Star-nosed Mole - Luke Tiller
As a kid I had a book with “Incredible Animals’ from across the globe. The book was essentially a large format book with a picture of a cool animal on each page and a description of where it lived and other tidbits of basic information. Well today I finally saw one of the animals from that book in the shape of a rather awesome Star-nosed Mole (Condylura cristata). You can read more about it on Wikipedia (here).
Star-nosed Mole - Luke Tiller
Whilst we were hanging out at the hawkwatch this creature suddenly appears and starts scuttling acoss the hawkwatch lawn towards the parking lot. Stefan Martin quickly ID’d it and we rushed to stay ahead of the mole and snap some photos of the cute little guy as he scurried across the tarmac. Anyway no sooner had I said ‘watch out and make sure he doesn’t fall down the storm drain’ when that’s exactly what he did.
Little did any of us know but these things are actually great swimmers, however it wasn’t going to help him climb up four feet of pretty bare concrete walls to get out of the drain. With little fuss (and the grounds guy John on the way with a crane to lift the storm drain cover) hawkwatch fan and drain fisherman extraordinaire Orlando Hidalgo had reached in with a butterfly net that we had fetched and lifted the little guy out.
Star-nosed Mole - Luke Tiller
A really amazing looking creature and fascinating to find out about. Ted Gilman, the head naturalist here at Audubon Greenwich, filled us in with lots of cool facts about the little guy (including telling us how great at swimming they are) before we took him back to somewhere a little safer than the parking lot and let him go. Forget hawks, moles are much much cooler!
Under Clear Skies 
That little critter is far out!
Hi Patrice,
Yes a real ‘star’ of the show. It was so cool to see him!
Luke
You never know what a day will bring! Very interesting, thanks.
Thanks Brenda. That’s why I love birding and nature observation in general. Who knows what you might see next?
Hello there, I found your blog through the link Dawn supplied on one of her posts. I have really enjoyed your super blog with its great photos and look forward to coming back..
Hi Denise,
Thanks for the kind words about the blog. Glad you enjoyed checking it out. Just looking through your blog as well. Nice to read about another one time Brits adventures in the US.
Luke