Variety

From the trail camera there are:  whitetail deer, screech owl, fox squirrel, a timber doodle, raccoon and a long beard gobbler.

Nice variety....... 

 

Trail Camera Collage

Some recent images from the trail camera trap line include:

A curious doe

A screech owl

A timber doodle (North American Woodcock)

A couple of gobblers 

And Wiley Coyote 

Big Brown Bat

This critter met a terrible end.  With the start of the new year I swapped-out the furnace filter at its predetermined schedule and found this mummified surprise waiting for me.  

Meet Eptesicus fuscus - the Big Brown Bat.  Most of the time I find these occupying a songbird nest box or spot them flitting-about on a summer evening.  It's likely they hang-out (pun intended) from the rafters in the granary.  This critter likely found its way into the house via the fresh air intake for the furnace last fall following the October filter swap.  This species of bat likes to roost in houses over winter.

An insectivore this critter inhabits woodlands, farmlands and urban settings.  Maternity colonies can be found in hollow trees.  Their vocalizations include high-pitched clicks and the squeals of pups calling to mom.  They mate in August - September before hibernation and give birth to 1-2 (usually 2) pups from May to July.  Pups are capable of flight by 18 to 35 days.     

I feel badly for this one. Bats are good critters to have around, mice not so much.  Memo to self to install screens on the air-intakes this spring.

 

The Garden Chronicles

Some of you may have noticed that there not been much to say about the garden this yea.  A consequence of there almost wasn't a garden this year.  

All of this is a result of timing a European family vacation precisely during the critical three week window of planting and establishing a garden in our already short growing season.  And then there were the critters.  What I did plant the birds and ground squirrels while I was in England.  They ate my peas, my expensive sweet potato slips uniquely suited to our growing zone.  They ate the lettuce and radish plants too.  And the weeds took-over.  Thankfully a neighbor had my potted stock to tend until we returned from overseas.

Returning home, I weeded the entire shebang, replanted radishes, peas, four varieties of lettuce, four types of herbs, four sweet pepper plants and a dozen tomato plants.  The critters dug-up and ate a huge row of peas, one Italian parsley plant, three pepper plants, all the lettuce, and two of the tomato plants.  The weeds returned.

GAAAHHH!

What is left is doing OK, protected by cages, and I even picked some radishes this week.

I did not plant anything else as I was significantly behind schedule with a garden half-way between the equator and the north pole.  Fortunately, there are reserves of canned and frozen garden goodness in the basement bunker.

And it you can believe it there is this.

A massive tomato plant that emerged on its own from the composter.  It is ginormous.  The tomato plant that ate Toledo!  Not willing to kill it (just yet anyway) I want to see what manner of fruit it yields, if any.

Vive le Jardin Magnifique!

Smile For the Trail Camera

Recent trail camera photos include a strutting gobbler, strolling sandhill crane, red fox on the run, robins picking around for breakfast, the family dog, a ditch tiger on the prowl, and a cuddly fox squirrel.

Never Grab A Groundhog

Groundhog Day is a big event every year on this day over in Gobblers Knob, Pennsylvania.

Someone provokes a hibernating woodchuck named Punxsutawney Phil to come out of his hole and predict the arrival of spring.

Even I can do that.  Provoked by the alarm clock I crawled out of a perfectly warm bed this morning at 5:30 AM, poured myself a steaming cuppa joe and took the dog out to pee.  It was snowing.  I therefore concluded more winter before the arrival of spring.

The man in the picture is a fool.  You should never grab a groundhog - especially if you are going to wave it around in the air over your head.

From the Algonquian wuchak - also known as the whistle pig - Marmota monax belongs to the vast squirrel family. They are big rodents.

They are also sinister-looking with their small ears, beady black eyes and very sharp teeth to go with all of their claws.  I wouldn’t grab a groundhog any sooner than I'd make a grab for a beaver or a porcupine. They are all much too dangerous.

Trust me.  I know this.

I have had to deal with multiple critters infestations under my barn. This includes everything from bunnies, to raccoons to kittens.  One year I had a groundhog.  And that bugger was burrowing furiously.

Groundhogs are well adapted miners.  They have short but powerful legs and very sharp claws.  They are capable of excavating hundreds of pounds of dirt.   And this fella was chucking enough dirt that it wouldn’t be long before he seriously undermined the structural integrity of the barn foundation.

Shooting a woodchuck is against the law in Wisconsin. Yep - they’re protected - just like badgers and wolves.  Not wanting to draw the attention of the local game warden and pleading a landowner exception I opted for the old reliable method.

Mothballs.

