Posts Tagged ‘forest animals’
Forensic Guessing
Looks like we have some competition in the wood chipping department.
Analysis of the evidence by amateurs came up with guesses like porcupine, or woodchuck, or possum. What animal would have spent so much time shredding the bark of this downed tree overnight?
Would you guess that it might have been a bear?
That’s the opinion Cyndie received from the person teaching her Master Gardener classes.
Must have been a good collection of insects beneath that bark to keep the animal’s attention engaged. Or maybe just shorter days and longer nights are triggering the urge to gorge zealously on any possible morsels of protein.
Logic indicates the days of warm temperatures are running out. It won’t be long and the only bugs to be found will be frozen “insect-icles.”
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Feeling Humble
Rain in winter is proving to be our new normal in the region of Minnesota and Wisconsin where I grew up. All we can do is react to the conditions presented, but it’s an unfamiliar winter landscape to me to have water raining down onto our snowscape. It’s such a mess.
I wonder what the furry animals of the northern forest do to cope with these conditions. It must be hard not being able to burrow into the powdery snow for insulation from the cold. From my experience, dampness in temperatures that hover around the freezing point feels much worse than dry cold temperatures well below freezing.
Delilah and I discovered evidence in our hayfield that looked like a coyote may have uncovered a rabbit nest.
The wet snow is revealing a wide variety of tracks. The surface keeps changing between being very soft when the temperature is above freezing and crusty enough that Delilah doesn’t break through when it refreezes.
It is humbling to find evidence of how many creatures are wandering our trails just before or shortly after we have walked them. There were footprints on our north trail that were so large I tried to get Delilah to step into one for comparison. It didn’t work, but trust me, in real life, these are unmistakably and rather impressively bigger than Delilah’s.
I’m pretty sure Delilah peed her scent all over any other markers left on that trail.
Trespassers return at their own risk.
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April Fooling
We get the joke. Today starts the fourth month of 2018, and despite the general trend of average warmth climbing around the globe, we woke to teeth-chattering cold. The clear sky overnight was wonderful for viewing the blue moon, but it also contributed to the drop in temperature.
We had a reading of 10°(F) before the sun came up. With the fresh coating of snow on the ground from Friday night’s storm, there is cold in the air, as well as radiating from the ground.
We’re not laughing.
It seems like the forest animals weren’t much interested in facing the cold, either. In a search for tracks around the full perimeter of our property, there were surprisingly few foot prints revealing activity. Based on the evidence we collected, a rabbit was the only critter moving around.
At least we know that it didn’t have any problems with dodging predators.
The cougar that growled near Cyndie and Delilah last week is likely long gone after its journey past our home. We did a search in the neighboring woods where the eery sounds came from last week, but did not find any hint of a foot print or disturbed snow where the drama played out.
In a long shot reaction, I mounted our trail camera to observe the trail closest to the area, but it only provided added evidence that nothing was moving around after the snow, except Delilah and me.
Yesterday, Cyndie unleashed a great weapon against cold and snow. She filled the house with the smells of fresh-baked buns and whipped together a couple of egg bakes for a family brunch today.
No foolin’.
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Relative Something 