Other Tracks

This morning I followed my fox down the hill to the lake. By "followed," I mean I walked next to his footprints, and by "my fox," I only mean the local one who lays dainty beaded necklaces of tracks all over my yard and across my doorstep. Since we haven't had much fresh snow, tracks of many ages were visible. The newest ones seemed to be the tidy foot pads pressed into the smooth snow of my Mukluk prints. Older ones, messy and deep, were made when the snow was fresh and soft. Some tracks show where he floated across the crusty snow, and those were dusted lightly with graupel snow like powdered sugar on gingerbread.

Last week, behind the garage, I found a mess of his tracks around a small lump of leaves covered in snow. Two bright yellow dabs of urine indicated that this was a scent mound, used for marking his territory. Male members of the dog family, Canidae, will use raised leg urination (RLU) to let others in the area know that this territory is taken and defended.

You may think I'm crazy, but I got down on my hands and knees and sniffed the urine. Red fox and gray fox urine each have their own unique scents. Both are slightly skunky, but the red fox smells much sharper and stronger, while the gray fox's scent is mellower. The smell test confirmed that I've been tracking a gray fox. This scent marking is also why I've been referring to my neighbor as "he." By the end of last winter I had noticed enough side-by-side fox trails to be confident that my yard housed a pair of foxes. I don't have enough evidence yet to be sure that the female is still around, but this is the beginning of mating season, so I may know soon.

Back at the lake this morning I found a gray fox highway. Perforating the snow were at least eight different sets of tracks going in many directions along the edge of the ice and up onto shore. Some could be the vixen's tracks, although I don't have a good way to tell since male and female gray foxes are essentially the same size. One of the trails was very different, definitely not a fox.

The odd trail looked like Morse Code, with clumps of dots connected by five-foot long dashes. The dots were tracks, each a little less than three inches long. Five toes dug in asymmetrically above each rounded foot pad. In the troughs, three grooves paralleled the direction of travel. This pattern embodies the playful spirit of an otter running a few steps to push off, and then sliding belly-first across the ice. The grooves were from forelegs, held tight to its sides, and its tail, which acts as rudder both on land and in water. One of the many sets of fox tracks was placed neatly down the center of each otter slide, facing in the opposite direction.

"He has no words, still what he tells about his life is clear..."

This "run, run, slide" is one of my favorite tracking stories, and the one I was hoping to find last week on the opposite shore of Lake Namakagon. I have yet to see the otter making his (or her) tracks, but I have laughed with friends trying to imitate these playful creatures. Mary Oliver also interprets Otter's life through his body language, and in her poem, "Almost a Conversation," she infers:

"He does not own a computer...

He wonders, morning after morning, that the river

is so cold and fresh and alive, and still

I don't jump in."

Tracking Stories (combined)

This morning I followed my fox down the hill to the lake. By "followed," I mean I walked next to his footprints, and by "my fox," I only mean the local one who lays dainty beaded necklaces of tracks all over my yard and across my doorstep. In the delicate trails woven through hemlocks, along fallen logs, to and from the compost pile, and zigzagging down the driveway, I hear poet Mary Oliver give my wild neighbors a voice…“Listen, says fox, it is music to run over the hills” (Straight Talk from Fox in Red Bird)

Music…reading…both are wonderful metaphors for animal tracking. The recent snows are an excellent tracking medium, and noticing tracks can make the woods come alive. Last week, behind the garage, I found a mess of the fox’s tracks around a small lump of leaves covered in snow. Two bright yellow dabs of urine indicated that this was a scent mound, used for marking his territory. Male members of the dog family, Canidae, will use raised leg urination (RLU) to let others in the area know that this territory is taken and defended.

You may think I'm crazy, but I got down on my hands and knees and sniffed the urine. Red fox and gray fox urine each have their own unique scents. Both are slightly skunky, but the red fox smells much sharper and stronger, while the gray fox's scent is mellower. The smell test confirmed that I've been tracking a gray fox. This scent marking is also why I've been referring to my neighbor as "he." By the end of last winter I had noticed enough side-by-side fox trails to be confident that my yard housed a pair of foxes. I don't have enough evidence yet to be sure that the female is still around, but this is the beginning of mating season, so I may know soon.

