The Sniff Test
When your quest is to find out as much as you can about the identity, activity, diet and territory of your four-footed neighbors, it is logical to make the most of all your senses. Tracks can be seen, scrapings and bite marks on a tree can be felt and yes, one’s sense of smell can enhance any tracking expedition. Just as the tracks and scat of different species of animals have distinctive characteristics, so does the urine of different animals. Scent marking, including urination, is a behaviour used by animals to identify their territory, and therefore a highly visible sign in winter.
At this time of year, foxes are breeding, and without even putting your nose near where a fox has marked his territory with urine, you can detect its skunk-like odor as you pass by. If you’re so inclined (and I realize many readers may not be) you can heighten your sensory experience as well as your identification prowess by sampling the smell of other animals’ liquid waste. White-tailed deer urine has a pungent, piney smell, quite pleasing to this naturalist’s olfactory receptors. You can detect a porcupine den from a considerable distance by the pungent, very distinctive but hard to describe odor of its urine (which spills out onto and coats the bark of a tree den, thereby advertising the porcupine’s presence). Coyote urine smells very much like a domestic dog’s, and members of the weasel family often have musky-smelling urine, though a recently-sniffed fisher marking had very little scent.
Needless to say, it’s a lot easier to discover and sample urine when there’s snow on the ground and it is more evident. Virginia opossums, snowshoe hares, red and gray squirrels, eastern coyotes, red and gray foxes, raccoons, fishers, mink and striped skunks are all in or entering their breeding seasons, when scent marking is more frequent. Snow is currently on the ground, at least in northern New England. It’s prime time for olfactory activity, if you’re game. (Photo: stump marked by a red fox)
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Common Gartersnakes Brumating
Somewhere between two and four feet (depending on where you live in New England) beneath our feet there is a “frost line” below which the ground water in soil doesn’t freeze. Snakes, being reptiles, are ectotherms, and their bodies assume the temperature of the air around them. In order to avoid being frozen to death in the winter, they retreat below the frost line, where they enter a state called brumation – the cold-blooded term for a state of torpor and inactivity that is not true hibernation, but in which a dramatic slowing down of bodily functions occurs. Crevices in south-facing rocky ledges and abandoned woodchuck, fox and skunk dens (and human cellars) often serve as hibernacula, or winter shelters. Common Gartersnakes are known to gather in large numbers (one Canadian den served as a hibernaculum for 8,000 gartersnakes), in order to concentrate the small amount of heat their bodies produce in the winter.
As the air temperature lowers in the fall, a snake’s body temperature falls and its metabolism decreases dramatically. Gartersnakes actively prepare for this by not eating for several weeks prior to hibernating. This allows all of the food they previously consumed to be completely broken down and absorbed into their system. To enhance this process, gartersnakes bask in the sun both before and during their early days of sheltering in hibernacula, warming themselves so as to increase the rate of their metabolism just prior to hibernating.
Should a snake happen to eat a large grasshopper, earthworm or small frog just prior to entering brumation, the snake may become extremely lethargic due to the slowing down of its metabolism, and the contents of its stomach may not be digested as quickly. The longer it takes to process food in its stomach, the greater the chances that this dead material will start to decay, which could result in serious illness to the snake.
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“…Under them the springtime lies.”
The loss of Mary Oliver prompted me to think about other poets who share Mary Oliver’s connection to the natural world. Among them is naturalist and Maine Literary Award winner Kathie Fiveash, whose published works include Island Naturalist, Earthbound and Broad Brook. Kathie is able to convey the intimate relationship she has with the earth in a lyrical voice that reflects her knowledge, reverence and gratitude. To hear Kathie reading her poem Blanket while viewing beautiful photographs, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rHtxqdyf2w.
Blanket
Take every leaf on every tree
and put its tired green to bed,
and when the green has gone to sleep
and red and yellow lift their heads,
set them shining in the sky,
wild against the blue expanse.
Loosen them and let them fly,
stir the wind until they dance
in airy swirls. Then lay them down
under the gentle hands of rain.
Turn their colors all to brown,
decompose their withered veins,
press them drenched in sodden layers,
freeze them with your icy sighs,
bless them with your wintery prayers.
Under them the springtime lies.
Kathie Fiveash
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Some Cedar Waxwings Have Orange Tail Tips
Cedar Waxwings can be found in most of New England year-round. They are one of the few North American birds that specializes in eating fruit, particularly in the fall and winter. Unlike the Pine Grosbeak (see 1/16/19 post), which crushes the fruit and consumes only the seeds, Cedar Waxwings eat the whole fruit. If it has fermented, they will feel the effects and, like humans, become somewhat tipsy.
