Posts Tagged ‘wildlife’
Lake Adventures
Despite a brief rain shower in the morning, Friday at the lake was filled with adventure along our shoreline. With my mind mulling over the landscaping work awaiting attention along our driveway at home, I took up the beach rake and resumed the fine art of reclaiming sand that has washed off the beach into the water.
There is a mind-boggling amount of raking and soil preparation I’ll be doing at home soon, so playing with the rake on the beach is just a warmup for the next event.
We got a glimpse of a real-life nature show when baby snapping turtles started emerging from a hole on the beach.
It’s an annual occurrence but still a thrill to witness each time we see it. Cyndie searched for facts about the process after I wondered how many survive because so many tiny turtles wandering into the water –cute at this stage of their lives, for a snapping turtle– gives the impression the lake could be teeming with the creatures.
Some surprising details I learned: the female can carry viable sperm for three years. Clutches of eggs laid can range from roughly 20 to 40 or more. At dinner last night, Marie asked how many were showing up on our shore. Before Cyndie had looked it up, I answered with a wild guess that tracks and turtle sightings were numbering in the twenties or thirty.
Wasn’t far off, although information suggested a larger percentage will never even reach the point of hatching. Our batch must have been hearty survivors out of the shell. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of those who made it to the water will avoid fatal encounters.
The list of potential predators is long, including other snapping turtles. I prefer to think our trophy-sized muskies are feasting on them. One resident adult snapping turtle in our bay is more than enough in my mind.
After a refreshing swim and a period of floating on the big waves rolling in from the south, we noticed neighbor Eric’s sailboat had come unmoored and was teetering along our rocky shore. Cyndie’s brother, Steve, hustled up to report it and found Eric wasn’t around.
I joined Steve in a rescue operation using the ski boat to pull the anchored buoy farther out and then corralling the sailboat to tow just as Eric showed up. He had been in town for lunch and to buy material for improving the buoy anchor when he got the message his boat was loose.
Meanwhile, word from Wintervale is that care for Asher and the horses is a joy (don’t we know it) and all is well. That’s such a blessing for us and allows for worry-free absorption in the adventures our lake place offers.
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Feathered Alarm
Busy birds are building nests and doing their courting dances this time of year. Some of them need to establish their territories and discourage competition from other possible suitors. This year, more than any other previous time, more than one bird has taken to facing off against their reflections in our windows. The first year we were here, there was a cardinal that the sellers warned us about. He came back annually enough times that they eventually named him.
They named a variety of wildlife that made repeated visits, so that wasn’t so strange. Rodney the Cardinal showed up for about two years after we arrived and then vanished.
Now we are getting both Robins and Cardinals clacking their beaks against our windows. And not just the males.
Yesterday morning, a female Cardinal showed up at the door in our bedroom that opens to the back deck. Fluttering wings and a pecking beak tapping away at its reflection.
The sun wasn’t up yet, but the songbirds were. This one was tapping up and down on the full glass door as I was checking my phone for results from the MN Wild hockey game that went into overtime and forced me to go to sleep without knowing the result.
Cyndie’s morning sleep cycle was interrupted by the feathered alarm. That ultimately paid off for me because her earlier-than-usual start contributed to her feeling ready to join me in the morning feeding of horses for the first time since breaking her ankle last November.
I was really glad I had chosen not to keep watching the playoff hockey game after the third period ended with the score tied around 11:30 p.m. They ended up needing more than half of a second overtime period before one of the teams got the puck past the opposing goalie. The game ended at 1:00 a.m. and I had been in dreamland for an hour and a half by that time.
Happily, it was the Wild team that triumphed in game 1 of this best-of-7 first-round series of the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Dallas Stars.
Game 2 happens tonight and I am hoping it gets decided in just 3 periods. As it is, games ending at 11:30 at night are already keeping me up past my healthy bedtime. Also, I’m not feeling up to the stress of watching the drama of sudden-death overtime hockey.