Back at the lake I found a gray fox highway. Perforating the snow were at least eight different sets of tracks going in many directions along the edge of the ice and up onto shore. One of the trails was very different, definitely not a fox.

Large (as long as my entire pointer finger) and with five toes arranged asymmetrically, these tracks bounded along the bank in the 2x pattern. This is a common track pattern in the Mustelidae or weasel family, and we can find half-inch tracks from the least weasel all the way up to four-inch tracks from the river otter and fisher arranged two-by-two down trails in this area. Each set of tracks is the result of the back feet landing exactly in the prints left by the front feet.

Being so close to the lake, I expected the animal to suddenly break into a slide at any moment. River otters will often belly-sled over leaves, mud, ice, or snow, leaving long, foot-wide troughs between short groups of tracks. I walked faster as we followed the trail over logs, down near alders on the shore, and under balsam fir branches. Not once did they break from the 2x pattern. So, in my notebook, I would record these large weasel tracks as “likely fisher.” These large, dark brown weasels, with a reputation for being inquisitive and ferocious, are an important predator of porcupines in the region. Hunters often share stories of seeing fishers while sitting quietly.

Tracking is always a “probably” kind of game. Any animal can do any gait, and foot size overlaps among many species. While habitat, behavior, scat, kill sites, and many other clues can help with identification, there is always an element of uncertainty.  The sense of a mystery that might not be solved is what keeps me hooked.

Red-cheeked and warm from the walk, practically dancing with joy at the chance to read new stories, I have to say I agree with the fox: it is music to travel over the hills.

Tracking Stories

With fresh snow on the ground I am eager to get out and read the stories of the forest. The deer are following their same patterns, the squirrels are frantic as usual, and a curious vole has been exploring my waterfront, leaving a trail of miniature walking footprints. The foxes are hunting, and in the dainty trails woven through hemlocks, along fallen logs, to and from the compost pile, and zigzagging down the driveway, I hear poet Mary Oliver give my wild neighbors a voice…“Listen, says fox, it is music to run over the hills” (Straight Talk from Fox in Red Bird)

Music…reading…both are wonderful metaphors for animal tracking. These recent snows are an excellent tracking medium, and noticing tracks can make the woods come alive. On a recent cloudy afternoon (we’ve had so many of them!) I took a friend exploring in the woods on Lake Namakagon. We tromped directly to the shoreline, drawn by water’s universal pull. Others had gone this direction not long before.

A foot-wide swath of heart-shaped hooves confirmed that many deer escaped hunting season with their tenderloins intact. Neatly pressed into the wet snow down the center of the deer trail was a narrow line of square-ish, four-toed prints. Tiny claws had made dimples in the snow. Each track equaled the length of my pointer finger to just above my second knuckle. Rarely remembering a ruler, I often measure tracks with body parts, or my lip balm. Had these tracks been a little longer, reaching to just below my second knuckle, I would have guessed their maker to be a red fox. I often see one at dusk along County Highway D not far from here. Instead, these smaller tracks, with their almost cat-like appeal, probably belong to a gray fox.

Tracking is always a “probably” kind of game. Any animal can do any gait, and foot size overlaps among many species. While habitat, behavior, scat, kill sites, and many other clues can help with identification, there is always an element of uncertainty.  The sense of a mystery that might not be solved is what keeps me hooked.

The next tracks we found reinforced the uncertainty factor. Large (as long as my entire pointer finger) and with five toes arranged asymmetrically, these tracks bounded along the bank in the 2x pattern. This is a common track pattern in the Mustelidae or weasel family, and we can find ½ inch tracks from the least weasel all the way up to 4 inch tracks from the river otter and fisher arranged two-by-two down trails in this area. Each set of tracks is the result of the back feet landing exactly in the prints left by the front feet. Squirrels can also leave tracks in this 2x pattern, especially in deep snow, but their tracks are perpendicular to the direction of travel, while weasel prints are at an angle to the direction of travel.

