Red Foxes Mating
Red Foxes spend much of the year living a solitary life, but come January and February, during their courtship period, males join females. Nocturnal barking ensues and their pungent urine begins smelling strongly like skunk spray. Vixens come into heat for 1-6 days during this time and up to a week or two prior to this there is much interaction between a pair, when they often hunt and cover ground together. Once breeding takes place, they part ways. In about two months, when their young are born, the parents rejoin each other and raise their young together.
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Gray Squirrels Mating & Making Nests
Gray Squirrels have two breeding seasons, one from December – March and another May – July (most females mate in the latter season and only mate once a year). At this time of year, polygamous male Gray Squirrels are aggressively chasing and checking out females to see if they are in estrus and if they are receptive. (An unreceptive female squirrel lets all suitors know in no uncertain terms – using claws and teeth – that she is not interested.) Male Gray Squirrels can smell females in estrus as far as half a mile away, so the woods are full of hopeful males these days.
Frequently litters this time of year are born in a tree cavity, while the second, late-summer litter is born in a leaf nest (drey). Cavities obviously offer more protection from the elements and predators than do leaf nests. Most den cavities have been created by decay, lightning, or woodpeckers and are lined with dry leaves, shredded bark and grasses. (Photo: Gray Squirrel collecting American Beech leaves to be used as a lining for her cavity nest.)
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Virginia Opossums Breeding
If you see a Virginia Opossum in your travels, it could well be on the hunt for a mate at this time of year. It’s even possible you may hear one if you are close enough and the timing is right, as male opossums attract females by making clicking sounds with their mouth.
The breeding practices of this marsupial are unusual, to say the least. The male opossum has a bifurcated (two-pronged) penis (see photo inset), and the female has two vaginas. Not only is their reproductive anatomy somewhat unusual, but the behavior of their sperm is as well. During maturation, sperm pair up inside the male reproductive tract and remain paired after entering the female. Just prior to fertilization the sperm pair separate (into two spermatozoa). This phenomenon occurs only in American marsupials, and not Australian. No definitive explanation exists for this, but perhaps paired sperm increase motility in the female reproductive tract.
(NB: Having an opossum on your land is a real asset – according to biologist Richard Ostfeld, one opossum can kill and eat some 5,000 ticks in a single season. Opossums are said to destroy roughly 90 percent of all the ticks they encounter.)
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Snowy Egrets Becoming More Colorful
For those New Englanders fortunate enough to live on the coast, Snowy Egrets are a welcome sight this time of year as they return from their wintering grounds to breed. Like most herons and egrets, they acquire plumes – long, wispy feathers – on their back, neck and head during the breeding season. (These plumes were highly sought after by the women’s hat trade in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. They were valued at $32 per ounce, twice the price of gold at the time. Eventually laws were passed to protect the birds.)
Something slightly more subtle but equally as dramatic as ornate plumage highlights the appearance of these birds in the breeding season and that is a change in bill and feet coloration. Different species of herons and egrets exhibit different color changes. Snowy Egrets’ greenish-yellow feet turn a much richer orange-yellow hue during the breeding season, and the patch of bare skin at the base of their bill (lore) changes from a yellowish color to a pinkish/reddish color, only seen at this time of year.
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Striped Skunks Seeking Mates
Striped Skunks are on the prowl, as your nose may have told you recently – males are eagerly seeking out the company of females at this time of year and are often hit by cars traveling at night. The peak of the Striped Skunk breeding season — the third week of March — will soon be upon us. Males will mate with several females in succession and then they often protect their harem against other males by hitting them (other males) with their shoulders or biting their legs. Once a female has been successfully bred, she will not allow further mating activity and will viciously fight any male that attempts it.
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Coyote Breeding Season Approaching
While coyotes form packs consisting of two breeding adults (the alpha pair) and up to eight offspring, they often are solitary hunters, leaving only one set of tracks. At this time of year, however, it is not uncommon to find two coyotes traveling together. The reason for this is that the peak of coyote breeding season is in late January and February, and for two or three months prior to this they engage in pre-mating behavior. Signs to look and listen for include two sets of tracks (headed in the same direction) that periodically separate and then rejoin one another, scent marking and duet howling.
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