The Gopher hockey team losing their NCAA Championship game against Quinnipiac just 10 seconds into overtime did me in. I no longer have the fortitude to watch overtime playoff hockey. Not for a while, anyway.
Not while the wild birds are feeling a need to peck against our glass doors and windows at too-early-o’clock in the morning.
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Cookie Help
A couple of Santa’s Helpers stopped by for a visit yesterday and cheerfully volunteered to assist Cyndie with baking some Christmas cookies. Sara and Althea did a heroic amount of the legwork getting loaded cookie sheets into and out of our double oven. That’s a lot of squats since the bottom oven is at about floor level.
My legs were getting tired just standing around helping with occasional cleanup. I think they baked almost ten different kinds of cookies. It seemed like that’s how many I test-tasted. Cyndie had prepared much of the dough in advance and refrigerated it overnight.
Each oven was set at a different temperature and the multiple varieties of cookies needed different baking times so it was quite a challenge for four people to keep track of pertinent details. I worked on the jigsaw puzzle while using the timer on my phone to track baking times.
Not that Sara really needed help with that. At one point, she asked me how much time was left and when I looked there was 1 second left on the timer. Her intuition was spot on. She also demonstrated a good sense of when the suggested baking time wasn’t enough. Several of the kinds of cookies took a little longer in our oven to reach the desired golden brown.
I learned that the inside light blinks on when the oven reaches the set temperature. It also emits a little tune, but I already knew about that. Sara conducted most of the orchestrations of the baking while Cyndie consulted recipes and prepped the different doughs for the cookie sheets with Althea’s support in cutting, sprinkling and spritzing.
At about the time maximum baking was being accomplished, I slipped out to feed horses and discovered a gorgeous moon illuminating the early evening. Once the horses were taken care of, I strolled down to pick up the mail. This is an activity that used to always include Delilah and it feels strange to walk down there alone.
Along the way, I took note of a variety of tracks in the snow from a prowling cat and either a fox or coyote. I could see where the snow along the driveway is getting peed on. I wonder if the local animals are noticing that Delilah is no longer marking this territory.
As a punctuation to this thought, last night our motion-sensing light popped on over the deck and I looked out to find a fox on the top step of our deck. We never saw any fox on our deck when Delilah was alive. As soon as I spotted it, it noticed me, did a hasty about-face, and “noped” outta there.
Not long after that, a pack of coyotes started howling up a noise storm from very close proximity. Maybe they were howling at the moon.
Thinking about it, that moon looked a lot like one of Cyndie’s fresh-baked Russian tea cake cookies.
Howl-worthy, indeed.
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Noticing Things
Lately, when Delilah and I step out of the house at the beginning of our walks around our property, I hear a wild turkey gobbling through the trees in the neighboring woods. Just one or two calls and then just quiet. It occurred to me the bird is probably alerting others to our presence. I have yet to spot any gobblers moving around.
At first, I wondered why he would give himself away like that but after failing to ever catch a fleeting glimpse, despite staring intently in the direction of the sound while we slowly made our way down the perimeter path, I realize he hasn’t given himself away at all. He’s just alerting others to seek immediate concealment.
It works.
The narrow path we cleared through the middle of our woods –which we’ve taken to calling the “middle trail”– has become our new favorite. After frequent commands to Delilah to “take the middle trail,” she now hesitates when we approach it, anticipating the call. There are plenty of times when I am more than happy to let her choose our route and leave it up to her as to whether we make the turn or not.
Yesterday, she turned onto the middle trail before I had a chance to consider an opinion. It made me happy thinking that she might like that trail as much as Cyndie and I do. Unlike the main perimeter trail, most of which already existed when we moved here and allows plenty of room for ATV travel, the middle trails (there are now several) are intentionally narrow and a little more winding.
The newest portion was cleared over winter this year so we have yet to experience it when green leaves create a much more dense impression of the surroundings. I’m looking forward to finding out how much that changes the experience of traveling that path.
