Trail Maintenance

Now that the primary nesting season (for ground-nesting birds) is behind us the primary brushing-out of 3.5 miles of trails is upon us. 

 

 

Not pictured is a Rhino Brush Hog mounted on the hitch and connected to the rear PTO.  Ordinarily, I would remove the bucket from the tractor but today there were a half-dozen dead ash trees to shift out of the way.  

 

After two days the trails are complete.  The campsite and a couple of wildlife openings remain as the heaviest lift so I'm still a bit far from the finish line.

 

Brushing a quarter mile east west trail a doe and her fawn came out to observe.  Interesting behavior inasmuch as the noise made by the machinery is deafening.

 

  

The trails will receive a ‘trim cut’ just before the bow opener…

Another First

First there was The Mysterious Egg Caper; likely solved with the assistance of people who know much more about wildlife biology than I do.

Then there was this from one of the trail cameras.

A Canada goose with goslings in tow.  Decades of trail camera photos and monitoring; this is a first.

We don't (at least I thought we didn't) have geese nesting around here.  The cover is too tall, too thick and too tangled.  Geese prefer manicured landscape allowing them an unobstructed view as a defense from predators.  Don't take my word for it; go visit a park, beach or a golf course.  There will be geese.  Lots of them too.

Never a dull moment around these parts; and another opportunity to learn something new or just be surprised..... 

  

The Mysterious Egg Caper

 

 

From the trail camera is a curious couple of photos of a turkey hen with an egg in her mouth.

What gives?

So I sent-off an email to a certified wildlife biologist at the University. 

Hiya Jamie...   From the trail camera is a puzzler.  Why would a turkey hen be moving an egg?  I cannot imagine she could get her beak around an intact egg.  But I'm happy to be wrong on that. Or is this some sort of predatory behavior?  Thanks, as always, for any insights.  Tom 

To which she replied.

Hi Tom,  You always have the most interesting trail camera photos!  From my understanding, hen turkeys do not relocate viable eggs.  I believe that this is a hen removing an egg from the nest that was depredated to avoid attracting additional predators to the remaining eggs.  Predators like ground squirrels and crows may puncture an egg and consume the insides.  While turkey hunting this year, I came across a turkey egg right in the middle of a trail (see attached), this was probably a similar scenario, or a predator carried it this far.  This looks like a crow, or another bird used its beak to pierce the shell.  Starting to see quite a few broods of turkey poults, hopefully you are, too.    Cheers,  Jamie

The plot thickens.  Jamie forwarded the email chain to a colleague for further discussion.

Hi Chris,  I hope you are doing well!  Below is an email I received from a landowner as well as my reply.  It got me thinking and I'm curious if you have any other plausible explanations for the hen turkey with an egg in her mouth.  Have you documented any turkey nest predation by turkeys?   During my master's research, I did have a turkey depredate a grassland bird nest and I know of at least one grouse nest depredated by a turkey... all opportunistically, I'm sure.   I'd appreciate any thoughts you may have.  Have a great week!   Jamie 

And the response from Chris.

Hi Jamie,   Good to hear from you. Things are going well here. I hope you’re enjoying your summer thus far!   Well…this isn’t something you come across every day! I haven’t knowingly encountered an instance where a turkey has eaten an egg, although I have suspected it. I’m aware of colleagues in other states that have attributed egg loss to turkeys on occasion, but none to my knowledge have photos of a bird carrying an egg. I did come across one wildlife photographer who was able to document a similar occurrence and included it in a blog post (https://www.robertgroosphotography.com/home/the-egg-bandit).     Turkeys are very opportunistic. And while eggs are not part of their normal diet, they are eaten on (relatively) rare occasion. I think it most likely occurs when a bird comes across an abandoned nest; or in the case of a hen, if she is bumped off a nest and the eggs are partially eaten by a predator, she may return and consume the remaining egg(s) since they are highly nutritious – which could be especially valuable if she decided to renest. However, I don’t believe that turkeys are actively hunting for eggs, whether it be that of other turkeys or other ground-nesting birds (which comes up way too often in discussions on ruffed grouse). Hope this is helpful.   Cheers,  Chris

So there you have it.  A possibly opportunistic turkey keeping-up with housekeeping around the nest.

Never a dull moment around here and an opportunity to learn something new.

