"Each One Teach One" Notes from a Coyote Lecture

On Saturday night, I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture at our nature center by Dr. Jonathan Way, a local expert on all things coyote. He has written a book "Suburban Howls" which tells of his research, tracking coyotes here on the Cape and north of Boston.

There’s nothing like knowledge to help combat the hysteria that always seems to accompany any top predator that lives in proximity to man, so may I share some of his main points with you in the spirit of "Each one Teach one". Man’s fears versus reality:

1) "The numbers of coyotes are exploding on the Cape! They are everywhere!"

Amazingly, with territorial animals, which coyotes are, numbers don’t "explode". Numbers of mice, rabbits etc. can explode when predators are removed, but an animal that insists on spreading itself out, maintains that spacing for its own preservation. For our Cape coyotes, that is about a radius typically, of 10 square miles per pack. The alpha male maintains the territory, and ironically, if he is shot, you will quickly have other male coyotes applying for the job. If the newcomer is not as adept at maintaining their territory, than two packs may occupy the space of one. At least until the new alpha gets his management skills in line. So you may unwittingly double the number of coyotes that can be in that area.

Considering that coyotes cover a tremendous amount of ground each night, the coyote you see, and a neighbor down the road sees, and someone 5 miles away sees, may easily all be the same coyote. Plus remember a “pack” which can sound so forbidding, is generally no more than 3-5 animals. The coyote pack generally consists of one alpha pair and 1-2 of their previous offspring. In the summer, when the pups are young and attrition hasn’t yet happened, you may see the alpha pair with the new pups, perhaps 4 or 5 and a sibling from the previous year. But cars and injury often whittle the survivors to only 2 out of 5. Coyotes also often hunt alone or simply in pairs. Not roving bands that circle around you while you are in your yard!

2) "It’s going to eat me!"

You, my dear, are not on their menu. According to Dr. Way, in the last 500 years there have been two recorded human deaths by coyote. In the US, in the last year alone, 5 million people were bitten by dogs (and you know I love my pooch so I don’t mean to slander them but…) approximately 20 people die a year from these bites. I just mention this for some perspective.

But of course, they are wild animals, and as such, unpredictable. If rabid, they will become aggressive, but so will any animals with rabies; raccoons, skunks, fox, dogs, etc. So caution is not to be thrown to the wind. And yes, Fluffy may be on the menu, which, of course, would be traumatic if it happened to your cat. The common sense precaution is not to let Fluffy roam the woods or the neighborhood, certainly not at night. By keeping your cat a “house” cat, not only would you save its life, but the lives of hundreds of songbirds. Just because birds don’t have their own press releases, no one seems to mourn their loss. Some of the biggest dangers for birds are cats and our glass windows. So shall we not cast the first stone at coyotes?

3) If you are talking about "coyotes" in the Northeast, it is actually more correct to call them, "coywolves", and yet one can imagine what that name would do to the paranoid psyche! Wolf! But the coyotes of the NE are larger than those in the West, by about 15 lbs. They top out at about 30 lbs. in the West while here, 30-50 lbs. is common but NOT 100 lbs. as some people claim. Overfed Labs may fall into that category, but not predators that have to work for a living!

Checking blood samples has proven that our NE coyotes are a blend of the red wolf that was found originally from Canada, down through the SE, and the western coyote. Red wolves themselves may have originally been a hybrid of the eastern wolf and gray wolf. The red wolves never attain the size of the gray and are generally shier. This isn’t that recent a phenomenon either, but probably did happen in the last 100 years, for prior to that, there weren’t any coyotes in the NE. It’s just that with DNA testing available now they can clearly see the link.

Clearly coyotes, or “coywolves” or whatever you choose to call them, are beautiful, intelligent, family oriented creatures, and to have a predator in your midst tells you that all is right with your food chain, so we should be thankful. And we should employ this large Homo sapiens brain of ours and exhibit common sense around them.

Don’t feed them, or leave scraps out in your yard for them. If you do meet up with one on the path, and remember, it isn’t very likely because they do their best work after dark, don’t panic. I have come across coyotes a number of times, and if I stop, and just watch with binoculars, they do the same, minus the binoculars, of course, and then we go our separate ways. My dog has been with me, and has shown enough common sense to also stop and just watch so, no confrontations there either.

Although, if there was a time to show extra caution, it would be in late spring, or the early summer months when they are with their pups, and will guard the area from any intruders. A dog that is followed, stared hard at, etc. has probably stumbled into the coyote playground and will be watched and warned off if he comes too close.

Well, long though this was, it still didn’t cover half the material he spoke of.
If you are on the Cape, Dr. Way will be a guest speaker for the Barnstable Land Trust, sometime in April. Watch for it in your papers. It is well worth it, and then you can be even more equipped to be an “Each One Teach One” kind of person!


