Naturalist entitled: ”Finches Flocking to Local Feeders” – a timely subject in the heart of winter with the songs of birds like the White-throated Sparrow singing out it’s beautiful melodies.

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Eleni just started on her first full week with us and we’re happy to have her on board for the summer. In this podcast you’ll get to hear in her own words a bit about why she wanted to take on this internship with Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy and what she looks forward to doing over the course of the summer.

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In this episode, we talk all about our local groundhogs – their life cycle, the burrows they dig, their hibernation and their raising of young.

Groundhogs play an important role in our environment. Their abandoned burrows serve as homes for other animals like raccoons, skunks, foxes and opossums; and their digging helps loosen up soils so water can be better absorbed into the earth. 

They also can help with weeding the garden as shown in this picture where our young groundhog is shown eating the dreaded Bindweed – good groundhog! 

Human conflicts with groundhogs often result from groundhogs getting into vegetable gardens. To help with that and other issues, here is a Groundhog Solutions tip sheet from the Fund for Animals that has a lot of great ideas.

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For this episode of our podcast, we are joined by Mike Hayslett, expert herpetologist and vernal pools specialist. For the past 11 years, Mike has been joining Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy in an exploration of our spring wetlands and their inhabitants and has helped us learn about the really special wild places that Loudoun has to offer.

We’ve just completed a week long set of nature classes and workshops with Mike that took us from Ashburn to Leesburg to the Lost Corner of Lucketts and out to the Blue Ridge and in this interview Mike talks a bit about these interesting spots in nature. In the photo shown here, Mike and one of the participants of our Spring Pools Institute prepare to measure the length of one of the larger vernal pools we found in Ashburn.

If you’ve heard a lot of frogs calling in an area, or especially if you’ve come across a neat seasonal pool, please contact me, Nicole Hamilton, at nhamilton@loudounwildlife.org and we’ll see about checking it out. These pools can be large, like the one shown above, or as small as just a few feet in diameter.

For those interested in helping us identify and explore these great wetlands around Loudoun, you can contact me or check out our Loudoun Amphibian Monitoring Program. Large or small, we’re interested in finding more of these interesting wetlands across Loudoun and seeing which species are using them, and we could really use more volunteers around Loudoun helping with that. This is another great way to explore nature in Loudoun.

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Foxes are great backyard wildlife that play an excellent role in our ecosystem. They live in urban, suburban as well as wooded habitats so its quite likely that there are foxes around you. Sneaky, huh.

January is the breeding season for foxes so in this podcast we talk about their breeding behaviors, use of dens, life cycle and foods that they enjoy as well as what to do if you are so lucky as to have a fox den in your neighborhood.

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Eastern Screech Owls…they’re one of our smallest owls here in Loudoun yet also one of our most common. In this episode, we talk about their nesting, their habitat needs and setting up an owl house.

The Eastern Screech Owl has taken to suburban and urban landscapes and if we don’t clean up our woods, there’s a good chance that screech owls will take up residence. As we head into January listen for their courtship calls.

The photo shown here is of a screech owl peering out of a nestbox hole. This is the original box that I built which was well used but has now been replaced since after about seven years, the floor rotted out. We’ll see how the store bought box measures up.

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Curious about what a Screech Owl sounds like? Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology has a sound recording that you can listen to….it’s simply trilling (heh heh): http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Eastern_Screech-Owl.html

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Flying squirrels – yes they do exist!  In this episode we talk about their habits and habitats as well as how to attract them to a tree where you can watch them and enjoy the show!

The photo above was taken by Michele Morrow at one of her feeders.

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In this episode we are joined by Spring Ligi and Joe Coleman to talk about the Loudoun Bird Atlas Project that we just launched.  This is a significant endeavor, collecting data on more than 295 bird species over the course of the next four years to find out where the birds are breeding and over wintering. Having this data will provide excellent insights into bird habitats and priorities for conservation.

You can read more about our Bird Atlas Project here. As project materials are produced over the coming months, we’ll add them to the web page so you can take a look at the map of Loudoun with the count blocks, download data collection sheets and more.

The Birds of Loudoun checklist, which was completed as a first step in this project, can be downloaded here. It’s a great tool to take into the field to keep track of the diversity of species that you come across.

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In this episode we talk all about Eastern Box Turtles and answer that question …. why did the turtle cross the road? Box Turtles are great wild neighbors with every encounter being a special one.  Their populations are in serious decline however, so it’s up to us to help them.

The photo above is of a male Eastern Box turtle that has been sighted a few times in our yard – the first time being seven years ago. 

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