As we exited the trees and made our way along the fence around the hayfield, I noticed an orange cat walking along in the middle, unaware of our approach. When it finally saw us, the cat immediately went into a crouch position and looked as though it was trying to become as flat as possible. Delilah remained oblivious, so the wind must have been in the cat’s favor.
Since the grass in the field is still short, the orange-ness of the cat stood out clear as ever. I think I may have audibly chuckled at it. I also realized there are probably countless times we have walked past an animal that is crouched just out of view and downwind from Delilah’s keen senses to which we were entirely ignorant.
Sometimes they pop out at the last minute and make a run for it. I figure they must hold out as long as possible until deciding the dog has just gotten too close for comfort. Rabbits, grouse, various other birds, and cats have all startled us at one time or another when they suddenly panicked and ran or flew away from beside us.
I’m always amazed when Delilah fails to notice them first.
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The Birds
While walking with Delilah yesterday afternoon, I think we gained an appreciation for what might have inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”
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It’s not about the video image. You gotta have the sound on to get the gist of what we experienced.
When we got close and stopped to check out the chaos, we experienced a wonder of nature when the birds all suddenly fell silent. It’s just fascinating to witness the cooperation of that many birds that have just been shouting up a storm of noise to all understand when it becomes time to get quiet.
Lasted barely a second and the cacophony resumed at full force.
A brilliant spectacle.
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Nighttime Screeching
Two nights in a row now. High pitched snarling, screeching growls in the darkness. We are grateful to be sleeping indoors, even if the sound leaks through our windows and doors enough to be audible. In the cold darkness, it must sound magnitudes more unsettling.
It wasn’t originally obvious what was going on, since we have heard the cries of rabbits being preyed upon, intense yelping from packs of coyotes, and rare screeches from owls in our woods on various occasions. This seemed to hold elements from any and all of those.
When there was no evidence of any carnivore activity to be found on the morning after the first night of terrorizing sounds and the screaming resumed the following night as darkness settled over the land, my suspicions about the source coalesced.
For reasons that completely evade my understanding, both Delilah and Pequenita showed no hint of reaction to the angry creature sounds happening just beyond our walls. They both seem to react to a myriad of other triggering sounds occurring beyond my range of hearing, but this drama that was catching my attention mysteriously meant nothing to them.
I pressed my ear to the glass of the back door to gauge the distance and direction to the source of the creepy screams as I attempted to silently work the latch. As soon as the door cracked open, the sounds stopped. There was no echo, no winding down of conflict, no sounds of movement. Only silence. Instant silence.
Standing motionless outside the door, holding it closed but not latched to avoid making a single sound myself, I hoped to outlast whatever creature it was that was smart enough to respond to my appearance with such immediate disappearance. Was it holding its breath?
I was, mine.
It would have to eventually move. Whatever the screaming was all about couldn’t have just totally ended. If it was some fracas between two animals, the animosity couldn’t have just vanished because I showed up.
They, or it, won. I gave up after a few minutes and went back inside. Undaunted, I headed right to our high beam spotlight flashlight to follow up on my hunch. At the back door again, I switched it on and pointed it toward the high branches of the nearest big tree.
Suspicion confirmed. Two beady raccoon eyes glowed in the light beam.
We had thought the masked bandits weren’t active in the coldest months but research reveals mating can be happening in February and March. Yippy! Up to seven new babies possible in April and May. [sarcasm]
That screaming could be males competing for a single female. Beats me why I only saw one set of eyes in the tree limb when the noise definitely sounded like conflict between two parties.
Time to practice our trapping skills again to see if we can improve on the modest effectiveness we had last summer.
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Treading Widely
Our Belgian Tervuren Shepherd, Delilah, being one high-energy dog, gets multiple opportunities per day to burn off energy in walks around our property. If not, she gets a little stir-crazy in the house. As such, we tread on our paths repeatedly –from every direction, because I like variety.
