Tragedy Strikes

I've seen some tragic wildlife moments lately. All seem to involve young animals.

The First One
On Sunday I decided to hit the Farmer's Market in Keene Valley - always a good time. I headed up the Blue Ridge Road, a scenic drive between two wilderness areas (the High Peaks and Vanderwacker). The first part of this road is windy and hilly, so the smart traveller drives slowly. This usually frustrates the idiot traveller, who just wants to get where he/she is going. So, of course, I had an impatient driver behind me. As soon as we hit the more open and straight section of the road, this car blew by me. It was less than a minute later that it happened.

I saw a small mink emerge from the left shoulder of the road to make a dash across the macadam. I watched in horror as it was just missed by the front left tire. But as it passed in front of the front right tire, it disappeared from view, only to reappear in a flash, tumbling tail over tea kettle and into the grassy verge. The car sped on, oblivious.

To the left, I saw two more small minks stick up their heads from the roadside. Where was their compatriot? I pulled over, thinking that I'd forego the Farmer's Market if I found the injured animal; if it lived and looked like it might survive, I'd drive it to our local rehabber. I searched the grasses but found no sign of the animal. Hoping it was only bruised and battered, but not mortally wounded, I climbed back in my car and pulled away.

I had Toby with me, and we hadn't gone but a few feet when he had his nose sniffing out the front window. Then I smelled it, too - the unmistakable musk of the weasel clan. Either the animal had indeed been injured, or it had been frightened by its flight through the air. I didn't stop. Maybe it lived, maybe not. I don't think the people in the other car even saw it - too busy chatting and not watching the road.

Incident #2: The Bluebirds
Last night Toby and I walked the golf course again. I decided to check the nestbox that had the four fledglings earlier in the week. When they reach about a week and a half to two weeks old, one shouldn't check the nest box in case one forces them to fledge too early. So, I figured I'd just scope things out, but wouldn't open the box.

When we arrived on the first hole, I saw one of the parents sitting on top of the box. It seemed the young were still inside. I tapped gently on the side of the box to see if this would get a reaction. Nothing. But it didn't smell good. Something was wrong. Carefully I eased the nail out of the door and lifted it open. One small chick stood in the box, trying to vanish into a corner, while under its feet were the rotting corpses of its three siblings.

What had happened?!? They were all fine Monday! They had survived the heatwave of the previous week. Sure, it had been hot and humid this week, too, but not quite as bad. Whatever the reason, they had perished.

I couldn't leave the lone chick standing in an abattoir, so I reached in and lifted it out. It didn't struggle at all. While holding it (and the dog's leash), I pulled out the soiled nest and lobbed it into the woods. I needed some dry grass to refill the nest box, but that is difficult to come by on a golf course, especially yesterday, when we'd had over an inch of rain. Leaving the door open, I carried the chick across the fairway to some tall grasses. They were relatively dry, so I grabbed a handful and returned to the nest box. One of the parents was again sitting on top and flew away as I approached. Had it seen the box empty, and me carrying off its offspring?

I wrapped the grasses around my hand (not easily done with a chick and a dog occupying the other hand) and stuffed them into the box, making a substitute nest. Then I placed the chick inside, closed the door and replaced the nail. Toby and I retreated up the cart path. I wanted to wait until I saw one of the adults go into the box, because I was concerned that they might abandon it, having already seen it completely empty while I was scrounging for nest material.

I watched as the parents flew around, catching insects on the grass, perching in the trees or on posts to eat them. It seemed like forever, but was likely only a couple minutes, before one of them flew into the nest box and was greeted with the high-pitched chirps of the baby. All was well.

I hate to disturb them again, but I may check the box this weekend just to be sure that Junior is still doing okay. Maybe I'll bring the rest of the mealworms I have in my fridge. (Hm...wonder if they are still alive!)


Incident #3: The Deer
This one isn't quite so tragic. This morning T and I were walking along the highway when I heard a metallic ringing noise, like someone was rattling chains. As we cleared the shrubbery, I saw the source: a young deer had found itself "trapped" on the ball field. As I watched, it repeatedly flung itself into the chain link fence that wrapped around the outfield. The fence doesn't surround the whole ball field, but the deer didn't know this. I thought for sure it would break a leg, or even its neck, in its panic.

On the other side of the fence, were a doe and a buck. They stood there and watched as the young one tried again and again to jump through the fence. Finally, it found the end and took off across the side road, disappearing beyond the community garden.

Toby had discovered the deer by now and was barking furiously, which probably added to the stress of the young one, spurring it to flee along the fence to freedom. The two older animals simply ignored him. After the young one had vanished, they continued to stare through the fence as if to say "Where did it go? Should we keep waiting for it?"