Being so close to the lake, I expected the animal to suddenly break into a slide at any moment. River otters will often slide over leaves, mud, ice, or snow, leaving long, foot-wide troughs between short groups of tracks. I walked faster as we followed the trail over logs, down near alders on the shore, and under balsam fir branches. Not once did they break from the 2x pattern. So, in my notebook, I would record these large weasel tracks as “likely fisher.” These large, dark brown weasels, with a reputation for being inquisitive and ferocious, are an important predator of porcupines in the region. I see fisher tracks regularly and even spotted one from my bedroom window last winter. Hunters often share stories of seeing fishers while sitting quietly.

As the tracks of the fisher faded in the thin snow under thick hemlocks, we turned our tracking eyes to other things. Frozen jelly fungus, vibrant orange with a little snow cap, practically glowed on a fallen log. Tiny birch seeds dotted the snow’s crust, using the smooth surface to disperse farther from their parent tree. The strobili (reproductive structure) of one little green club moss released a bright cloud of yellow spores onto the white drift.

The stories of nature are not confined to animal trails; every object adds a few notes to the symphony or leads to a new chapter of discovery. Red-cheeked and warm from the walk, practically dancing with joy at the chance to read new stories, I have to say I agree with the fox: it is music to travel over the hills.

For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The new exhibit, The Joy of Birds: Feathers in Focus opened in May, 2011. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

Snowy Owl Irruption!

By Katie Connolly, Naturalist at the Cable Natural History Museum

Hello! This is Katie, Naturalist at the Cable Natural History Museum. This week I’m going to take a turn writing Natural Connections, because there is something just way too cool happening right now in the Northwoods! I always get excited about raptors and bird of prey, so you can imagine how much my curiosity was piqued by news of a Snowy Owl irruption this winter.

Snowy Owls spend their summers on the Arctic tundra, raising their young and hunting small rodents like lemmings.  Lemmings on the Arctic tundra go through “boom and bust” cycles.  Some years there are more than enough lemmings to feed Arctic predators and in other years there are hardly any. The availability of prey dictates how far south Snowy Owls will travel in the winter to find food. The fewer lemmings there are up north, the farther south these owls will go. From the high number of Snowy Owl sightings being reported across the state of Wisconsin, scientists have deduced that this is an irruption year. Irruption years caused by lemming shortages occur in a somewhat regular cycle of four or five years. The last irruption Wisconsin experienced was in 2006.

Birders should be on the look-out for this large owl. They are most often seen in areas that resemble their native tundra home, such as large open fields or wetlands. As their name suggests, they are white with black, grey, or dark brown spots and bars. They are also diurnal (most active during the day) so your chances of seeing one are better during daylight hours.

A word of caution: If you do see a Snowy Owl, do your best not to disturb them. The reason they are here is because they are hungry and looking for food. Give them space and admire them from a distance, so they can hunt and catch prey without disruption.

Owls in general capture my attention with their solemn, peaceful stance and their commanding gaze. Their large, liquid eyes seem to delve straight into my soul. Snowies are no exception, with their amber gaze peering through the thick piles of alabaster feathers. No human jacket or parka compares to how efficiently an owl can conserve its body heat, with fluffed up down feathers trapping precious degrees of warmth. Even their feet are insulated with thousands of tiny feathers, covering their bare skin down to the very tips of its talons. The guard hairs around its beak give me a chuckle because they remind me of a thick, bushy, white mustache. 

Ornithologists are predicting that these Snowy Owls will be in our area until as late as March. I’ll be keeping my “owl eyes” sharp, in hopes of spotting one of these predators during their winter vacation to Wisconsin!

For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The new exhibit, The Joy of Birds: Feathers in Focus opened in May, 2011. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

Nature's Decorations

By Lois Nestel, Original Naturalist at the Cable Natural History Museum

From Wayside Wanderings II

How they brighten the winter days, these small fragments of life.  What human decorations can rival those of nature; dark trees trimmed with seeds and cones and snow and graced by living birds of red and gold. 

The day had been lowering and dark with, now and then, a drift of mist or swirl of snow in the air.  A leaden sky above, pearly snow below and a general gray haze blurring the outlines between, made the day as neutral and uninspiring as swamp water.  But as most dark days have their bright spots, so did this one, in the form of birds.