And readers, if this was long, and it was, it may be the only one I have a chance to write this week, for lucky me, I am going to spend Easter with our youngest daughter in DC. 80 degrees and cherry blossoms! Next entry will probably be about “changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes”! Happy Easter everyone! Pat

The Glory of God all Around You

Years ago, many years ago, I read a book by Peter Jenkins called “ A Walk Across America”. A fascinating book, but an even better one, was the one he wrote later called “ The Road Unseen”. In this one, he writes about the amazing transformation of heart he had during this odyssey of his, for along the way he found God. He was working for National Geographic, so the original book is strictly secular, but he obviously had a more amazing tale to tell in this second book about the much deeper dimension of his trip.

Not that this is as dramatic as that, but I thought on Sunday’s, at least, I would love to give credit where credit is due, and this time, it isn’t to my dog. Invert that spelling; add the capital, and God is the one I want to praise. For really, the purpose of my walk each day is to go out and pray. For my family, for friends, for soldiers we know, and yet, of course, as I always tell God, his creation distracts me! But that’s OK, I do get distracted, but then he and I stand in amazement at what I am seeing. I do a lot of “Yea God’s”; “Isn’t this incredible! Thank you for letting me see it”, and then, we get back to the business of praying.

As for the “ Glory of God”, I have a habit of asking him each day to show me his “Glory”. And he knows I’m not asking him to part the waters of the pond, but just anything that shouts of his design, his attention to detail. Take for instance, the moss we discussed yesterday. Didn’t that amaze you at how intricate the whole spore dispersal apparatus was? Glory! I also love the prayer from the Creed, “I believe in God, (and I do) maker of heaven and earth (and he is) of all that is seen and unseen.” And there I stop, and say, “Oh Father, show me the unseen.” And again, I am not asking for angelic apparitions, but rather to see the little things, the unseen things. The oak apple gall in spring when it is just beginning to swell, a dragonfly just coming out of its nymphs exoskeleton.

So, know that for each thing I have written about, for each serendipitous encounter with nature, I am not giving serendipity the credit, but God. It makes for a wonderful way to start the day and to live out the meaning of the verse; “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” John 10:10. And so he has. And what do we say? Thank you God!

Marvelous Moss

“ You look maaahhhhvelous , dahhhling”. If I were prone to talking to plants, I could have easily said that to the moss along the banks of the brook today. Marvelous, wildly green and fresh looking, a soft cushion on which a squirrel has understandably chosen to dine.

I have been noticing the moss a lot lately, and two questions jump to mind.
1) Why IS it so intensely green after rain or snow melt? 2) I have noticed several clumps have begun to send up the stalks that will hold the spores of the next generation. Why are some growing their stalks now and not others? Now, you in the audience with Botany degrees know the answer already, but remember I am of the self taught naturalist variety, no Botany degrees adorn my walls, but I do have a degree of curiosity, so I did some research and this is what I found.

I found that mosses are incredibly complex, for the simple plant that they are. They are non-vascular plants, meaning they don’t have a system of pumping water up from their roots to leaves, as in the higher plants. They have to rely on living in a damp places so they can absorb water readily. Now we probably all knew that, but what I didn’t know, was, that when it is dry, they curl their “leaves” tightly to keep from loosing moisture, and unfurl them again when rain comes, so, it is no illusion that they look more lush after rain. And those leaves are only a few cells thick, so loosing water from desiccation is problematic.

And the stalks, called “seta”, that are beginning to rise from some of the moss I see, will eventually hold the capsule that will hold the spores, but, here is the cool thing I learned. They don’t all do this at once; an individual mat of moss may have some reproducing and others not. And it takes from 4-6 months for those spores to develop. A-ha! So, what I see now in March, the first threads heading skyward, won’t have their cute little caps on, probably until May or June and won’t “blow their caps”, a sign the spores are mature probably until July. Which is exactly what I have experienced.

In the summer it is cool to pick one of these and look at it with a hand lens or squish the bright green spores out onto your finger. Didn’t I tell you, if you like nature you can be easily and cheaply amused! And what’s more, once these caps are mature, and you take a close look at them, you will see each moss has a different shaped cap, it’s one way to identify them, and even more amazing is the structure of this cap. It’s like a little urn, with “teeth” around the top and a top on that. When it is dry the cap pops up a bit and the spores can blow out through the “teeth”. When it is raining, it swells slightly and no one is going anywhere. Why? Because to land, splat, right on your parent, makes a really short adventure. But to blow to the 4 winds, now, you are launched and likely to take hold. You can make any metaphor you want out of that!

Oh dear, there would be so much more to tell you, but I sense you can only take so much. And thank me for not using the proper terms, which can be mind boggling. Botanists obviously like to keep things within their circle by making terms that are unpronounceable and multi-syllabic for the simplest of things! We will just have to save other amazing feats of moss for another day.

But for now, your marching orders are just to begin to notice them, to feel free on rainy days to tell them how “maahhhvelous” they look and thank them for the delight to the soul that vibrant green brings. The Japanese would agree, for they cultivated moss in their gardens for the sense of calm and stillness they bring to the soul. Amen to that!