If you look carefully at a flock of Cedar Waxwings you may spot one that has an orange-tipped tail, rather than yellow. This has to do with the bird’s diet. Morrow’s Honeysuckle (Lonicera morrowii) was imported in the late 1800s for use as an ornamental, for wildlife food and cover as well as for soil erosion control, but it is now recognized as an invasive plant. Its fruit contains red pigment in addition to the normal yellow pigment found in honeysuckle berries. If a Cedar Waxwing happens to eat enough of the fruit of Morrow’s Honeysuckle at the time of feather formation (they molt between August and January), its tail feathers will have orange tips instead of the usual yellow. Cedar Waxwings with orange tail tips began appearing in northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada in the 1960’s.
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Coyotes Investigating Beaver Lodges
Over the past century beaver trapping has declined and beavers have returned to many of their former habitats. Wolves also have come back in a few areas (not the Northeast yet) — but most places where beavers now live remain free of wolves. As a result, the beaver population has continued to increase, limited only by a few predators, primarily humans and Eastern Coyotes.
Coyotes are major beaver predators and have established themselves throughout the Northeast partly because of the abundance of prey and partly because of the absence of wolves, who keep coyotes out of their habitat. During most of the year, coyotes can take advantage of beavers that leave their pond to feed on land. When they are in their lodges, however, beavers are fairly safe from coyote predation, especially if their lodge is surrounded by water. Come winter, when ponds freeze and beavers remain in their lodges, coyotes can easily approach an inhabited lodge by walking over the ice. Thanks to the lodge’s two to three-foot-thick walls of frozen mud and sticks, the beavers within are safe. (Photo: signs showing a coyote’s attempt to access a beaver lodge)
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Leaf Marcescence
Deciduous trees typically lose all of their leaves by late autumn. However, when snowshoeing or skiing through the woods this time of year, one is likely to find a scattering of deciduous trees that still have leaves clinging tightly to their branches. These plants are exhibiting marcescence, the trait of retaining plant parts after they are dead and dry.
Most deciduous trees form a layer of cells called the abscission layer at the base of each leaf’s stem, or petiole, where it attaches to the branch. This layer is composed of thin-walled cells that break easily, allowing the leaf to drop. A thin layer of corky cells seals the tree at the spot where the leaf was attached. Abcission layers are not formed on marcescent trees such as oaks and the American Beech, all members of the family Fagaceae. Therefore, their leaves do not fall off as readily, and many remain attached through the winter.
The evolutionary reasons for marcescence are not clear, though theories include defense against herbivory (e.g. browsing by deer), protection of leaf buds from winter desiccation, and as a delayed source of nutrients or moisture-conserving mulch when the leaves finally fall and decompose in the spring.
Leaf marcescence is most often seen on juvenile trees, and on the lower branches of older trees.
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Pine Grosbeaks Irrupting in Northern New England
If you live in northern Maine, you see Pine Grosbeaks year-round as this is the southern border of their breeding grounds. Those of us living in central Maine and northern New Hampshire and Vermont, if we’re lucky, will glimpse this member of the finch family only during major winter irruptions. (The rest of New England rarely sees a Pine Grosbeak.) It is an infrequent winter visitor in northern New England, irrupting less frequently and remaining further north than other boreal finches.
This is an irruption winter. Because of the dearth of mountain-ash berries and conifer seeds further north in the boreal forest, Pine Grosbeaks are seeking out crabapple and mountain-ash trees in northern New England.
A flock of Pine Grosbeaks will descend on a tree and strip it of its fruit in no time. Anyone who has watched these entertaining birds feeding knows that they are incredibly agile acrobats, stretching their necks and contorting their bodies in order to reach all available fruit. Once they grab ahold of a crabapple, they squash it with their short, conical beaks. They can look quite comical as the fleshy pulp accumulates on the tops and sides of their beak, as well as on the ground beneath them. The object of their desire and efforts is the seeds within the fruit, which they consume with gusto. If disturbed they will fly en masse to the tops of nearby tall trees where they remain until the perceived danger has passed and then return to continue feeding. (photo: female Pine Grosbeak in crabapple tree)
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Mink and Fisher Tracks
As members of the weasel family (Mustelidae), Fishers and Mink have five toes on both front and back feet. Often all five digits do not register, but in prime tracking snow, you can sometimes see them. Typically, mink tracks are found near a body of water, and fisher tracks are found under a canopy, not in the open. Where you have both water and trees, it’s possible to see signs of both animals.
