Three Months in the Fencerow

Three months, February, March and April, spanning late winter to mid-spring. A winter with little to no snow, and what did fall didn’t last long, no more than two or three days, before it melted.

But there was wildlife in the fencerow. 

Male white-tailed deer lose their antlers each year, anywhere from November to April; the two bucks in this video have each lost one antler. Bucks' second antler may be lost at the same time as the first, or it may hang on for hours, days or, in rare circumstances, a few weeks.

In spite of the presence of gray fox and weasel, gray squirrels and cottontail rabbits still abound in the fencerow. Predators can't eliminate their prey lest they too be eliminated; obviously both are abundant in the fencerow  –

One clip in the video has two gray fox, mated pairs of which often hunt together.

The fencerow lies between two old fields: one was a pasture which is now occupied by blackberry canes, grasses and forbs, black walnut saplings and autumn olive shrubs. The other field was used to produce hay for beef cattle and is now occupied by several species of grass and some goldenrod and milkweed.

Long-tailed weasels prey on small mammals up to the size of cottontail rabbits. My camera traps have gotten more videos of these weasels on this property than anywhere else – why I do not know.

And those blue jays: Blue jays feed heavily on oak acorns, burying hundreds, often thousands, to retrieve and eat in the lean days of winter. Only about 25 percent of those acorns are ever retrieved and thus spread oak forests into open areas and woodlands. Blue jays are the primary means of spreading oak forests, and will probably be the principal way oak forests move north as the climate changes. 

Stuck at Home

In the two weeks after I came home from the hospital I was still getting infusions of antibiotics, still on anti-seizure medication that makes me very sleepy (resulting in one or two long naps a day), with balance still not good and with some extremely tight neck muscles resulting in occasional painful spasms. A fall resulting in a traumatic brain injury and a subsequent blood infection of unknown origin is not a good thing to have.

But I could walk about 1,000 feet down our road and back as long as I had company, I could walk or sit in the yard with my camera taking photos of wildflowers, fungi and the critters that visited, a few really small subjects brought out the macro lens.

Here they are, two weeks worth of photos from my cameras while I was recuperating at home –

 

All of the photos were taken within 50 feet of the house, some through the kitchen window, but I'm eager to get out in the forest where I've spent much of my life. 

Spring is Here

Actually spring came and then departed as I spent all but a couple of days of May in the hospital, missing the warbler migration and many spring wildflowers. But here's a delayed post from the beginning of spring –

Spring began on March 1^st with little to no snow and the first birds returning from warmer climes –

For much of March the weather alternated from warm to cold and back again. Silver maples along the river bloomed and ducks stopped by on their way north –

Then additional treats of spring arrive in April with the return of kinglets, house wrens and the first warblers –

The first insects emerged –

And then the ephemeral spring flowers burst into bloom –

The spring ephemerals have to emerge, flower and produce seed before the trees’ leaves fully emerge and expand to shade the forest floor –

By late April the broad-winged hawks have returned from the tropics to hunt amphibians and snakes and small mammals –

There’s more to spring and therefore more posts to come – but I'll have to wait until next year.

Another Rainy Spring Morning

Rain was falling as in the old rhyme – April showers bring May flowers. Even though there was “stuff” to do at home, there are times when there’s just an inner need to get outside, even if it’s only a ride to the lake to see what there is to see – so off we went.

Naturally, by the time we got to the lake the rain had eased up quite a bit. Oh well, we where there and there were things to see. Among those things were two pairs of blue-winged teal that, frustratingly, wouldn’t come close. No eagle to be seen, ospreys hadn’t arrived, and most waterfowl had already moved on in their northward migration.

As we circled the lake we saw a handful of folks fishing and near one of those boats – a common loon in breeding plumage.

That loon was amazingly unafraid of humans as it repeatedly dove and resurfaced. For a while I thought it might have gotten itself caught by swallowing a hooked fish, but that wasn't the case. Gradually, it moved away from the boat, preening and diving to hunt for food –

When the loon was preening it would roll part way over, sometimes bringing its huge webbed feet above the water –

When it finished preening, the loon moved about, often dipping its head below the surface as it searched for fish –

Emerging with water dripping from its beak –

Frequently, after looking for fish, it would dive and come up some distance away with an empty beak. But once the loon surfaced with large fish that it apparently had trouble swallowing –

When the loon finally got the fish well on its way, the meal made a sizable lump in its neck –

And then the loon seemed to celebrate its success –

Loons are beautiful birds; unfortunately they don’t breed in Pennsylvania. The last verified breeding here was apparently in 1946 and it was a very rare breeder before that. But we do get migrants stopping here to rest and feed. On May 6, 1975 a friend and I found several large groups of loons on this same lake – although they were actively diving and difficult to count, our average of several counts was 112.

Loons face a number of threats: lead fishing sinkers and discarded fishing line, shoreline development, commercial fishing nets, illegal shooting, chemical contaminants, recreational watercraft, disturbance by people and climate change.

But we can still see these beautiful birds in northcentral Pennsylvania –