Posts Tagged ‘wildlife’
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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Dancing Cranes
Cyndie is home again! She received a wonderful greeting from Delilah, got ignored by Pequenita, adored by me, and most surprising of all, warmly loved by all the horses. She said they were all behaving like the four Arabians we used to have, showing that same desire to receive attention from her.
On Friday morning, she was cleaning the waterer and heard the sound of horses snoring.
We can’t remember the last time we saw them lay down for naps while either of us was around. The serenity didn’t last for long, though.
Two sandhill cranes made an appearance in the hayfield. The trumpeting vibrato trills of sandhill cranes have been reverberating for weeks from a dry creek bed beyond our trees in a neighboring field. Yesterday, they showed up in plain sight and grabbed the attention of the horses.
Cyndie recorded from a vantage point where she could capture both the horses and the two posturing, squawking cranes. Wait for their hopping around toward the end…
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Today, we host a gathering of some of my family. Siblings and kid cousins will be here for a long-overdue get-together.
We will probably remind the horses of the sandhill cranes, but without the dancing.
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Night Sounds
With the present summer weather about as perfect as could be, we had our windows open the last few nights while we slept. Or, tried to sleep. Our resident owls have been wonderfully vocal with each other lately, opening with a long, classically owl sounding, “Whooooo,” but quickly followed with a repeating variation of short shout-like hoots.
At least two of them have been calling back and forth at noticeably different distances from our house. Last night, that seemed to trigger one of our neighbor’s dogs to do some shouting of its own.
The next time I unintentionally surfaced from the depths of precious slumber, the lovely sound of a songbird was resonating strongly through the forest. In the predawn darkness, it revealed morning light would be appearing soon.
Underlying it all, the continuous drone of crickets, tree frogs, or both paved the foundation for a comforting summer night soundtrack.
What we haven’t heard recently is the howling and yipping of coyote packs, so maybe they have figured out there are no chickens left to steal here and moved on to harass some other property.
Cyndie spotted another young family traipsing across our backyard early one morning last week.
Wild turkey parents were parading a brood of young ones along the edge of the woods.
I guess coyotes must not like turkey as much as they do chicken.
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Trotting Turkeys
Wild turkeys are no longer as rare a sight as when I was growing up, but it is still a special treat to have them actually pay a visit up close. Yesterday, we suddenly spotted a batch of them up near the house, out on the driveway. As I stepped toward the window, they noticed my presence and started movement off the driveway. They looked like they would be headed toward the chicken coop and I wondered how that would play out.
Still in my house slippers, I stepped outside as slyly as possible, hoping to avoid scaring them away. It was clear they were aware of me and I wasn’t able to record more than a few seconds of their visit before they disappeared into the woods, taking a path that crossed midway between the house and the chicken coop.
If you click on the image, you can spot movement by some chickens in the distance, to the left of the coop.
From my vantage point, it looked like chickens and turkeys were oblivious to one another. One of the turkeys seemed to be providing a cluck, …cluck cadence as they traversed the nearby trees into the main woods. It was decidedly different from the variety of sounds our chickens make, but with a hint of familiarity, too.
I made sure Cyndie counted only 14 birds in the coop when she closed it up for the night, in case one of those wild turkeys decided to take a crack at domestic life.
There was nobody roosting inside but them chickens.
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Rare Interaction
We interacted in a social way with other humans yesterday! Late February 2021. A milestone. Duly masked for appropriate social behavior in a pandemic, we hosted our friends, Barb and Mike Wilkus to share an appetizer, visit the chickens, and then travel to Pepin for a snowshoe hiking event at YMCA’s Camp Pepin. Afterward, we returned to our house for a light dinner, dessert by the fire, a little banter, and …blink, blink… the night was over.
There will never be enough time to catch up on the year of social interaction we have lost since the pandemic swept the world.
Hanging with friends will never feel fully satisfying until masking is no longer standard procedure.
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Despite the limitations, we happily absorbed every second of the gift of friends who love the outdoors and are up for adventures. Camp Pepin was decked out with ice lanterns along a groomed trail and campfires aglow in the woods for an open house event intended to rejuvenate interest in camp activities that the virus outbreak has squelched.
As the dusk of the hour consumed us, we came upon a familiar scene of a deer carcass that had certainly fed a variety of wildlife.
Looked strikingly similar to the one we found in our woods, antlers, and all.
The weather was perfectly comfortable for winter activity and the treasure of enjoying it with precious friends was a wonderful treat.
It sparks a glimmer of hope for visions of increased opportunities on the horizon in the months ahead. Do we dare begin to make plans again for renewing our old level of interactions with other people as vaccinations reach a greater majority?
That will be one step toward making it happen. Let’s all start making plans now for as normal a summer as possible to help galvanize the future reality we want to happen.
I am emphatically hoping it can play out sans masks.
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Regal Visitors
It isn’t at all surprising that Delilah gets alerted to something and starts barking at the doors and windows. Happens multiple times a day. Yesterday afternoon, seconds after one such flourish, Cyndie commented about all the birds making a racket. She joined Delilah at the door to the deck and quickly exclaimed there were eagles perched in our trees. Four of them.
She stepped out to take a picture and one of the four took flight, no sound but the whoosh of wings.
I joined her at the door in time to see another one fly off.
After several minutes, a third one launched into a gorgeous glide. We fully expected the last one to fly and that would be that, but suddenly two of the flyers zoomed back on the scene. One appeared to consider a landing but the big branch it picked snapped off and fell toward the ground.
With that, all three spread their wings and flew away into the distance.
Other than worrying a little about the health and well-being of our chickens, we are thrilled whenever the majestic bald eagles pay us a visit. More often it’s one or two coasting overhead in the sky making a brief appearance. Finding them perched is a bit of a rarity and offers extended viewing, but four at a time was a first.
I liked that they showed little concern about Delilah’s barking.
Sometimes I wonder what they must think about us and our activities down below them.
I suspect they find us a lot less fascinating than we do them.
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Contemplative Shuffling
It appears that even deer recognize the benefits of walking the labyrinth path. Before we entered, Cyndie took a picture of the footprints on the path.
It looked impressive to see them so perfectly following the trail but after the first turn the deer tracks veered off across the paths and disappeared into the woods. I picked up from there and plodded along on snowshoes to lay down the proper series of turns and pass-throughs to reach the center.
By the time I finished, the overcast daylight was beginning to wane and the color of the image took on a different hue.
There were multiple turns where my double-stack of stones had toppled and were frozen to the ground in the middle of the pathway, but the primary route is now fully established in the base layer of snow. May it remain visible for the duration of snowfall through the end of the season.
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Relative Something 