This scene played out shortly after sunrise, when the woods were still dark and mysterious. The cat crept up to the edge of the hill with ears down and belly pressed close to the ground. When it reached the edge and peered into the dark woods, it found - a deer, about twenty feet from the cat!
It was hard to tell who was more surprised, the cat who discovered something much larger than it had expected, or the deer, to discover a cat was stalking it. They locked eyes and neither moved for several minutes. Then, slowly, the deer began to move to the left, down hill, away from the cat. After moving a dozen yards, the deer broke into a trot
A Buckeye butterfly suns itself on a July day. The eye-like patterns on its wings look like the eyes of a much larger animal, thereby giving pause to birds who might feed on the butterfly.
A Dragonfly warms itself near the Killbuck Wetlands.
This is one of two young squirrels that appeared early this summer. They are brown Fox Squirrels, but have tails that are nearly white instead of brown. They appear to be siblings but we have not seen any adults with white tails. It'll be interesting to see if this trait propagates or if these two remain unique.