"If it Quacks Like a Duck.."

"… it IS a duck." Not so fast! Not necessarily, if the month is March in this part of New England. If you approach a pond or vernal pool and hear what sounds like a flock of ducks (which if you want to know the correct nomenclature is a "Paddle" of ducks) but see none; then you have actually had the great fortune to come upon the wood frog in his spring pursuit of his lady. For the wood frog call sounds remarkably like the quacking of ducks.

Last Saturday, when it seemed like an April day, I was thrilled to hear this distant quacking coming from one of the expanded pools that collect along the railroad track. The sound was unmistakably them, going full guns, until my dog, who ranges a bit ahead of me, got to that magic place where, as if someone pulled the plug, it all suddenly stops. For the life of me, I don’t know how they do that. You would think one frog would be so into his song that he didn’t notice he was doing a solo, but no, all at once, hush. Mums the word. So I called my dog, and together we sat on the tracks (remember safety conscious people, this train only passes by twice a day in the off-season) and we timed how long it would take for them to think the coast was clear and start serenading again. 4 minutes, that’s all, and they were back at it, full vibrato.

This morning, it was peepers. Spring peepers, even smaller than the wood frog, 1" in stature, yet they put out, as many of you know, a huge volume of sound.
But here again, I was approaching a back bog, peepers peeping away, but as I got closer, all of them, on my side of the bog, clamed up. Staring right where I heard the sound: nothing. On the far side however, that group kept going. They clearly didn’t sense any danger from such a distance. It made me think for some reason of the line "One if by land, two if by sea, and I on the opposite shore shall be." from the "Midnight Ride of Paul Revere".

Now, if you are an adventure person, and want to get an even better look at either of these amphibians, then, stake out some vernal pool near you, or small pond, or drain ditch, or cranberry bog, and visit it at sunset, or later. The sound as you approach is deafening, and if you have a flashlight than shine it on the waters and you will see these impossibly tiny frogs, with impossibly skinny legs, frog kicking all over the surface in pursuit of one another. As for the wood frogs, they lie spread eagle on the water, another amusing sigh. You may also see the reason why they are there, but delicacy demands I stop the explanation right here.
The spring procession of amphibian amore continues, let me know if you get to be a witness to any of it. And again, to any of my desert readers, you may just have to be content with googling to find a sound recording of them. I bet you may have some desert toads to look forward too. Let us know.

P.S. Still trying to learn how to add the pictures. I tried to get them within the text where they belonged, but that didn't work and time has run out for me to play with them. The spring peeper is the one with the expanded throat, and the wood frog the one with the mask on his face. Sorry, remember when Laura and I are together at Easter this should get better! Pat

Have You Signed Our Register?

It strikes me; it would be a lot easier to keep track of who is coming in and who is checking out, on the bog pond, if these ducks would only sign the register. The hooded mergansers have all left, without a, by your leave, off to Maine or Canada perhaps to raise those darling children of theirs that I never get to see.

But the parade of guests continues at this aquatic B&B, with green winged teals arriving this past Saturday. Also just here on a weekend junket it seems; I didn’t see them today. When they are here, they prefer the slough that is in the middle of the cranberry bog itself, to the pond. A diminutive dabbler, they make the mallard look monster-like next to it. But what they lack in size, they make up for in general over-all-coolness, both in their flashy iridescent green side patch, with matching green streak on their head and, in the air, they are the Blue Angels of the duck world. Flying in formation with crazy twists and turns, climbs and dives as though a paying audience was watching beneath. I have never had them linger more than a few weeks before they too will make a run for the border. You would think they never got the word that we did away with the draft.

Ah, but the wood duck, the loveliest of all, bless his soul, considers this his summer destination. I should say bless HER soul, for she is the one that brings her mate back to her childhood scene and convinces him to raise the brood here. So for years now, I have been thrilled to see this pair of wood ducks return again and again to the bog. They dabble about on the edges of the pond, but at the first sign of trouble, (sadly, my dog) they lift off and always head back to a more secluded marshy wood behind an auxiliary bog. I have scanned the trees there but never had the luck of finding which one they chose for the nest. They are hole nesters, and sometimes choose a spot 50’ high. The chicks are so fluffy that they float down like little puffy parachutists. We have all perhaps seen that on nature shows, but I, at least, have never seen it in person. There are so *many* things to hope for in life aren’t there? To see such a thing: what a delight. The mallards, of course, are omnipresent. Too frequent a visitor to feel they would ever have to sign anything. But their behavior has changed markedly in the last few weeks. What looked like Spring Break in Acapulco for unattached males a few weeks ago, has settled down to marital bliss, with each pair heading off to their own little love nest in the various cranberry ditches, or the vernal pools that border the railroad tracks. They fly up unexpectedly as I pass, quacking that loud, no mistake about it, mallard quack and then settle back down when they see its only me.