Bearded Lady

Just like PT Barnum featured a Bearded Lady in his circus sideshow I have one too.

And I'm no sucker for a scam because this gal is the real deal.

For awhile I've been following the coming and goings of this oddity of the turkey kingdom and it would appear that she's taken-up residence here at The Platz to raise a brood maybe?

A bearded turkey hen is a female turkey (hen) that has a beard, a tuft of bristle-like feathers growing from the breast.  

While all toms (male turkeys) have beards, about 10% of hens also develop them, though usually shorter and thinner than those of toms. Bearded hens still breed, lay eggs, and raise broods like any other hen.

 

From The Trail Cameras

From the trail camera trap line last weekend are a couple of oddities.

A bearded turkey hen is a female turkey (hen) that has a beard, a tuft of bristle-like feathers growing from the breast. While all toms (male turkeys) have beards, about 10% of hens also develop them, though usually shorter and thinner than those of toms. Bearded hens still breed, lay eggs, and raise broods like any other hen. 

Like this hen who has been showing-up on my cameras.

 

And a raccoon with no tail..... 

 

Missing Something?

The dedicated video trail camera is new.   The previous one was crashed and demolished by some sort of hairy critter. 

Which was a blessing in disguise as the older camera was among the last couple of old ones and the infrared mode was sketchy at best.  The replacement camera has delivered an abundance of short, silent video vignettes.  Including a raccoon without a tail.

How does a raccoon lose a tail do you suppose?

There's more than one anyway.....

Mystery Mouse

While out walking the dog the other day we found this....

What sort of critter decapitates mice and leaves the body behind?

A ritualistic killer?

After this second find I checked with a biologist friend of mine and she tells me that cats and weasels are known to do this.

Mystery Mouse

While out walking the dog the other day we found this....

 

A headless mouse on the roof of a nest box.  Fresh too.

What the heck is this about?

Mystery Bird

From time-to-time one of the ever patient and vigilant trail cameras delivers a real keeper photo.  It might be an infrequent critter, an artfully-composed image or an action shot.  Every ten days or so as we make our rounds of the camera trap line can be an adventure.

Recently there was this.... 

It's a rare event to snag an image of a resident raptor on the ground.  Particularly one with another bird for scale.  In this case a crow.

I cannot be absolutely certain but I believe that the hawk is a female northern harrier. Underside wing markings, owl-like face and yellow eyes are reasonably reliable field marks.  Also, a male and female are frequent visitors and are observed hunting as they glide just above the ground in the breeze.  

Even if I'm wrong about the ID it certainly made my day to upload these gems.

Happy Labor Day

Since today is Labor Day it seems only fitting that I should publish some self-effacing imagery of a dusty, chaff-producing fall chore.  Namely completing the final brushing of the trails.  Not that I mind at all - I even took no small measure of delight in digging and hauling dirt on Saturday.  What sort of retired kid wouldn't?  It's one of the  last hurrahs of chores before bow season commences.  A good labor indeed.  And Sunday was a day of rest.

These were taken Friday and Saturday from a couple of the trail cameras - including this one....

And a two close calls with the video set-up..... 

    

Native Wildflowers

Now that the trails are cleared for ease of passage our walk today was a bit longer than usual.

Three months-plus, post burn, the pollinator acreage is ablaze in flowers.  We observed the expected:  Ox-eye daisy, black-eyed Susan, nodding pink onion, compass plant, prairie blazing star, showy tick trefoil, gray-headed cone flower, along with blue vervain and cardinal flower along Silver Creek.  There was so much more. 

Including this surprise:

Cup plant.  And we didn't plant it with the original seed mix more than twenty years ago.  It just showed-up.

Probably thought it was a nice neighborhood to take-up residence.

And I get a second walk today to swap out the memory cards and perform a battery check on six trail cameras.

Dead Deer Tell No Tales

Recently we encountered evidence of another death in the woods that is inexplicable.

Hair all over the ground - deer hair to be exact.  And a lot of it.

This was old and most definitely not evidence of shedding as the whitetails begin to part with the coarse, grey guardhairs of their winter coat.

And there was this pile of hide.

Not a single, solitary bone to be found at all.

Worthy of a CSI case this is....

Dead Deer Tell No Tales

From time to time I've shared that one of my retirement goals was to pay closer attention to the natural world that surrounds me.  If I can get some fresh air and exercise that is double-good.  