In the last week, we have received a series of overnight snowfalls when the temperature has been very cold, bringing an inch or two of light powder each time, which has been enough that the trails we walk have needed to get re-packed every other morning. If we were to walk down the middle all the time we would end up with a rather narrow “aisle” of travel through the accumulating snow cover, so I make a concerted effort to walk the edges after new snow in order to keep the packed path nice and wide.
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It makes it look like a large crowd has been taking Delilah for a walk, but it’s just me, three or four times a day.
Once the width has been re-established, I focus my boot steps on knocking down as many high spots as possible with each subsequent pass until the path is groomed smooth like an excellent fat bike trail.
The local wildlife has shown an affinity for following our packed trails as opposed to the deeper snow so Delilah often has a variety of enticing scents to track as we progress. Of course, that means we frequently find ourselves pausing to wait for her to come back to the trail after she followed some footprints that wandered off to the left or right in pursuit of alternate destinations.
When we get the big dumps of snow around a foot or more at a time, I break out the snowshoes to pack these trails. Just a few inches at a time are easy enough to walk through with just boots, which are easier to navigate when we stop to tend to the horses on our morning and late afternoon jaunts.
The middle of the day usually involves a route past the mailbox to pick up the daily snail mail.
When I’m feeling generously adventurous, I’ll grant Delilah the opportunity to bushwhack through the woods wherever her nose leads. Those trips don’t happen as much once the snow gets deeper. Since we just cut a new trail through the middle of a portion of our woods last year, I more often let that be her treat for alternate exploration.
That path doesn’t get the same attention toward widening. It’s more like a rustic side road to our perimeter trail’s main expressway.
Winter tail maintenance at Wintervale is an art! What can I say?
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Reversing Perspective
After our last meager accumulation of snow, we have had a few days of high winds creating small hard-packed drifts that serve as perfect surfaces for wildlife tracks. Using Delilah’s prints (that mostly break through the crust) for reference, I can tell the other recent traffic was smaller than her. And me.
The most likely first set aligns with our frequent sightings around the property: neighbor cats. My guess on the other prints is a fox.
I took a closeup of a couple of the smaller prints and got another perfect specimen for the optical illusion of “reversing perspective.”
You can either see the prints as raised bumps in the snow as if the light is shining from the upper left, or you can see them as they truly are, depressions with the light coming from the bottom left.
How flexible is your mind? Are you able to flip the perspective at will and alternatingly see it from both perspectives? Oftentimes, switching from one to the other can be hard for our vision to do.
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My City
I live in a city in the country. A place characterized by a specific attribute. My city is populated by leaves. Leaves and sticks. And mud, when the weather is wet. My city is constantly changing. There are animals and animal dung. There are births and deaths.
Is it murder when one animal kills another?
Not according to this definition:
“the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.”
Doesn’t apply to animals.
My city has common routes of travel shared by many. There are also back alley shortcuts to get from one place to another. There is traffic night and day.
Our house is the city center, the hub of all activity. From here, energy radiates in every direction. There are constant battles waged against unwelcome invading plants and critters.
The invasion of cold temperatures appears to have quashed the zeal of microorganisms living in the only remaining active pile of composting manure. I won’t fight the issue. The pile will be there when warmth returns next spring. I’ve witnessed piles that cook through the winter and seen many more that go dormant and freeze solid.
This year, we have noticed an atypical increase in the number of mice seeking to move into the city center now that the leaves have fallen to the ground. Do they know something we don’t about what kind of weather this winter will bring?
We are receiving news now that the whitetail deer population has contracted the coronavirus in substantial numbers. Since they lack the infrastructure for getting vaccinated, it gives us added incentive to get our booster shots. I’d rather not wear a mask when walking through the woods.
Imagine the opportunity for the virus to morph again while it is spreading uncontrolled through the deer population.
We can try to put our city on lock-down but policing the traffic that crosses our borders is beyond the reach of our security forces.
My city will take its chances.
We are more concerned about a threatened strike by the snowplow driver.
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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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Relative Something 