I poured a box of mothballs down the woodchuck’s hole.  Oh sure, your barn will smell like grandma for a while but critters cannot stand mothballs.  And it worked almost immediately for me.

I was puttering in the machine shed when old Phil (smelling strangely of naphthalene) waddled his way into the shed and gave me the hairy eyeball.  He was not happy.  Actually, he was angry to the point of provocation because he reared-up on his hind legs and gave me a nasty bark.

Taking a machete from the peg board I waved it menacingly and told him to get the heck out of my shed.

He scurried away retreating behind a sheet of plywood leaning against the wall.

I grabbed a garden rake and thrust it in his face.

He snorted and whistled and parried back with his claws.

Claw for claw - back and forth we went. Parry and thrust. I was gaining the upper hand and Phil was losing ground.

Finally forced from the shed he scurried a safe distance from the crazy guy with the rake, turned and gave me a dirty look and waddled-off in the direction of a neighboring farm.

Nasty attitude the groundhog has.

Dangerous too.

*This post was first published on the JSOnline WauwatosaNOW Gas Pains blog on February 2, 2010.

Traffic Jam

Last Saturday the dog and I ran the trail camera trap line and collected hundreds of images to be discarded.  To be fair, some were worth saving and possibly publishing here or on Face Book.

This particular camera is always a busy location - both day and night.

Interesting to me are these three photos taken within a couple of hours of one another.  A cat, a coyote and a skunk.  There were a pile a deer too but they're not pictured as deer are cheap.  Picture-wise.  

Anyway, you'd think that with all the wildlife traffic here at my woodland version of Piccadilly Circus There might be a need for a traffic cop...

GBH

Sitting on the porch the other day reading when Jill whispered thru the window to me:

Look.  Over there by your mulberry.  A heron.

Craning my neck to take a look; sure enough.  A great blue heron had sauntered into the yard to pay a call.

And without making a sound it took flight.

Blessed to live where the wild things are.  And I had the presence of mind to snap a quick photo...

 

A Half Dozen

A selection of critters from the trail camera trap line.

Coyote

Long beard gobblers

Curious doe

Raccoon

Velvet buck

And a possum

Daily Dose

Is it just me or does social media seem to have an overabundance of grievance?

Since the beginning of this year I have endeavored to be a better person.  Not a Mother Theresa - just better.  And as a consequence I truthfully don't have very many grievances.  I have opinions; but that's not the same as full-blown grievance.

As a public service and in the interest of spreading positivity on the interweb here are some critter babies from the woods here at The Platz.

A periodic dose of goodness and cuteness....

 

Trail Camera Bonus

While we were vacationing in Eastern Europe and interesting development was occurring here.  Something that was unexpected.  One of the trail cameras was patiently documenting the kill/discovery of a whitetail deer by a pair of coyotes.  It was nothing short pf a remarkable coincidence.  An unchoreographed sequence of photographs captured over five days.  I couldn't have staged it better if I tried. 

 

After we returned home I went out to fetch the SD cards on the trail camera trap line and I came across the remains of the deer laying within the field of view of a trail camera. The camera is circled in the image.

 

Examining the skeletal remains and judging from the size of the bones and the skull this appeared to be a yearling doe (born in spring 2022). Likely cause of death was predation by coyote.

 

Do I know that for sure?   Nope. Nevertheless, the photographic evidence is beyond circumstantial. 

 

What I do not know is if the deceased was crippled by a collision with a vehicle, weakened by winter and lack of browse (unlikely in farmland country) or otherwise compromised only to succumb to the whim of Ma Nature.

 

Nature can be a cruel mother. Yet that's how things work. Everything on the landscape is someone else's dinner.

 

These images document what unfolded.

 

Everyone eats whitetails....

 

Of hundreds of digital images here are a select number that capture what unfolded.

 

The event unfolded like this with a pair of coyotes lounging-about in the snow.  Then, over the course of about 20 minutes, they alternately feed-upon and drag a deer carcass into view.  What are the odds of this happening spontaneously?

 

For following morning the first to arrive on the scene are the crows, followed by additional avian predators.

 

 

Bald eagles - both adult and juvenile 

 

And, of course the coyotes returned

There were nocturnal visitations

 

More daylight visitors

 

Crows in a standoff with a juvenile bald eagle

And nocturnal

This alternated on and off...

 

 

 

Including a visitor from the arctic circle who winters here - The rough-legged hawk 

 

 

Curious deer and turkeys paid a call

And on the fifth day the batteries died

 

Almost 20 years of trail camera monitoring and I've never had something like this unfold.  I'm not one to anthropomorphize things but it's almost like these coyotes were doing me a solid favor.