It's mud season here at The Platz so what better than to saddle-up the Labs and head-out on an antler hunt.  We found no antlers today - but we did find this in the woods...


Almost the complete remains of an articulated whitetail deer.

It was missing the skull and I have no way of knowing how it perished - nevertheless, a walk with a CSI plot line is triple-good.

And the girls got another bath today too. 


 

Odd House

Guess who lives here.....

Smurfs?

Yote!

A while ago I shared that the trail cams were offering-up some decent media content. Here's another helping.   

Shot a month ago these video shorts were taken during a downpour which would account for the sodden appearance of this canid.  While there is no audio component the camera did a nice job of capturing the action without spooking one of the more clever and wily predators around these parts.

You can learn more from this earlier post.

Raising a toast to the neighborhood yotes....

Odd Home Found In A Tree

We found these on one of our swamp oak trees while out for a walk and recognized them as galls of some sort.

click on the image for a closer look

 

I sent a photo to a pal of mine who is a forester and he confirmed that these are probably oak apple galls.  They’re caused by a tiny wasp and can form on stems or leaves.  Some years are big years and other times not.  It seems to depend on the weather. 

These deformations occur after a female oak apple gall wasp lays eggs in the central vein on an oak leaf.  When the larvae hatch - a chemical and hormone interaction between the wasp eggs and the oak causes the tree to grow the round gall.  Each gall contains only one wasp and serves as both home and food for the young insect. 

It is a cosmetic condition and as a general rule causes no permanent damage to the tree.  If you find it bothersome simply snip them-off before they dry out.  For us we left them be.  Tiny wasps deserve a start in life and have a role in the forest’s circle of life. 

Look Who Showed-up on the Trail Camera

Not having previously spotted one of these my initial reaction was - whoa!  This has got to be the mother of all weasels. Thumbing thru a field guide of Wisconsin mammals I had a tentative ID in relatively short order yet was unsure.  These weasels are not at all common around these parts.  I figured I better seek a second professional opinion to be sure of the identification of this rare critter.  Both a UW and DNR biologist concurred on the identification.  This was an exciting first for me and I got to check another species off of my life list. 

click on image for a closer look

 

Meet Martes pennanti - the Fisher.  One of the larger members of the weasel family - this mammal was once widely distributed across Wisconsin.  Characterized by a soft and supple pelt this highly-valued furbearer was oft referred-to as the American Sable.  Unregulated trapping and deforestation eventually led to the extirpation of this species with remnant populations retreating to the northern-most reaches of our state and Minnesota.  Nevertheless, the species persists as a consequence of reintroduction efforts and making a come-back would appear to also make Door County part of its range. 

Pregnant females will den-up for a period of time while males are always on the prowl with a typical boy requiring up to 150 square miles of territory.  Equipped with retractable claws (just like a cat) this is one of the few predators that will prey-upon a porcupine with little or no ill-effect.  It will also dine on small mammals such as mice, voles, squirrels, rabbits as well as nuts, berries, eggs and fruit.

This is the mating season of the fisher and females give birth to three to four kits in the spring.  By the end of summer the young will leave the den and mom's care and disperse to establish their own territories.

Incidentally, the fisher is a strong swimmer but it does not fish.  Mink are better fishermen than the fisher.  That-aside, I'd still like to raise a toast to weasels.   They are survivors after-all....

The Aliens Return

They're back. 

The aliens and their green laser death ray. 

You can see the blinding bright glare of anti-gravity alien space ship motors. 

For all of their advanced technology and appetite for spreading death and destruction - they missed destroying the camera.  

Poor marksmen the aliens are...

IR Photos

This is a healthy-looking coyote and as near as I can figure from comparable photos about the same size as my blonde Lab.

Infrared technology (IR for short) allows for picture-taking after dark without a visible flash and saves substantially on battery life.  It also is less obtrusive and doesn't alert most animals to the presence of a camera (other than the camera is obviously there).  Pictures have a tendency to be blurred in this mode but I seem to capture enough good ones to make it worth while.







The rabbit with three ears is from several years ago.  Besides, what's not to like about a three-eared bunny...

click on images for a closer look

 

 

Turkey Hunter

Some things are so strange they defy explanation...