In general, the larger the animal, the larger its tracks. Mink weigh one to three pounds; fishers four to eighteen pounds. In this photograph, the mink tracks (smaller, in the middle) are heading towards the top of the photograph, and the fisher tracks (top most and bottom most) are heading towards the bottom of the photograph. They were both traveling on a frozen woodland stream.
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Second Edition of Naturally Curious to be Released in June
When I announced last year on my blog that my book, Naturally Curious, was going out of print, the decision by Trafalgar Square Books to issue a second edition had not been made. Happily, they asked me to make some updates, and I can now announce that a new edition is being published and will be available this coming June. It will be available in independent bookstores in June, and can be pre-ordered now on several online bookstores. You can also sign up for notification to pre-order on the publisher’s site, https://www.trafalgarbooks.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NACUNE.
Track Stories
Finally – a snowstorm not followed by rain! Tracking has been challenging, to say the least, this winter in central Vermont. However, 36 hours after the latest snowstorm, there was a plethora of track stories to read in the snow. A ruler or measuring tape and a good field guide to tracks (Mammal Tracks & Sign by Mark Elbroch and Tracking & The Art of Seeing by Paul Rezendes come to mind for indoor resources, and the smaller Mammal Tracks and Scat: Life-Size Pocket Guide by Lynn Levine for keeping in your backpack) will allow you to determine who’s been where and what they’ve been up to. Signs of feeding, marking and seeking shelter are just a few of the things these stories reveal.
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Eastern Screech-Owls Basking
Tree cavities serve not only as nesting sites, but also as winter roosting sites for many species of birds, including Eastern Screech-Owls. Here they perch and soak up the sun’s warmth on cold winter days,with their eyes open just enough to be aware of any activity in the immediate area.
Perhaps the most common owl east of the Rocky Mountains, the Eastern Screech-Owl is best known for its two main calls, which don’t really resemble a screech but are more of a descending “whinny” and a monotone trill. Their vocal repertoire also includes various barks, hoots, squeals, and screeches — hence the common name. Both sexes call, with the female’s call a bit higher than a male. You can hear these calls by going to https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Screech-Owl/sounds.
Eastern Screech-Owls come in multiple forms (polymorphic): rufous, gray and a more rare brownish form. These different forms are not directly tied to age or gender, but vary with region and climate. Gray morph owls are prevalent in colder, drier, more coniferous habitats in the northern and western part of their range. Rufous Screech-Owls are most common in eastern and southerly regions and in humid, deciduous forests. (Thanks to Marc Beerman and Howard Muscott for photo op.)
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Coyotes Scavenge More Deer Than They Kill
Coyotes are considered opportunisitic omnivores and will eat just about anything. As the seasons and the availability of foods change, so does the coyote’s diet. During the summer, coyotes feed upon berries and insects. Small mammals are an important prey of choice during the fall and into the winter. As winter becomes harder and small mammal populations decline, coyotes turn toward their largest prey – white-tailed deer.
It is not uncommon to come upon deer carcasses in the winter which have been cleaned within an inch of their life by coyotes, illustrating their preference for this ungulate. However, the majority of deer carcasses consumed by coyotes are not killed by them, but are discovered as carrion or road kills. Coyotes infrequently kill healthy adult deer. Occasionally, working in packs, they will chase them down. Scat dissection shows that in late spring, coyotes prey on fawns.
A study of coyote predatory behavior in New York state several years ago found that during the winter, only 8% of adult deer carcasses visited by coyotes had been killed conclusively by coyotes. The remaining 92% were scavenged by coyotes after being killed by vehicles and other injuries. The adult deer that were killed by coyotes had severe pre-existing injuries and were likely to die from other causes in the absence of coyote predation.
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Red-breasted Nuthatch Irruption
As a rule, most Red-breasted Nuthatches winter within their breeding range. Irruptive movements southward typically occur every two to four years when conifer cone production on breeding grounds is poor. This fall’s numbers confirm that it is a banner year for Red-breasted Nuthatches in the Northeast, due to their irruptive flights south.
The large number of Red-breasted Nuthatches at our feeders come as no surprise, as this year’s winter bird forecast by Ron Pittaway predicted a Red-breasted Nuthatch irruption due to the poor spruce seed crops in much of the eastern boreal forest. Even so, the numbers are impressive, as you can see from Ken Kaufmann’s (Audubon’s Field Editor) comparison of eBird’s September 2017 and September 2018 Red-breasted Nuthatch sightings.
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Happy New Year!
A sincere thank you to all Naturally Curious readers for your patronage, comments and contributions in 2018. I have loved sharing the past year of discoveries with you, and look forward to seeing what 2019 presents us with!
Naturally Curious with Mary Holland 
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