The parade of guests will continue a little longer, but soon, those who are summer residents will claim their turf, and those that were heading for "Oh Canada", will have made it there and we wish them well with their endeavor to keep this world populated with ducks. And will they call in for reservations when they reverse the journey? Unlikely, but we will lay out the fresh towels all the same.

Obsessed with Timber-Doodles

I am out alone, standing in a field, waiting for dark. Nervously reminding myself, that crime isn’t rampant on the Cape. Normally, I would have my dog with me, but he would foil the mission if he were here. The mission is to find my own, privately performing woodcocks, also known as Timber-doodles.

The season of the wooing of the woodcocks is upon us and I have offered to lead a few night outings to see them. We will probably go to a nearby Audubon sanctuary where they are all but guaranteed; yet I just know there must be some closer at hand. And so, my obsession. Wherever I drive by day, I am spotting fields that look like likely suspects. Fields bordered by hedgerows, with enough dampness to support a healthy worm population. This plump little guy stays plump by eating twice his weight daily in worms. Yum.

They are incredibly well camouflaged and you can practically step on them before they burst out of the bushes, scaring you half to death. They’re related to shorebirds actually, but at some point the crowds at the beach must have gotten to them, and they headed to the woods. They need an adjacent field, because that is their performing stage to dazzle Ms. Woodcock. So, if you can find those three things, damp ground with a bit of field for a performing stage, bordered by shrubs, you too could stake out at night and wait. And this performance goes down about 10-15 min after sunset. It does make it a tad inconvenient, if like me, your performance in the kitchen is expected at the same time.

And the performance is pretty spectacular. With one caveat here, the 15-20 min after sundown poses a bit of a problem to our diurnally designed eyes. That night I staked out the field I heard one, but I never actually saw it. I was luckier last night, with a backdrop of twilight blue to be able to see all but the highest point of its flight. But wait, I haven’t really described the display have I, and perhaps it is not common knowledge.

The male steps out on to the stage (the field) and begins to make this nasally “peent” sound that, although somewhat laughable to us, is a big come on to the ladies. As he “peents”, he keeps turning slightly to face all corners of the field, for you never know where the shy little lady is watching from. After about 20 –30 “peents” he stops, then lifts off into the air flying in a wide arc. You should be able to see that, and you will certainly hear it, for his primary wings have an adaptation that makes them twitter as he flies. He makes ever-higher arcs until he is 200-300 feet high. Here only the folks who read the very bottom line on the eye chart can probably still see him. Now, the twittering stops, and he lets forth his love song, a series of twitters and smacking sounds. Then, as though someone shot him out of the sky, he starts this wild zig-zag flight back to ground, still singing. Until about 75’ from the ground he goes silent, now look to the place where he lifted off, and-taddaa, he alights just about on the same spot he left from, straightens up, and starts “peenting” all over again. If Ms. Woodcock is impressed, she emerges from the brush, gives him the gold medal and, well this is where you avert your eyes and let them have their moment.

And may I say it is only a moment, for then she returns to the brush, will later make the nest, lay the eggs and raise the kinder, with no more than a by your leave from Mr. Woodcock. He however, returns to the field and tries to woo lucky Ms. Woodcock # 2 and so on. No moral judgement here, it is the way the world remains populated with woodcocks.

All right, more than you wanted to know perhaps. And prepare yourselves, for, after I take my groups out to see them, you are bound to hear about it again. But this was to psyche you up to go look for yourself. Provided you also live in a crime free area where staking out a field isn’t likely to get you abducted, and you live East of the Mississippi. Sorry Westerners, you don’t have woodcocks. You can go out looking for prairie chickens instead and share your finds on them.


P.S. Tried to upload my picture of a woodcock here but it didn't work. Bear with me for I am still learning! Pat

St Patricks Day

Blessed by the Blarney I felt this morning as the dog and I readied for our morning walk. Before I even had my boots on, there was a conniption of crows right in my own yard. They were dive bombing a pitch pine no more than 20 ft from my window and, as predicted, if you follow this up, you will generally find some bird of prey on their verbal hit list. A huge beautiful, immature, red tailed hawk. All fluffed up with indignation, so she looked larger than ever. And I say "she" because the female red tail is larger than the male. What a great close up! Huge eyes looking down at me, looking up at her and, thanks to the wonderful binoculars my daughter gave me for Christmas, I could practically see the nictitating membrane blink across her eye. Wow!

Then, rather incredibly, only a little further down the trail a deer bounded off, leaping over the briar patches as though they weren’t there. White tail raised high and still thick, thick with winter fur. I know deer practically wander through shopping malls now, but I really don’t see them too often on this walk. I often see tracks of one or two, but no local herd hanging out, so, more blessed Irish luck it seemed. And I, an Italian!

