Rainy Spring Morning

The day before had been beautiful, cool, with a clear blue sky and a few white clouds sailing across that blue sky – but it was extremely windy, windy enough to keep birds in dense cover. It was early enough in the spring that wildflowers are barely above ground, much less in bloom.

So my walk in the Big Woods was short and, other than for a bit of exercise, unproductive. I spent most of the afternoon sorting through old slides of the family from the 1970s; the best will be digitized, but most went in the trash.

On this morning the sky was gray with a light mist falling but no wind. Out I went to walk several old roads that pass through brushy areas and past several small wetlands.

I hadn’t gone too far when atop a staghorn sumac there was a robin plucking fruit. We all think of robins picking earthworms from lawns, but they also eat a lot of fruit when other food is scarce. Sumac isn’t a favored food, but in late winter when most other fruit has already been eaten robins will avidly feed on sumac.

This robin ate one small fruit after another, bending down to select one, plucking it from among all the others and often tossing it in the air before swallowing the fruit –

The robin finally flew off and I walked on, soon coming to a large pond circled by a shrubby wetland. On the far side there was something white; the telephoto lens revealed it to be a great egret –

Also on the pond was a pair of Canada geese. One goose swam back into the wetland while the other lay its head down on the water in an effort to hide. That didn’t work too well –

In a nearby tree a male red-winged blackbird called frequently as it moved from branch to branch –

As you can see in some of the photos, the drizzle had changed to rain and my hat and jacket were soaking through, so I headed back.

Mystery of the Injured Buck

In November 2013 an injured white-tailed buck appeared on one of my camera traps above the house –

He was fully mature, at least two and a half years old and probably three and a half. His distinctive non-typical antlers with the little extra point on what is called the G2 tine are very distinctive.

The buck’s upper left leg or shoulder was injured: maybe from a hunter’s bullet or arrow, or perhaps he’d been hit by a vehicle, or fallen in one of the rocky areas up on the hill, or was injured in a fight with another buck, or …

He appeared on camera again in January 2014, making three appearances, two in still photos and once in a video clip –

In the video it was rather obvious that he couldn’t put weight on the leg and he dragged it as he limped along.

Then he disappeared and we thought he was gone – did he succumb to his injury, did infection set in, did the eastern coyotes or free-ranging dogs that roam the hills bring him down, maybe the snow and cold of winter ended his life.

But then – in February 2015 there he was again, in a photo from a camera trap. This time he’d already shed his antlers, but the way he held his left leg and what appeared to be a healed wound on the inside of the same leg made it apparent that the injured buck was back.

He was gone through spring, summer and most of the fall of 2015 until he showed up in a camera trap photo once again in early November –

This time his antlers had more bulk but they weren’t symmetrical and they still had those odd little extraneous tines.

After that one photo he was gone again – shot by a hunter, eaten by a carnivore, …?

March 2016 came and so did the injured buck. Once again he’d shed his antlers; and he was still favoring that left front leg. Even in a still photo from the camera trap it was obvious that the buck was dragging the leg –

We hadn’t actually seen the buck, we only knew he was visiting from his camera trap appearances and infrequent tracks in the snow.

The buck was gone again, having survived far longer than we thought he would. Although white-tailed deer are tough critters and he’s not the first severely injured deer I’ve seen, his was a really debilitating injury.

No show throughout the rest of 2016, or 2017, or 18, or 19, 20, 21, 22, or 23.

And then came December 2024 and there was the same injured buck in a daylight video from a camera trap right behind the house. He had no antlers having either shed them early or failed to have grown antlers. But he was still dragging that leg –

Where was he for those eight years? It’s well known that white-tail bucks wander quite widely during the rut as they search for receptive does. After the rut bucks return to their home range where they spend the spring, summer and early fall. 

This buck may well spend those months elsewhere and only come our way occasionally during the rut, does that account for those eight years?

Our property adjoins thousands of acres of public and private woodland, much of which is seldom visited by a human.

Was he ever successful in breeding during any of the years after he was first injured? Look closely at the photo from November 2015 and you’ll see that the tip of the small extra tine on his right antler appears to have been broken off in a fight with another buck. Did he win the doe or was he driven off?

But the ultimate question is how did he survive all those years? The cold and snow of winter; predation by dogs, eastern coyotes and black bears; hunters; starvation; and exhaustion from the rigors of the rut can all cause the demise of any injured deer and yet this injured buck survived.

Many more questions than answers.