Toby and I continued our walk, and turned the corner, passing the route the young one had taken in its flight to freedom. I kept an eye on the adults to see what they were going to do. They decided to cross the highway. Bound-bound-bound, and the doe was across. Bound-bound, the buck crossed, too. Then, out of nowhere, a third deer, either a doe or another youngster, made a mad dash across the highway to join the other two. The young one who had difficulty with the fence had disappeared in the other direction. Would they eventually all meet up again, or had the family unit given it up as lost? I'll have to keep my eyes open for the Winebrook deer herds to see how this saga turns out.

It's a rough life out there in the wild. We humans, and our pets, should really appreciate how easy we have it.

Weasel Wanderings

This morning was rather dark and dismal outside. It had tried to rain overnight, so there was a coating of ice on the car and the snow had a light crust. I was running late, so Toby got a short walk. For a change of pace, we detoured up to an abandoned property where kids ride dirt bikes in the summer and snowmobiles in the winter. I'm glad we did for I found this wonderful weasel trail, which included a slide:

I came back afterwards with the camera because I don't have any weasel tracks in my photo collection yet. I suspect this is a long-tailed weasel because they are the most common. If we were in England, this would be a stoat (short-tailed weasels are also stoats, apparently; to them a "weasel" is the least weasel, which you'd have to go up to Canada to find here).

The slide measures about 2" across.

Here's a shot looking up the slope. You can see where the weasel came from the woods and apparently did a little investigating.

After it slid down the wee slope, it bounded across the road, leaving these 2x2 tracks behind, which are typical of the weasels. The tracks were filled with snow, so they weren't too fresh. This animal may have come by sometime in the early night (it snowed a bit after it rained), or the tracks could've been from the previous night. I'm leaning more towards that because of the amount of snow in the tracks. It snowed quite hard a couple times during the day yesterday, resulting in about a half inch of new snow, which looks about right in these tracks.

A fox had passed by last night, too. Because I've seen grey foxes here, I'm pretty sure this is a grey fox trail. The tracks to the right show the typical "C" or rotary gallop, curving to the left. The tracks on the left are mine.

For comparison, here are my dog's tracks:

I can tell you he was pacing (a type of trot, where both the left feet move at the same time, then the right, then the left - like pacers at the race track) because that's his basic gait. Pacing is not a normal gait for most animals. Camels come by it naturally, and horses can be trained to do it. Looking at the tracks, though, you really can't tell this is what he's doing - you have to see the animal in action to note it. What you can see here, however, is each foot making its own track (no double registers here, where the hind foot lands where the front foot landed), and basically a sloppy pattern. Domestic dogs, for the most part, are not the efficient travellers their wild bretheren are.

So, here's a closer look at the fox's gallop:

With canines, the front feet are larger than the back (they are supporting more weight than the hind feet). In the gallop the feet land front-front-hind-hind, both hind feet coming down in front of the front feet. This animal was travelling from right to left in this photo, so the left-most tracks are the hind feet.

I took a close-up of one of the front footprints because I wanted to verify the size for grey fox. When measuring tracks, you want to measure the impressions made by the foot pads at the bottom of the print, not the hole in the snow, which is bigger than the actual foot. This foot measures about 1 6/8" ; on average a grey fox front foot measures 1 3/8 - 1 7/8", so this falls within the range.

And, of course, there is always the ubiquitous deer trail.

Spring Continues

In another three or four weeks we should start to see bluebirds in Newcomb. They are already nesting and laying eggs along the Champlain Valley, but here in the Central Adirondacks things are usually a few weeks behind.

So, in preparation for the arrival of our bright blue thrushes, I was out cleaning and soaping up the ceilings of the nestboxes on the bluebird trail put up by High Peaks Audubon on the High Peaks Golf Course here in town. We have eleven boxes on the golf course and every year at least two have bluebirds in residence. Last year we lost all the babies just before they were due to fledge...no one knows why. Other nestbox users we get are wrens (nestbox full of twigs), chickadees (nest of moss - very sweet), red squirrels (box packed with grasses - have removed two nests already this last week), and wasps (ugh). We found several wasp nests from last year in the boxes and scraped them out with a spatula. This is where the soap comes into play: supposedly wasps will not build nests in boxes where soap has been applied to the ceiling. So, armed with my bar of Ivory, I set out to soap the boxes on Friday. All went well...until I ran into the nest that already had a wasp checking it out. I immediately left the box and went to soap it's companion box, giving the weapon-laden insect a chance to vamous. When I returned the wasp was gone and I applied the soap with gusto. We'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, Saturday morning while Toby and I were on our walk, I saw my first mockingbird of the season. I never hear them up here like I used to the four and a half years I worked in NJ - there the mockers were like fleas on a dog - very common. Up here, though, I think they are more of a novelty, at least in our town. The lone forsythia bush at the end of my street was putting out some yellow blossoms on its lower branches, a sure sign of spring.