The box elders were decked with ornamental evening grosbeaks, antique gold and black males and the softer, muted tones of the females and immature birds.  The heavy greenish beaks methodically stripped the meaty seeds, letting ravaged wings drift to the sterile snow. An occasional loud voiced group would whirr off to a neighborhood feeder to freeload on expensive sunflower seed and, as freeloaders do, squack loudly for more.

Quieter and more subtly attired, rosy plumaged pine grosbeaks brightened the shadowy spruce and pines as the gleaned seeds from the remaining cones.  Their sweet whispering voices kept a constant murmured conversation through the forest as the flocks moved steadily along, foot by foot, tree by tree.  Where, in autumn, honeysuckle bushes had hung heavy with red fruit, the branches now drooped with the weight of plump, rosy birds feeding on the blackened, shriveled berries.

In apple trees where wizened, frozen fruit still clung, white-winged crossbills gathered in the rusty clusters, swirled to the ground on white-barred, dusky wings and rose to the trees again to dine on the winery remnants; then into the spruces where their strangely twisted, scissor-like beaks easily pry seeds from cones.  These pinkish crossbills are less frequently seen than the red crossbills that are often seen in the pines and on roads where they appear to be picking at the gravel and salt of which they are especially fond.  Red crossbills may be distinguished by the absence of white wing bars and by the dull orange to brick coloring.

How they brighten the winter days, these small fragments of life.  What human decorations can rival those of nature; dark trees trimmed with seeds and cones and snow and graced by living birds of red and gold.  Enjoy them today; tomorrow then may be gone.

Crossbills and Irruptions

Winter often brings interesting things down from the North.  Snow, for one, floats in on cold arctic air that sweeps down from Canada. Earlier in the fall we saw many migrating birds on their way south for the winter.  They often stop in our wetlands and forests to eat and rest. We may also notice retired “snowbirds” migrating on the same routes, zooming along in motor homes and refueling at the nearest Holiday station.  Many birds, and snowbirds, migrate along the same routes every year, and their timing is so precise that phenologists can predict the arrival of the first and the departure of the last of each species to within a few days.

 

Other species are not so orderly, and seem to migrate helter-skelter in regards to date and location. Snowy owls, redpolls, and crossbills are a few examples of these “irruptive species.” To irrupt means to enter an area suddenly, in contrast to the lava erupting out of the volcano suddenly. We don’t see these irruptive species every winter, at least not in any quantity.  Most migrations are driven by food availability, and these are no different.  Have you ever noticed that our fair-weather bird friends are the ones who eat a lot of insects, especially flying insects?  Think of all those warblers, flycatchers, and robins! They skedaddle about the time I put away my insect repellant.

Our year-round residents tend to eat seeds or meat, which are easier to find in the winter than mosquitoes. Goldfinches and house finches are seed-eaters that we can enjoy all winter long. Chickadees must eat the energy-equivalent of about 250 sunflower seeds per day in winter! They don’t just eat seeds, though.  You may have seen them at your suet feeder or pecking at the fat on road killed deer.

 

Crossbills are finches that can survive almost anywhere and nest in any season, as long as they have plenty of spruce or tamarack seeds.  They are a classic irruptive species, which is why Katie Connolly, the Museum Naturalist (and my house mate), was so excited to see a white-winged crossbill in our yard this last weekend!  A quick check on the Wisconsin Birding List (http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/WISC.html), where lots of birders post their sightings, revealed that a hundred or more of these red birds with black and white wings were seen on the Bayfield Peninsula around the same time. 

Crossbills are fascinating creatures that I love to show visitors in the Museum’s Collections Room. In the cabinet of drawers that says “Please Open,” where we keep our study skins (dried bird skins stuffed with cotton), there lie two red birds with funny bills.  Just as their name suggests, their bills are crossed. The lower mandible curves under the upper mandible. They can be either “right-beaked” or “left-beaked,” but just as in humans, right-beaked birds are more common.

