Search for the Snowshoe Hare

Sunday I decided I wanted to try and find a snowshoe hare, so I headed to a brushy overgrown area where I'd seen the tail end of a hare the weekend before. Logic suggested that if the hare was there a week ago, this was possibly its territory and I'd have a shot of seeing it again.

Browse was heavy in the area. Too high above the snow for hares; must be deer.

This bed was waaay too big for a hare - I could've curled up in it. White-tail deer have been bedding down beneath the conifer boughs.

Nice pile of scats - but too oval for hare, and pointy on one end. Once again, deer.

Further in the trees, we came across some great grouse tracks! (We? Toby, of course, was with me.) Look at how fat those toe prints are! Great evidence of the flaps, or scales, that this bird grows on the sides of each toe to increase its foot size, an adaptation for easier winter travel on the snow. Come spring these scales will have worn off, only to be replaced next fall.

We found some deer hair. The hairs are sheared at the bottom. Uh-oh...did someone become a feast for someone else?

Near the hair was this brown lump. I scuffed it up from the snow with the toe of my boot because it looked interesting. There were hairs stuck to it. It had an interesting texture. Could it be a scat? It's a large scat, if that's what it is (it was about the size of my hand). Might be the animal had rather liquid stools that day. Maybe it ate part of the deer and the food didn't agree with it's digestion? There were no predator tracks around...this was probably an old feeding site.

Mouse tracks - we found some of those:

And there were plenty of snowshoe hare tracks,

but not a snowshoe hare to be found. And we can't blame the dog, because he was with me the week before when I saw the hare. I know what it was...the hares all knew I had my camera with me and they went into hiding. It never fails.

Another One Bites the Dust

This beautiful purple finch feather greeted me in the parking lot this morning. It's a bit rumpled, but otherwise seemed to be in pretty good shape.


I brought it inside to photograph, but found that the color was just not coming out, so I took it out to the back deck for some natural lighting. This is a shot of the back side of the feather,

which is almost as colorful as the front side:

But do you see the tip of the quill there? Here's a closer look at the quill tip - not great, but the best I could get (my camera and macro lens are at home today):

This is a very interesting find. This tells us that this bird didn't just lose a feather as it was flapping overhead. Nope - this bird was likely someone's dinner last night.

So, I've been doing a bit of research into how one determines what predator got this bird. It's not as easy as you might think. Here's what I've found out so far.

If a predatory bird, say a sharpshin hawk, caught this finch and ate it, it would've plucked the feathers out, extracting them from the finch's body with the quill more or less intact. Sometimes, however, raptors will use their toes to grasp the feather (over one toe, under the next, over the third) and pull it out that way. The feather will then have a bend where the toes grabbed it.

My feather has neither an intact quill nor a crimp in the quill shaft, so odds are it was not taken out by another bird. That means it must've been a mammal. To quote Mark Elbroch, "If the tip of the shaft next to the body has been cut, a mammal is responsible."

Okay...so what mammal could it be? We have to take several factors into account here, such as species of bird (and thus size of bird), where the bird hangs out (on the ground, up high in a tree), where the feather was found, how many feathers were found, what pattern the feathers formed (a circle, a clump), if the carcass present, etc. In my case, it is a single purple finch feather, found in a parking lot, and no other evidence around.

Purple finches are perching birds, so they are most likely to be up in the trees. What predator could've taken a bird from a tree? Not likely a canine. A raptor, certainly, but we already eliminated this option. A weasel? I know martens and fishers will climb trees, and I suppose the long- and short-tailed weasels will, too, since they have been spotted on things like deer rib cages that are hung in trees for the birds.

Could this finch have been on the ground for some reason? It's possible. That opens up the predator possibilities; now canines could be an option.

Purple finches are not terribly large birds. Would a coyote try to catch one? Probably not - it would likely be a difficult catch for a coyote, and not enough bang for the buck, so to speak. A fox, however, might easily go for a small bird on the ground. A finch would maybe yield as much substance as a mouse. Weasels, too, would be hunting for anything on the ground. A finch would be a good catch for a long- or short-tailed weasel.

So now we look at how this feather was broken. With canine kills, you are most likely to find feathers cut off in clumps. Canines use their back teeth (carnassial) to do this, teeth that are designed to shear food into pieces they can manage. As you can imagine, if the feathers are worked towards the back of the mouth, sticking out the side, they are going to get coated with a fair bit of saliva where the mouth, tongue and lips are working at the quills. Therefore, you are likely to find the lower part of the feather's vane clumped together with spit. Canines will also pluck feathers, removing them with their quills intact.