But the most ironically, appropriate thing I saw, St Patrick wise, was my first snake of the season. Famed for driving the snakes out of Ireland, (hmm, I should Google that to see where that legend comes from-one would take it to more theologically mean, he drove evil out of Ireland) my first snake, sadly, was not driven out, but driven over. And not by a car, but by a train. What was the chance of that! The train on these tracks only runs twice a day. Without forensic proof, I can’t say that was the exact cause of death, however, I found him under the steel rail, only half out, his head and neck pretty squished. No predator would do that and then not eat his catch. Be glad you weren’t with me, because with his flattened part showing. I couldn’t really ID it, so I pulled, and it was amazingly hard to pull, until all of him was out from under the rail. He must have been there to gather warmth in the sun, and whether he had the dreaded headphones on so he didn’t hear the train coming, or he really was stuck and couldn’t move, I will never know. But it was a garter snake, our most common on the Cape, and apparently, *not *Irish. I left him belly up hoping someone might find a free meal waiting for him, but, when I returned today, he was still there. Untouched.

I must say, my Irish luck did not extend to the afternoon when I took my walking ladies in pursuit of an eagle that had been reported this winter on a nearby pond. Well, he wasn’t in the parking lot signing glossies, and although we scanned the horizon pretty well, no luck. And for this, I had an authentic Irish person along! But, that is the way it is with nature, no guarantees. The only guarantee is that if you don’t go out, you are sure to see nothing. So, may you sally forth today, in pursuit of an unexpected delight, then pass it on to the rest of us. Remember the motto "Each one, teach one."

Are You A Tellurian?

After the longer diatribes of late, on owl pellets and salamander longings, I promise this one will be brief. The credit for the topic and the addition of this word "tellurian" to my vocabulary is thanks to Edwin Way Teale. I love his book "A Walk Through the Year". He is such a gifted writer and the depth of his knowledge on the natural world is stunning. I often say "I just play a naturalist on TV." Those of you of a certain age will remember the Marcus Welby commercial, "I'm not a real doctor, but I play one on TV." My entire professional life has felt like that! Whether working at Sea World or the Zoo or the Science Museum or even Greenbriar, I often felt I was playing a part, always the "on the job" learner. But I do believe I am a real tellurian, and so are many of you. It means "dweller on the earth" and I want to share the way EW Teale described it.

"Many a person lives a life span on this globe without ever dwelling on the earth. He may come to the end of his days without ever having appreciated or understood or loved or found affinity with this green and beautiful world even in the wonder of it's springtime. And he may leave this unique planet unaware of all he has missed. Anyone, it seems to me, who loves anything in nature simply and sincerely will find a measure of joy in life. And those who are tellurians, who dwell on the earth and feel a oneness with it throughout all their lives, who know the deep emotional attachment to it-are bound together in a special way...." EW Teale from

"A Walk through the Year"

And so, all of us are bound in a special way aren't we? We would rather be out playing in the woods than sitting at our computers. We are dazzled by what we see when we really "look" and for us, delight is found right out the door and it costs nothing. Recession proof joy. Delight then, in your tellurian ways!

Pat

Salamander Rain

You may have read about the huge rainstorm that swept up the East Coast this last week, but what you probably didn’t hear was that this wasn’t any ordinary rain. This was "Salamander rain". The rain those thousands of yellow spotted amphibians have been waiting in their tunnels and underground homes for. Now, with the temperatures in the 40’s and rain lubricating the skids of their forest floor, they are free to exit those tunnels and head to the nearest Vernal pool, probably the pool they were born in, for their idea of March Madness!

I was lucky enough to join a research biologist that works with my husband at the military base at Otis and, in the midst of the rainstorm, rumble 20 min in a 4 wheel to reach the vernal pool she is studying. We were attempting to get a view of "congress", the term for the pep rally the male salamanders have prior to wooing the ladies. We won’t even think about why they call it a "congress"!

The males are the first to arrive in the pools, and there they congregate, sometimes by the hundreds, (we saw them more by the dozens). There, they engage in rubbing, wriggling and general salamander hoo-hahing to get them psyched up to woo the ladies. Now, in the salamander world, this is accomplished in a pretty unique way. The males lay a little white packet of their sperm (this is mostly an adult audience isn’t it?) called a spermatophore, in the water close to the edge of the pool.

When the ladies arrive, more dancing, undulating, etc. happens as each male tries to convince her he’s THE one. If she seems interested, he carries her on his snout (Oh, would I love to see that!), does more enticing wiggle moves, and brings her to his personal little packet. If this has won her heart, she then settles over the packet and takes it into her vent and so, in a few days, little Sammy is laid as one of hundreds of sticky eggs, that are attached to branches under the water. Then, when all this rush of romance is over, they all return to their burrows, or logs or well bottoms that they call home. Unless you happen to be out on rainy nights and catch one hunting a slug, or worm or other yummy thing, you won’t see them again until March Madness roles around again. So, of course, my suggestion is that with the next rain that comes in the next few weeks, grab your rain slicker and flashlight and see if you can get a ring side seat for the action. This at least, is one "congress" that gets the job done!