To eat, the crossbill slips its beak under the tightly shingled scales of spruce cones and then twists its head, using the curved tip to provide leverage. The scale is lifted just enough for the crossbill to grab the seed.  Crossbills often twist a cone off the tree and take it to a perch.  They extract seeds while holding the cone in one foot and rotating it like an ear of corn. A single crossbill can eat up to 3,000 seeds a day!

During this time of year it is common for flocks of humans to irrupt as well, often congregating in large and gregarious flocks where there is plenty of food. As winter closes in, we are reminded about what it means to share the bounty of this beautiful Earth, and to give thanks for all we have. Happy Thanksgiving!

For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The new exhibit, The Joy of Birds: Feathers in Focus opened in May, 2011. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

Flashes of Red

Now that the trees are stark and bare, the leaves nowhere except, as poet Mary Oliver writes, “underfoot, moldering in that black subterranean castle of unobservable mysteries…” things hidden from us all summer become visible again.  The angles of twigs are drawn precisely against the gray sky, with hornet nests, vireo nests and gouty oak galls as their only adornment.  Withered ferns settle down to reveal the subtle shapes of the forest floor.  Steel gray glimmers of open water weave their way through the trunks and remind me of places I have yet to explore. 

The beauty of “stick season” as I learned to call it in Vermont, is subtle to say the least. After leaf-off and before snow the landscape seems more melancholy.  It’s easy to develop tunnel vision and stop noticing the woods. If we let them, these days of gray skies and brown ground can make us appreciate the bursts of color even more.  Have you seen the winterberry holly in the swamps!?  Bright red berries adorn every inch of every twig on female Ilex verticillata shrubs.  The male flowers occur on separate plants, and can’t produce fruit themselves. Botanists and Greeks call this characteristic “dioecious,” meaning “two houses.”  Being low in fat, the berries last until late winter for two reasons: they don’t go rancid quickly, and they aren’t eaten until other more energy-dense fruits are scarce.  Forty-nine species of birds eat the berries, from bluebirds and catbirds to our old friends the cedar waxwings. 

I’ve seen other flashes of red lately, too -- on my chilly cheeks, in holiday decorations, and on the crests of pileated woodpeckers.  It’s always thrilling to hear their wild laughing call, and see the brilliant flash of their white wing linings as they swoop through forest clearings. My ornithology professor called them “monkeys of the Northwoods” because of their raucous call. Twice last week, (when I was still braving twenty-degree dawns to bike to work,) I saw a pair darting across Highway M, and another pair on Garmisch Road. 

Pileated woodpeckers mate for life, and hold their territory year-round.  The female that startled me out of reading yesterday morning by swooping in for lunch at the base of an oak tree is the same one I eagerly photographed from a second-story window last spring.  You’ve probably noticed their large, rectangular holes in both softwood and hardwood trees.  They’ll drill anywhere they can find carpenter ants, which they extract with their sticky foot-long tongue.  Sometimes the hole is so large and the tree is so small that the trunk snaps right off! 

 

It’s no surprise that scientists and wildlife managers consider them “ecosystem engineers.”  Especially beneficial is their aversion to using the same nest cavity twice.  Every spring the pair will hollow out a new tree, often with two entrance holes, and the abandoned cavities are quickly re-purposed by ducks, squirrels, owls, bats, other woodpeckers, and wasps.  Pileated woodpeckers are the main source of large tree cavities in the forest!  It’s as if one family in the housing development built a new house every year and gave their old one away.

During the period of heavy logging near the turn of the last century, the populations of these crow-sized woodpeckers declined   As forests have recovered, so have the birds.  Though their numbers are slowly increasing, they still face hazards.  In younger forests, pileateds tend to use the oldest, largest trees for their roosts.  These taller trees are lightening rods, and can be dangerous to the young families.

Once snow falls it will be easy to track the woodpeckers’ eating habits.  Fresh woodchips around the base of a tree, or in the ski tracks, are a good reminder to look up.  Not only might you see a striking bird or their fresh excavations, you will jolt yourself out of tunnel vision and be ready to notice the next burst of beauty.

For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470 County Highway M. The new exhibit, The Joy of Birds: Feathers in Focus opened in May, 2011. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.