It’s Spring

In our front flower bed there are several clumps of light blue crocus that, at our place on the hill, are the first flowers to bloom each spring  –

 

These crocus had been in my grandparents’ garden as long as I remember; more than 35 years ago we moved a few of  to our garden. There they’ve slowly multiplied and spread a bit so we now have several separate clumps. These crocus are apparently a heritage variety and they bloom earlier than any of the newer more colorful varieties that are commonly planted.

These early crocus were in bloom for a few days until the bright sunny day a bit over a week ago when the first bees of the year showed up to gather pollen.

There weren’t many bees for, although it was a sunny day, it was fairly cool and quite breezy. A few bees buzzed around the flowers, loaded up with pollen and then flew off. For a while they were all gone, then suddenly three or four reappeared to, once again, load up with pollen –

 

Again they disappeared for a while, then returned. That coming and going continued until the temperature began dropping toward the end of the day. But, each sunny day for the next few months they'll be back, not just for crocus pollen, but for pollen from whatever flowers are in bloom.

Look What the Camera Traps Caught

For more than a decade my camera traps have been capturing photos and videos of birds and mammals, and once in a while even insects.

During all that time they’ve occasionally caught the most abundant large mammal in Pennsylvania, it’s allegedly the most intelligent mammal on earth – although recently there have been times that it seems to me that their intelligence has been grossly over-rated. They’re active in the forest year-round, although their activity seems to be minimal in winter which leads to the conclusion that many are adverse to cold weather.

These mammals are seen in many sizes and shapes, apparently they grow throughout life in the manner of trees, first taller and then larger in diameter.

Fortunately, in all the years my camera traps have been out in forest and field only one has been taken and none have been damaged by these large mammals. Some of the mammals noticed the camera traps, some didn’t, some were on public land, some were trespassing (especially the one in the first clip who wasn’t just trespassing but fishing out of season). It’s interesting to see the reactions that noticing the camera traps generate, but many passed by without seeing them.

One More Time

Hopefully you’re not getting tired of seeing photos of short-eared owls because I’m not getting tired of photographing them.

It was snowing lightly when I left the house and headed for the hill where the short-eared owls and harriers fly in search of meadow voles, or white-footed mice, or perhaps a small bird upon which to feed.

By the time I got to the hill the owls were already flying and there were a few snowflakes in the air. They were joined by four harriers that would sometimes disappear over the hill and then come back to fly swiftly over the fields.

It was hard to tell, but there appeared to be from three to five owls flying on the hill that evening. Several times an owl flew over with its beak open as it called –

Along the road are steel stakes, marking culvert locations, on which the owls often land as well as a square wooden stake out in the field where they do the same – 

 

But usually the owls were busy hunting for a meal –

Normally they hunted while they were flying, but occasionally they hunted from one of the posts –

Short-eared owls head north to their nesting areas in March, so they’ll soon be gone until late fall when I plan to be back on the hill awaiting their arrival.

March Winds Do Blow and We Shall Have Snows

It was the first week of March when H and I were driving south through an area of extensive fields, scattered woodlots and a few farmsteads. In a field of corn stubble a flock of thousands of snow geese caught our eye(s). It wasn’t the 105,000 snow geese at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area described in this post from five years ago – but there were probably 5,000 birds.

The geese fed avidly on whatever corn or green plants they could find in the field.

Scattered throughout the flock were a few blue morph birds. Years ago these blueish birds were considered a separate species (the blue goose), but are now believed to be just a color phase.

All the while some birds took flight to land elsewhere in the field, others flew in at a fairly high elevation and then spiraled down to land in the field.

These snow geese are in the process of migrating, which is how the birds spend half of their lives. Winter is spent along the Atlantic coast from New England to South Carolina, summers in Greenland or the Canadian Arctic.

The eastern population follows narrow migration corridors and has a handful of favored stopovers to rest and feed – Middle Creek, the northern end of New York’s Finger Lakes, Vermont’s Dead Creek and the St. Lawrence River in Quebec.

We enjoyed watching and listening to the flock as did a few other people who drove past.

And then they were gone, even the few stragglers

The next morning I returned to see if the birds had settled down on a nearby lake or if another another large flock had arrived – no such luck.

All I could locate was a small flock of 100-150 snow geese feeding in another field of corn stubble –

This flock also took flight headed north. Since we seldom see them in the fall during their southbound migration, we’ll have to wait until next spring to see snow geese again.