Pat

Plethora of Pellets

What an intrepid group of nature hikers I have here on the Cape. Although we had had 4 gloriously blue days, on the day of our walk, the clouds rolled back in, the wind picked up and the rain began to fall giving it that raw feel that only a peninsula surrounded by water at this latitude, can have in March. But bless my ladies, they came anyway and what was their reward? A plethora of pellets! Owl pellets. Great Horned Owl pellets to be more precise-a bonanza by anybody’s measure.

We were revisiting the area that the "cacophony of crows" had taken place the other day, and as we fanned out under the pine trees, little shrieks of delight rang out, mostly from me, I will admit, but what a find! The forest floor was littered with at least a half dozen pellets, some with dark fur of mouse, some with lighter fur of squirrel or rabbit, with bones sticking out every which way! Fabulous! I keep hoping to find their nest site, but before I jump to my usual, over-the-top-excited conclusions, it may simply have been a roost, a place they like to go to eat because the view is good, the ambiance is to their liking or whatever.

Now at the risk of boring you, and ruining my vow to keep this to three paragraphs at the most, I feel I MUST tell you some of the cooler things about how a pellet is made. You know that owls swallow their food either whole, if it’s a bite-size, little mouse, or in chunks, if it is a rabbit or something larger, but obviously, no chewing is taking place. They don’t have a crop as some birds do but instead it goes right into their stomach. Their stomach has two parts, the first, and I will spare you the technical name, has enzymes to digest it, and the second, the gizzard, strains out the good stuff from the bad. Good goes onto intestines and builds a bigger, better owl, and the indigestible parts; fur, teeth, bones, feathers etc. get wadded up into the pellet, which, by the way, is the size and the shape of the gizzard. So, you are seeing the shape of its gizzard when you see the pellet. Also cool.

Then that pellet, all nicely packed together, makes a return trip back to the first stomach where it stays for ten hours, and I don’t know why that is, thinking about its destiny or something. And now, with a pained expression on its face and it’s throat stretched out, out comes the pellet from its beak, plop onto the forest floor where you, the lucky hiker, may find it. Amazing!

And doubly amazing, a delicate little vole skull, as in the one we found yesterday, can go through all this with nary a scratch or a crushed cranium. And why is that you ask? Because the owl, unlike the hawk, or say even a snake, both of whom have tougher enzymes at work, has a weak little stomach that sends things back in good enough shape to be reassembled, albeit by someone with a lot of time on their hands, later. It makes for great scientific research on exactly what they are eating, and fun party games too. You can order pellets and have everyone dissect them and see who was who on the menu that day.

OK, this is long, but how could I have passed on sharing that. The next cocktail party you’re at, fishing around for conversation starters, you can launch into the creation of pellets and be the hit of the party. One other thing to think about, when the pellet is sitting there in its holding pen for 10 hours, it is blocking the digestive track so the poor dear can’t eat until he regurgitates it. Then its supper time again. 10 hours or more later! Reasons perhaps to be glad you are a human and not an owl. I for one couldn't hold out that long. Enough Pat, yes enough.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

Truthfully, it is my dog who is the real naturalist in the family. He ferrets out the cool stuff, but due to that slight drawback of not being able to speak, or type for that matter, can't pass it on to you. That's where I come in with my nimble fingers and do my best to translate what we both saw. He knows for sure what it was, I do my best to guess. Today though, we agree on our analysis. "Hassenfeffer" was on the menu last night for one fortunate coyote and one not so fortunate rabbit.

I hadn't planned to walk around the furthest cranberry bog until I noticed that Tuck was nose to the ground and not leaving, but snurfing this way and that. When I got there, tufts of gray fur, some tinged with longer black brown hairs and then the telltale white fluff of a tail, made it clear this was a rabbit, preferred but not easy to catch item on both the coyote and foxes menu. Owl and hawk too, but here the diner had graciously left a calling card. A wonderful, large scat that cinched it as coyote. Ah, here is where I should have a picture, those with time on their hand, google"coyote scat" and see what you get. [I added a wikipedia/google link to the right of this page so you could all do just that. Don't forget to right click on it to open it in either a new tab or a new window so you will still have the blog open. - Laura] They are omnivores, eating both plants and animals, not carnivores as so many think, so the pictures could be varied.

This scat was full of hair and bones but ended in a twist of grass. Often they contain grass and it makes me wonder if that is a coyotes Metamucil. But I am happy when I see they have had a decent meal. Remember, as I often tell the children, he can't just waltz up to Burger King and say Super size me, no he has to catch it. In the middle of winter I often find scats that have nothing but grass and bits of wood and sometimes stones. Something just to stop the hunger? Perhaps.

But it is great to see coyote evidence back at the bog. It seems they had been missing for some time, and perhaps the pups are already born and more food is needed. And shall we review how many rabbits can come into the world over one breeding season? That would be about 30 a year, over 4litters. And that is because they ARE on everybody's menu. At any rate, I took some of the "sheared" fur back with me to share with my ladies on the walk. Amazing how it looks as though they had their own set of Fiskars with them.

