Welcome to a photographic journey through the fields, woods, and marshes of New England

Here I’ll be sharing some of my favorite photographs from my forthcoming book Naturally Curious. I’ll be updating my blog periodically with new images, new stories, and more glimpses of New England in all seasons.

FISHER FOOD

Unlike their name implies, fishers do not often prey on fish…however, they do eat porcupines, snowshoe hares, grouse, rabbits, squirrels, shrews, carrion (mostly deer and moose) and some vegetation. According to Whitaker and Hamilton (Mammals of the Eastern United States) food required for a fisher is estimated at about one snowshoe hare per week, a squirrel or two per week, or two to 22 mice per day – a porcupine feeds a fisher for about a month. These prey must have been allusive for the fisher I followed, for it spent energy digging up a hibernating American toad under several inches of snow. Probably because of the toxic fluid in the toad’s warts and glands, the fisher chose not to eat it, but left the toad for someone even hungrier than himself.