Track Of The Cat

It was -4° F and quite windy at the house in the morning; the TV weather folks sounded like it would be dangerous to even open the door – that anyone who did so would be instantly frozen solid. Makes you wonder how anyone survived in the days before central heating.

Birds, except for their internal furnace don’t have central heating but do wear layers of down, were busy getting fuel at the feeders –

Black-capped Chickadee

American Goldfinch - male acquiring breeding colors

Pine Siskin

Since there’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing, I donned a couple layers of fleece, my old Bean boots, a warm hat, leather chopper mitts with wool liners and headed for the Big Woods.

The sky was crystal clear, the snow brilliant white and, except for the wind in the tall pines, quiet prevailed.

Another inch of snow fell early the previous evening so it was easy to see what wildlife had been moving about during the night:

White-footed mice had risked their lives to dash across the top of the snow –

Every predator – hawks, screech and barred owls, fox, coyote, weasel and bobcat – in the Big Woods is on the lookout for mice. But the only sign of the predators was the trail of a bobcat that emerged from an area of dense shrubs to cross the old woods road.

 

Then it was time to head for home and lunch – a bowl of warm soup, not a mouse.

He Lived!

January 2014: the camera traps above the house photographed an injured white-tail buck that may have been wounded during deer season or hit by a vehicle. His left front leg seemed to be broken; he had trouble walking and was apparently unable to put much weight on the leg. Photos and a video from January 2014 were posted here and here.

Between last winter’s low temperatures and fairly deep snow we assumed that the buck probably wouldn’t survive and that he’d end up feeding the scavengers: bears, fox, coyotes, ravens, crows, vultures and insects. That opinion seemed to be confirmed when we didn’t see the deer again nor did the camera traps get any photographs of him during the following year.

That is until February 2^nd of this year when the camera traps again photographed the buck a few times over several days. He limped into the cameras’ fields of view and it’s obvious from the photographs that walking is still difficult –

Where had he been, how far had he wandered, how did he fare during last fall's rut? Questions, questions.

In a head-on photo the places where his recently shed antlers were attached (the pedicles) are easily seen. The pedicles would have been bright red and raw looking when the antlers first dropped. By the time he appeared in front of the cameras the pedicles were scabbed over.

When the deer walked past one camera the old wound was clearly visible on his left leg, just below the elbow –

In another photo the wound is even more clearly seen –

He lived!  And has survived for over a year in spite of a significant injury that resulted in limited mobility – they’re tough!

January Elk

The elk rut is long over by January, but it’s still worth spending time in Pennsylvania’s elk range. The bulls haven’t dropped their antlers and are just as impressive as they were last fall plus there are fewer tourists in the area.

As they do throughout the year, the elk tend to feed early in the morning then rest and chew their cuds through the middle of the day and feed again toward evening.

On this day the members of large band of cows and calves were resting in an abandoned field –

Since there were only a few inches of snow on the ground the elk were having a relatively easy time finding something to eat in the food plots maintained by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

Elsewhere cows and calves fed on the tops of recently felled trees-

Along a stream I found several adult bulls –

The bulls interrupted their feeding to spar with each other –

And then went back to browsing on woody vegetation –