So, thank you Tuck, for allowing me to write about something a little cooler than the spore stalks some of the moss are sending up, although you know they will be featured some other time. Oh boy Pat, the excitement mounts!Spore stalks!

Have a great day everyone.
Pat

Back to the Cacophony of Crows

Crows, a bird we can all identify, a bird that we can imitate easily,and a bird that when in its home gang, (which by the way, is called a "murder" of crows), can make such a racket that you have to wonder, what *on* earth is going on. And believe me, when the volume raises to a raucous pitch, something IS going on and it's worth your while to drop what you are doing and see what all the fuss is about.

Today, the family of crows that claim the stretch of railroad tracks at the bog as their own, were calling and cawing wildly and I expected to find a resident hawk taking his morning harassment, but instead, there was alone turkey strutting down the center of the tracks, calm as could be. Must have been the novelty of it that had them so excited. Noisy though they were, it didn't elicit any of the dive bombing, call out ALL the forces, sort of treatment that a hawk or an owl often get.

Which is what a friend of mine and I witnessed the other day at the Game Farm. An all out, 5 alarm cry that brought crows streaming in from every direction to dive bomb and shout murderous threats at what looked like, from our earthbound view ,to just be a huge squirrels nest. But no squirrel would get this sort of attention. We both felt there had to be an owl on top of the nest, wishing he had chosen somewhere more private to sleep the morning away. And the reason we guess it was an owl is because usually a hawk will be flushed out and move on, whereas owls seem to hold their ground. And owls seem to elicit this hysteria more than hawks, at least in my experience. Because we always like to think of the *most* exciting explanation we were hoping it was a nesting owl, but no pellets on the ground, no white wash around, so probably just an owl in search of shuteye, which it definitely wasn't getting. We cycled by the same tree on the way back and this time a family of jays was whooping it up, doing their own little dive bomb number at the same tree. It must have still been there. Oh for a helicopter when you need one! So today's urging is to listen for the cacophony of crows. Hawks are streaming back to the Cape and will soon be nesting, giving any crow who discovers them a chance to go verbally ballistic, and you a chance to see where the nests might be. Which, in the end, we must really thank them for. I'll be all ears to hear what you hear in the next few weeks, and see.

Pat, not so briefly this time!

Life Imitates Art, the aftermath

Ah, today's early morning walk confirmed what I suspected yesterday, the feathers scattered about did belong to a male hooded merganser, for where there had been an even number of males and females the other day, today there was one extra female, new to her status as widow, circling with the other two pairs that remained on the pond.

But, one could expect that she would do the "birds of a feather" thing, and flock together with these pairs to what will probably be a more northern site where the actual nesting takes place. These are not ducks that mate for life and as the male is only the main event for mating, but other than that leaves all that nesting, child rearing stuff to the female, I imagine she will recover. Sorry I am not savvy enough to include one of those blue, web page-click-now-and know-all the facts kind of things here about mergansers,but if you get a chance, do google them Hooded Merganser,to see how lovely they are. (Here's the link she's talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooded_Merganser - added by Laura)

The other two males were having a grand time raising and lowering their crests and doing this thing where they flip their head all the way back,then front again looking a lot like those mechanical ducks in the carnival shooting ranges. Again, I think the courting begins here, but consummates further north. They are hole nesters like the wood duck, and like a wetland, lake or pond. The hatchlings, once they leap out of the tree, are supposed to stick to the Mom like a burr, which could be cute to see. Also,big treat while I watched them was hearing my first amphibian, who knows which frog, sounded like a snoring pickerel, on the sunny side of the pond today. It was glorious with temps into the 50's and we suddenly feel tropical..for the Cape. Hope you had a grand day where ever you are.

From the blogging bog, Pat

Life Imitating Art

I really didn't mean to burden you with something every day, life will get busy soon and I won't be able to, however, I was just struck with a "life imitating art" moment today.

I was scheduled to do a puppet show at a library in Eastham this morning, a very rudimentary puppet show of one of the Thornton Burgess stories involving two foxes, Granny and Reddy, and a duck, played by a not always willing child . The main plot is a very hungry Granny and Reddy Fox try to catch a duck with little success. Sad for them, happy for the duck, and yet when I walked around the bog pond today, what did I find scattered across this thinnest of sheets of ice, but a multitude of duck feathers, as though someone had shaken out a comforter. Unfortunately for *this* duck, and by the lovely white color of many of the feathers, I suspect one of the male hooded mergansers won't be doing that catapulting love dive after all, it didn't have as happy an ending. Unless of course, you can have an empathetic heart that can appreciate what that meal might have meant to the hungry carnivore, or omnivore who finally got lucky. I know I do,it isn't easy being a predator.

And because I am practicing restraint we shall leave it at that. Acacophony of crow calls can be discussed another day.

