Although the army ant column and its camp follower birds were the highlight of my visit to Coba, dozens of other types of animals caught my eye.  As you can see in the top photo, my old friends the leaf-cutter ants were out in force, carrying leaves and even immature fruits along paths they'd cleared through the woods.

Nearby, termite mounds hung from branches.  More properly known as termitaries, these nests are made of a combination of digested wood pulp and merely chewed and regurgitated wood pulp, which together make a cardboard-like wall.  Later, I read that trogons like to hollow out old termitaries to make their own nests, and I couldn't help thinking that the half-digested wood pulp would make a good garden mulch.

Speaking of trogons, I was lucky enough to catch a view of this perching insect-hunter.  I didn't catch enough details to tell whether my beauty was a Violaceous Trogon or a Black-headed Trogon, but I did get to see it foray out from the branch in search of flying prey.  These photos don't do the bird justice --- its breast is brilliant yellow.

One of our most amazing sightings occurred right at the beginning.  As we poked around the Coba group (near the entrance), a rustling in the undergrowth caught my attention.  We crept closer and peered through the leaves to see a huge turkey with a blue head.  The Ocellated Turkey was too quick for me, as you can see from this photo, but that's probably a good thing since Mayan legend holds that the Giant Turkey Spirit is one of the Lords of the Forest which takes revenge on folks who kill more turkeys than they need.  Maybe snapping too many photos would also incur his wrath?

Then there were all of my old friends who had flown south for the winter to Coba.  This waterthrush bobbed along the ground just like it does along the edges of our creeks, although it seemed content to spend the winter away from a burbling brook.  Later, I saw several warblers  and vireos who were far too fast for my camera, but who looked awfully familiar as well.

Beside the trail, a brilliant Blue Bunting stripped grass seeds.  Later, as we ate our own lunch overlooking the lake, we were treated to a flock of grackles bathing in the shallow water, several Great Egrets, and a pair of grebes who continually ducked under the surface, only to pop back up moments later.  Oh, and did I mention the beautiful little lizard (maybe a Ghost Anole?) that was so sure of its camouflage that I was able to poke my camera lens nearly down onto its back?

In fact, between the lucky viewing of the army ants' camp followers and the other very tame wildlife, I have to say that Coba is the best spot I've been too for birding and wildlife viewing in years.

Keep your chickens happy and healthy while you're on vacation using our homemade chicken waterer.

At this time of year, every day is a different season.  Last week, we were sweltering on 90 degree afternoons, but this weekend rain brought highs in the lower seventies.

The woods is completely different during a cool rain than when the sun is shining.  Sounds are muffled by the wet leaves and my eyes turn down toward the ground where treasures are easy to find.

This box turtle was walking down a rutted deer trail, his brilliant red eyes the brightest I've ever seen.  In fact, the turtle's orange face and fiery eyes were quite a bit brighter than the fallen leaves --- prematurely brown because of a mild drought.  Lucy patiently sat and stayed while I fiddled around with the camera and took about two dozen photos from four different angles.  Thanks for waiting, Lucy!

This shy garter snake was perched three feet in the air amid a mass of wingstems.  I often see black rat snakes on a tree limb, but hadn't realized that other snakes in our area like to climb.  It always amazes me that a leg-less snake is able to ascend several feet off the ground.

I wish I'd gotten a better shot, but the fact that I got any photo at all is a tribute to our new Canon camera.  I zoomed all the way in for this introductory image, then stepped closer for a second shot.  With barely a rustle, the snake had disappeared into the weeds.

One of my Yucatan field guides lists the habitat for the Spiny-tailed Iguana (in part) as "on rocks, in trees, on buildings and around archaeological ruins."  I think we saw at least two dozen of these big, gray lizards during our tour of Uxmal, and I might have taken a picture of every one of them --- they're very photogenic.

Later, I learned that only the mature males have the row of spines down their backs.  In the photo at the top of this post, the lizard on the right is a male and the one on the left is probably a female.

Spiny-tailed Iguanas blend in with their surroundings extremely well not only because they seem to enjoy hanging out on gray rocks, but also because they can change their skin color to match their surroundings.  Some of their smaller relatives (such as anoles) are better color-shifters, but even the huge iguanas at Uxmal can move pigments within individual skin cells and become lighter or darker as a result.

Local people eat iguanas and their eggs, a habit that dates back to the ancient Mayans.  The Mayan name for the species is "huh", which sounds a lot like my surprised exclamation the first time I came across these mighty lizards....