Since I didn't find a clump of feathers, and the vane is not saliva-coated, we can probably eliminate canines from the list of suspects.

What about weasels? Here's what Mark Elbroch has to say about weasels defeathering birds: "Weasels also shear off sections of feathers, but the length of the shear will be short, and if continued, it will vary in angle with each bite." He continues, "...the overall appearance of the sheared edged may be ragged."

On page 294 of Elbroch's Bird Tracks and Sign, there's an illustration of feather damage caused by various predators. The topmost illustration (A) is of junco feathers that a long-tailed weasel removed. The quill damage sure looks like what we see on the purple finch feather above.

Final conclusion: I suspect a weasel, probably long-tailed since they are the most common around here, had a nice finchy snack last night.

Death of a Goldfinch

Yesterday we found this deceased American goldfinch (Carduelis tristis) on the back deck. Did it hit the window? Did it have sudden heart failure and drop out of the sky? The answer has not been forthcoming. Still, not one to let any deceased thing pass by unnoticed, I brought it in and snapped a few photos. While one can be saddened by the death of a fellow traveller on this good earth, such events allow us to take a good close look at those we usually only encounter at a distance.


Based on the still rather olive-drab coloring of the feathers, we believe this is a female. Already the males are starting to look a bit brighter.

The double white wing bars are usually quite visible, especially on the males when they are in their breeding plumage. The rest of the wing is a beautiful black, which contrasts stunningly with the male's brilliant lemon yellow feathers. Even on the duller females, the wings are rather lovely.

A buffy-grey belly also suggests that this is a female. In the winter her belly is described as a "dirty white" - almost as if she hadn't boiled her linens in quite some time.

I happen to find the tail to be quite striking. Unlike many songbirds with flat or rounded tails, the goldfinch has an almost swallow-like tail.

This has been a goldfinch winter in Newcomb, kind of like my first winter here was. It seems somewhat appropriate, seeing as how this may be my last winter here.

The trees at home are filled with goldfinches off and on throughout the day. They flit from tree to feeder to ground to tree, no doubt making the rounds of all the feeders in the neighborhood. While the bird feeding stores and books encourage bird feeding enthusiasts to purchase nyjer for these small finches, you will find that they just as happily consume the cheaper black oil sunflower seeds. In fact, I find they eat more sunflower seeds than nyjer...at least at my home.

Goldfinches, also known as wild canaries, are generally birds of open areas: weedy fields, orchards, roadsides, backyards (and front yards), farmer's fields. No doubt this is because these areas support their favorite food, the seeds of "weedy" plants such as thistles, mullein, teasels, and asters. While seeds make up the majority of the goldfinch's diet, it also eats insects (especially good for rapidly growing nestlings), tree buds, maple sap, and berries. Overall, however, this bird is designed to be a seed eater. It's conical bill, and super flexible feet enable it to get seeds from sources other birds can't access. It is not uncommon to see a goldfinch hanging upside down on a flower or bird feeder, or even a hummingbird feeder as it sips water from the ant trap.

I remember as a kid watching as half the dandelions in the yard suddenly took wing and disappeared - goldfinches happily eat dandelion seeds. It was then, too, that I learned that these cheery little birds are one of the latest nesters we have - the male doesn't begin his courtship routine until late July. This is probably because, as seed eaters, food sources are not as abundant in the spring. Seeds are not only necessary for sating the appetites of hungry nestlings, but the down of many summer plants, like thistle, milkweed and cattails, is used to line the cup-like nests. An interesting factoid I just found out about goldfinch nests is that they are so tightly woven that they can actually hold water! As you can imagine, this could be a death knell for nestlings if the weather brings heavy rain storms, but even so, it is impressive.

You can always tell if you have a flock of goldfinches in the neighborhood for they fly with a dipping, undulating motion. And as they fly they sound like they are calling "potato chip, potato chip, potato chip."

New Jersey claims the goldfinch as its state bird. Could anyone ask for a more cheerful mascot?

Frigid Fridays

The Weekend Weather Report for

5 February - 8 February 2010

Friday, 5 Feb.: Mostly cloudy with increasing sunshine as the day progresses. High near 26*F, low around 0*F. Calm winds becoming SW around 5 mph.

Saturday, 6 Feb.: Mostly sunny, with a high near 23*F and a low near -4*F. Calm wind becoming east between 4 and 7 mph.

