wildlife
Certainly not I, not really, even though I did know they were in the Northeast and, if it comes to that, in both of our home neighborhoods. In Maine, there’s a whole pack of ‘em in the woodland right across the road. We hear them often on summer nights, yipping and laughing and howling.
Here in the Hudson Valley we don’t hear them nearly as often – or as close – but we do see them from time to time, including just a couple of weeks ago in a field near our friend Ilana the chicken queen’s farm.
Eastern coyote (with mangy tail), apparently hunting for voles
And then we saw what looked like coyote tracks while we were out skiing. The post on skunk tracks is a perennial favorite, so I asked Bill if he’d consider doing a guest post guide to reading tracks in the snow.
He did. It’s far more than I bargained for. And so are the quite scary coyotes.
Read More…
- Be in Maine
- Be in an area of open woods with water near, somewhat away from human activity but not necessarily far away.
- Be in such places frequently for other reasons: fishing, say, or hunting wild mushrooms.
- Look up when you hear a noise that sounds about like squirrels in the leaves but maybe not quite.
5. Notice dark shape in the distance.
6. Pull the string around your neck to lift the camera out of your shirt pocket so you can send your wife a picture of a
Baby bull moose.
Experience and photos by Bill Bakaitis
If only. As a species of aggravation, Marmota monax, the largest and most pestilential member of the squirrel family is impossible to get rid of. There are a number of reasons we will get into in a moment.
First, however, the good news: you can get rid of one or more individuals, and that can often make the difference between having a harvest and not. Furthermore, you can get rid of them using a live trap, especially if you use one from Williams Trapping Supply.
young groundhog in live trap, about to take a trip
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more soon, I promise.
posts upcoming on garlic, garden volunteers , food gardening fine points, chocolate cake — and the Joy of Wrens.
photo by Bill Bakaitis
What’s to say? A mom and three very playful kits. Beyond adorable – and they don’t eat vegetables.
In fact they eat grasshoppers, voles, mice and similar garden comestibles to which they are more than welcome.
Momfox, somewhat fuzzily through the back window at dusk. Stay tuned for the little ones if I can swing it. They must live in the neighborhood; this is the fourth sighting.
While I’m in Maine getting the summer garden underway, husband Bill, aka Mr. Mushroom ( see his most recent morel hunting tips here) has been holding down the Hudson Valley end: feeding cats, cutting vast quantities of asparagus, mulching peonies, tending the bees , collecting morels – and being inspired by your responses to send another guest post:
Bears, Bees, Bacon and Morels
by Bill Bakaitis
Flash! My neighbor just informed me that the bears are back.
A few days ago he went out in early morning to feed his horse and discovered that the large bin which stored the sweet feed and biscuit treats was missing. Well, not quite missing as there were drag marks and when followed led to one of the neighborhood bears (last year there were five) having an early morning snack of the biscuits. After a brief encounter and short stand-off the bear beat a retreat.
End of that story, but Whoops, thought I, I sure better check the electric fence around our bees and rebait the hot wires with the Rancid Bacon Bear Bait stored in the freezer for just such occasions.
A spreading patch of bloodroot is now encroaching into our small fenced-in bee yard, and over the past few rainy days had grown tall enough to be in contact with the lowest hot wire of the electric fence.
The errant bloodroot leaves sizzled, snapped, crackled, popped and were draining the voltage of the wire. Good timing, I thought and went to the shed for a small sickle, to the freezer for the bear bait, and after disconnecting the solar charger trimmed all of the bloodroot and other vegetation under the fence. That’s when I found the morels. Read More…
It was lunchtime. I was in the kitchen. Bill went out to empty the compost before making his umptigazillionth ham sandwich ( This is not a man who believes in varying the midday menu.)
“Hey Leslie, come see what’s in the trap!”
A muskrat.
Full grown muskrat - they're smaller than you'd think.
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Never thought to record sightings, so cannot absolutely swear, but I’m pretty sure there are more and more ‘possums in the mid Hudson Valley, and I’m convinced it’s Zone Creep, wild animal division. The opossum (Didelphis virginiana) has always had a wide range and can occasionally be found as far north as Canada, but the place you find most of them is the South, so if they are becoming common here…
Opossums are nocturnal except when extremely hungry, so most of the ones you see are the ones that have had encounters with cars. But we’ve surprised them many times on evening trips to the compost. And last week right around teatime there was a good sized one in the bee yard, hoovering up the dead bees that get deposited in front of the hives when it’s warm enough for the survivors to clean house.
Opossum eating cake instead of bees (Bill threw some so it would hold still)
This daylight encounter prompted a bit of research. Turns out opossums have a LOT of fans ( who knew?). Read More…
and a whole lot more are over at the PBS website, where you can see the nifty Nature program Is That Skunk?. We saw it the other night, more or less by accident. All my anecdotal observations confirmed; they’re extremely reluctant to spray ( An Eek of The Week that isn’t). And wait’ll you see the spotted ones – some cute!
greeted us when we woke this morning –
no mistaking ‘em; skunks’ short legs and long bushy tail create a unique undulating line, stuttering in light snow, smooth as a Japanese brushstroke in deep powder, either way a perfect shadow of their endearing waddle.
skunk tracks in thin snow
I know, I know, a lot of people don’t like them – especially people with dogs. But the problem there is simply that too many dogs don’t know how to back down. Unless you’re threatening the babies or cutting off the line of retreat or otherwise driving the poor thing into a defensive corner a skunk is the most peaceable of creatures. Read More…