Pat, briefly

A March Snowfall

Amazing what a "now you see it, now you don't" world the natural world is. Yesterday the trails were bordered with the vibrant green mosses, today, they have returned to a frosted white. About 2" of snow fell here, enough to cover each branch, but easy to walk through. It is a delight that needs to be seen quickly, because a March snow "waits for no man" and it will be gone as soon as the sun comes out. But if you got out, or if you have a tree out your window, here is something that delights me. Without checking your Acue weather site you can see which way that wind was blowing last night, and still is, by just seeing which side of the tree is plastered in white. My bit of woods seem to have clearly recorded a NW wind, for that is the side that is masquerading as a birch tree this morning.

Something else that delights this easily amused person, is to walk in the woods, look one way at the trees and their trunks are all brown, flip and look the other way, the way the wind was blowing, and you see a forest of "birch" trees. Beautifully white. And you thought you had to go to the Berkshires for that sort of view. The other most breathtaking spot after a snow is anywhere that their is a tangle of briars. Here on the Cape we have bull briar, cat briar, and greenbriar and maybe others I don't know about,but they make these impenetrable tangles that would surely send a German Forestmeister into a fit, but when it snows, they must gather a full 50% of the snowfall on their branches. You can see why any rabbit or small animalable to get between the briars would find a lovely haven under them. Much less snow there and insulated from the wind.

Where I walk there is a wild tangle of briars on one side of the trail and then an abandoned cranberry bog on the other. This bog has been taken over by high bush blueberry, which with its twisted, zig zagging branches,catches equally as much snow as the briars. And, if I happen to be there when the sun breaks through and each branch turns to diamonds, well it just doesn't get better than that. I am a "Yeah God" person, as so many of you know, and so many times, when I take this walk I am struck by how apt the verse in the Psalms is where David says, "the boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places for me". That's it exactly, the boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places for me indeed, and for many of you too.

So consider this a peptalk to get out today, see what delights you, and than be amazed that, if you found it, it cost you nothing, but gave you so much.

Oh man Pat, are you going to get preachy on us? Perhaps, sometimes I just can't help myself. Perhaps I should give you warning when a Yeah God moment is coming eh?

OK, now I am rambling. Remember this is just for fun, and just because I do think of all of you so often when I am out there.. Oh, I wish they could see this, or, I have to remind them to look for that. So, through this, I can do just that, tell you what I saw and hope you might get out, delight in something, and then tell me about it. I would love to hear from your corner what "glory" you saw today. Oh, I did have another thing, but I know you are saying "Uncle" so I'll save it for another time..has to do with Sweet Fern. Another time.

Pat

The Idea - Sharing the Glory

So often when I take a walk around the bog in the morning I feel like sharing it with someone. I have often thought the idea of a Blog from the Bog would be a catchy phrase and one could just blurb out whatever little glory of nature happened that day.

Today with the snow blowing sideways and the trees reminding me to"keep my eyes to the sky" for more reasons than bird watching, I was so struck by how electric green the moss was along a small brook I walk by. Its as though it were lit from within. Its obviously been sucking up all this over the top moisture and renewing its pledge to make chlorophyll no matter what season it finds itself in. And the same with the lichen on the trees, and the kind that gets in the crevices of the pitch pine bark, neon green in my patch of woods. Also my pond continues to be graced with about a dozen pairs of Hooded Mergansers and the males are raising and lowering that white hooded patch of theirs in what can only be considered a come hither look. I love that book that explained their amorous antics, which would I love to see, where they vault out of the air, do an areal sommersault and land in a shower of water droplets, only to find the female nonplussed and still feeding. Catching a moment like that would be such a rare and wonderful thing wouldn't it? But with the ever present dog it seems unlikely, they all scatter to the far side of the pond as he comes racing along. And as I seem a far more dedicated dog walker than bird watcher I will just have to accept that I can picture it in my minds eye and no where else. And just a reminder for all of us to keep our ear attuned to that duck sound that isn't a duck, as this coming, warmer, weather may coax the wood frogs out of their slumber and off to the vernal pools in search of love. AND I am getting more than psyched about the idea of woodcocks and their wooing of Ms woodcock to only be a few weeks away now. How about a Crepescular Crawl in a couple weeks to see them go through their flights of wild yearning at Long Pasture. I think I should find a way to advertise this and open it up to other people too. Course any more than a dozen people at a time and we may spook the Romeos. Something to think about. And if any of you hear folks talking about a woodcock population closer to Sandwich let me know.

OK, so I know nothing of what a real blog is. Short and pithy maybe, not rambling like this. I do like to write. Enjoy your day, remembering the sky is still a brilliant blue on the other side of these clouds and that the rumor is this weekend will be a foretaste of spring, so we must set the fa la la la la feelings that snow can bring, aside and go for the trowel instead. No, first the rake, a winters load of blown branches mingle with the snipped off pines from my squirrels. Short and pithy..hmm need to practice that..

Pat