Sunday, 7 Feb.: Mostly sunny, with a high near 16*F and a low near -5*F.

Monday, 8 Feb.: Partly sunny, with a high near 17*F and a low near -3*F.

*** The weather is subject to change without notice. ***

We currently have about a foot of snow. Of this, the top inch and a half or so is new fluff (as of Thursday), which is on top of a good solid base. Great conditions for animal tracking, good for snowshoeing, fair for skiing.

Do Your Part for Avian Science

Next weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), when thousands of people across North America (and Hawaii) will be watching for feathered visitors in their yards, at nature centers, and along trails and roadways.

You, too, can be part of this crowd!

All you need is a minimum of 15 minutes. You can do it one day or all four. Just sit by your window and count how many birds you see. You'll also want to take note of what species they are. Then you go to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's GBBC webpage and enter your data. It's as easy as that.

Want to learn more? Then visit www.birdcount.org and check it out.


Happy Birding!

Winter Ramblings

Alrighty - I'm back on the scene here. Busy days - had a program with a garden club first thing in the morning my first day back - had to come in early to get the jeep and drive to the club's meeting (about an hour away). Today we had our first school group of the winter in for our tracking and snowshoeing program - great kids. So, at long last, I have a moment to get some stuff on the blog.

For lack of anything exciting, here are just some random shots from various walks while I was "on vacation."

First up, we have Ray's snowman, all completed. This was before all the wind and rain hit, so he's looking pretty good still.


Down at the pump house on the Hudson River, the mice had been very active. Now, admittedly, this could've all been the work of one industrious mouse. It had been over a week since we had had any snow, so these tracks could be the accumulated trips of several days/nights.

My friend Pat asked me to come by her house to identify some mystery tracks over the weekend. They turned out to be from the neighbor's dog. But, I also got a tour of the property to look at other tracks. Fox and birds dominated, but they also have a marten that visits regularly. Why? Here's the answer:

Hanging your turkey carcass outside is a great way to attract weasels and birds. Here's a chickadee enjoying a late morning snack:

After checking out the scene at Pat's, Toby and I went for a walk down along the Hudson. This portion is not a section I visit too often. Here we have the view downstream from the bridge. Lots of rushing water over frozen rocks.

Looking upstream from the bridge, things are a lot calmer. The ice is tempting to walk on, but I'm not quite that stupid - thin spots could be almost anywhere above that moving water.

The town has put a snowmobile trail along the river at this point (to the right side of the water in the above photo). I didn't hear any machines out there, so Toby and I walked down the snowmobile trail. I know that beavers, deer, moose, et al have all travelled this corridor, so I was hoping for some good finds. The first (and best) find was this lovely grouse feather:

Right after I snapped the photo, I heard a grouse take flight in the trees behind me. Dang! I was hopeful that I might see another one, but no such luck.

The buds on the speckled alder were swollen and fuzzy. Maybe the very mild weather we had early last week gave them some hopeful thoughts that spring was on the way. These were surely dashed when the temps plummeted several degrees below zero a couple days later.

Are these icy shelf fungi? Nope, just icy shelves! I suspect that the water from all the rain last week brought the stream level up, froze, and then the liquid drained out into the river leaving the ice high and dry.

We walked most of the way down the trail, but I could feel the wind picking up at our backs, so I knew we had better turn around soon. When we did, it was face-first into an increasing gale, and I didn't have a hat with me (who knew we'd go for a walk here?). Much of the trail is out in the open along the river, so getting back to the trees and seeing this (photo below) was a very welcome sight!

On my way back from the garden club's meeting yesterday, I stopped at a small wetland along Butternut Flats, a short stretch of road just south of Pottersville. It was a beautiful morning and there were some interesting things in the wetland, like this old nest that has seen better days:

What really caught my eye was all these raised ice shelves:

The wetland was filled with them:

I suspect their existence is the result of the same rain that made the ones I found along the river last week.

And finally, our special visitor from yesterday:

This sleepy barred owl put in an appearance just off our back deck and was here off and on most of the day. Apparently it was here for a while yesterday, too. It's probably scoping out the mouse (and squirrel?) situation at the bird feeders.

So there you are - a quick fix from the Adirondacks. Enjoy!

On Vacation

Just in case anyone is wondering where I am this week, I took the week off to look for jobs, and to use up some time (use it or lose it, y'know).

So, I probably won't have any posts this week. Stay tuned...I'll be back next week.