If I had to pick one category of animals to represent the River Trail, turtles would win hands down.  During a summer hike down the trail, I can nearly always hear the plop of turtles sliding off their basking logs and into the water as I pass by.  One September, I was lucky enough to stumble across recently hatched turtle eggs on Bryce Beach.  The white, leathery shells were scattered amid loose soil, marking the spot where hatchling turtles burrowed their way out of the ground and crawled into the river.

Like many of our river creatures, turtles have a dubious future, but not because of the usual combination of habitat loss and  pollution.  Instead, the root of the problem is all about sex.  As you may have learned in high school, the sex of most animals is determined at the instant of fertilization, when the sperm and the egg cells unite to create a fertilized egg.  In humans, all egg cells have an X chromosome, while sperm cells can have either an X or a Y chromosome.  If an X chromosome sperm joins with the egg, the resulting XX fertilized egg is female.  On the other hand, if a Y chromosome sperm joins with the egg, the resulting XY fertilized egg is male.

This cut and dried version of sex determination that works for humans gets shaken up when you enter the turtle world.  Many turtles, like the Eastern Painted Turtles and Snapping Turtles that you often see in the Clinch, have temperature-dependent sex determination --- a complicated phrase for a complicated concept.  When a mother turtle lays her eggs, the offspring have not yet been designated as male or female.  Instead, the sex of the young turtles is determined by the temperature of the surrounding soil during the months that the eggs sit in the ground.  Cooler temperatures result in male offspring while warmer temperatures result in female offspring.

Temperature-dependent sex determination seems like something a science fiction writer might dream up to make his aliens more interesting, but scientists have discovered that the process may help turtle hatchlings survive the first critical years of their lives.  Hatchlings that come from nests composed of all female or all male turtles tend to survive better than those from nests of mixed sex turtles, though the reason for the hatchlings’ increased survival is unclear.  We do know that mother turtles are able to determine the sex of their offspring to some extent by laying eggs in shady areas under vegetation to create males or in sunny areas to create females.  Many human expecting parents would have been thrilled to be given such an option!

Unfortunately, the temperature-dependent sex determination that has worked so well for turtles in the past may be the cause of their downfall.  As global warming changes the earth’s climate over the next century, some scientists predict that the earth’s temperature will rise by 4 degrees Celsius --- enough to make Eastern Painted Turtles produce completely female offspring even if the eggs are laid in the shade.  Although older male turtles will be present for a few decades, eventually the female turtles will have no one to mate with and our familiar river turtles will fade away.  I find it impossible to imagine the River Trail without the quiet plop as turtle after turtle slides into the water, but the twenty-second century residents of Russell County may walk a much quieter trail than the one I know.

May-Apples move into an area just as meadowlarks are moving out.  Dense stands of their umbrella-like leaves are a common sight in early successional forests, though May-Apples can also be found at the edges of fields and in more mature forest.  Each May-Apple stand begins as a single plant, then quickly reproduces through underground runners until the patch ends up covering an area as large as six feet or more in diameter.  Peek under the umbrellas in late April or early May and you are likely to find the large white flowers that two-leaved plants produce.  (One-leaved May-Apples will not be blooming that year.)

Although May-Apples reproduce readily through underground runners, they have another trick up their sleeves that helps them colonize new areas.  As their flowers fade in late spring, the ovaries swell into a fruit that is reputed to be edible to humans when ripe.  I have never managed to find a ripe fruit, though, since the maypops (as they are colloquially named) are a favorite food of the Eastern Box Turtle and dangle just at turtle head level.  In fact, without the turtle, May-Apple seeds seldom germinate --- a thick coating on May-Apple seeds means that only about 8.5% of the seeds germinate if left to their own devices.  But when a box turtle munches on the maypop, digestive juices break down the seeds’ coating just enough to raise the germination rate to 38.7%.  So, chances are that the May-Apple patch you are walking through began life as a seed pooped out by a passing turtle.

The Eastern Box Turtle is the only land turtle you are likely to see on Sugar Hill and chances are you will stumble across one after a few hikes.  I like to count the rings on the turtle’s back to get an idea of its age --- like a tree, box turtles make a new ring every year.  These turtles have been known to live up to eighty years, becoming mature after about seven to ten.

Habitat fragmentation is taking a heavy toll on their populations, though, and I wince every time I pass a smashed box turtle in the middle of the road.  When I see a living box turtle on the tarmac, I do my best to stop and help it to the other side, but am careful to always move it to the side toward which it was heading --- turtles know exactly where they are going and will turn around and head back across the road if you put them on the wrong side.  They will also head back to their home territory if captured and released on the other side of town, so please do not move box turtles more than a few feet from where you find them.