But the best sighting of the day came late in the afternoon while I was wrestling the wrototiller across the lawn (in theory tilling it up for more veggie beds). In my peripheral vision I saw Toby dash down the side of the yard toward the back fence. I looked up to see what had caught his attention just in time to see what looked like a white hankie being dragged across the grass and through the fence: an ermine! This was the first all-white weasel I have seen! Now I can't say for certain if it was indeed an ermine (short-tailed weasel) or if it was a long-tailed weasel: it was moving too fast for me to see the tail. And if it hadn't been still in it's white winter coat, I never would've seen it at all! I'm hoping it takes up residence near the yard because when the snow melted I saw the depredations of last summer's bumper crop of rodents: a vast number of vole tunnels all over the lawn (and chew marks on several shrubs and apple tree branches). So the weasel is welcome to hunt there whenever it wants. It can even bring it's friends and relatives; the more the merrier!

Snow is in the forecast for this week, and rain. We need the rain, but I can live without the snow. All this balmy summer-like weather has put me in the mood for gardening, and one can't really put in one's veggies when there is snow on the ground.

My Favorite Marten

I am particularly fond of weasels. I used to have pet ferrets, so I find weasels to be endlessly fascinating. Sadly, most of us rarely get to see these slinky mammals.

Here in the Adirondacks, we have six native weasels: short-tailed (aka: ermine), long-tailed, mink, marten, fisher, and river otter. I have been lucky to have seen each species over the years I have worked as a naturalist, the last to be added to my life list being the marten.

Both the short- and long-tailed weasels are quick-change artists: they are brown in the summer and white in the winter. And both sport a black tip on the end of the tail. The least weasel, which may or may not be present in the northern most part of the state, turns all white in the winter. The only time I have seen a weasel in its winter coat was unfortunately a roadkill. Never-the-less, their tracks abound in the winter snow.

I must say I was very disappointed with my first mink. Somehow, in my mind they were much larger than they are in reality. I suspect this was due to mis-identification of critters when I was young. Still, minks are the weasel I have probably seen the most. My most memorable mink encounter was a couple winters ago. I was snowshoeing along one of our trails at work, and I stopped to look into the water along the bridge crossing the Rich Lake Outlet. As I looked, I saw a string of bubbles rise to the water's surface. Within moments, a mink surfaced on a rock, shook, and dove back in, only to re-emerge a short distance along. It scooted across the rocks and into a hole near one of the bridge's supports. Over the course of that winter, I kept an eye on this location. Come summer, this mink had an entire family with it - five young and two adults were now seen swimming and feeding around the bridge.


The marten, ah, the marten. The photos here are of my first marten. About four winters ago I had put out some homemade "suet" at our bird feeding station here at work. A marten discovered this mix and for a few weeks was almost a daily visitor to the back deck. That was definitely the Year of the Marten, for not only did I see this one, but I frequently saw one down near the town's pump house along the Hudson River when Toby and I went for our walks. FYI: the marten, AKA the American marten (Martes americana), is often mistakenly called a pine marten (Martes martes). The pine marten is a species from northern Europe. Two entirely different species. One should consider oneself lucky if one sees a marten - they are very secretive animals.

Our other very secretive weasel is the fisher. This weasel is our largest native land-dwelling weasel. We have a beautiful taxidermied specimen at work of a male that weighed about 19 pounds. This was an exceptionally large fisher. I've only seen a fisher twice, and both times they were in the road. One dashed across the highway in front of my car early one spring morning as I was driving to a meeting. The other was feeding on something in the middle of the road one blizzardy winter night over near Long Lake. Both the marten and the fisher were hunted almost to extinction in New York. Today, thanks to the DEC and it's wildlife management programs, both are recovering well. As a matter of fact, the fisher has even expanded its range beyond the Adirondacks, and it accounts for many of the supposed "black panthers" people spot down state.

Lastly, we have the river otter, our most playful of mammals, and our largest weasel. This water-loving weasel keeps a large home range, often travelling several miles up and down it's chosen watercourse. I've only seen an otter once since I've been up here (captive ones not counting), but I see their tracks and slides all the time along the trails here at work.

Fun Weasel Fact: weasels have five toes on their front feet as well as their back feet. This can help you identify weasel tracks (if you can actually see footprints). More on animal tracking to come.