Ticks-ville

A couple of weeks ago I took an eight-mile walk in the Big Woods, some of it on what turned out to be a partially overgrown trail. Because the original plan was to walk on old woods roads and maintained trails, my field pants had been left hanging in the garage and I’d worn just plain jeans. Walking on the overgrown trail, I happened to look down and there on my pants leg was a black-legged tick. By the time I got back on an old road I’d picked nine of the ticks from my pants – and wondered if I’d missed any.

From 1970 until 2001 I’d played and worked in the Big Woods and only once found a tick anywhere on me, and that was one of the comparatively large dog ticks. Then, in the spring of 2001 a deer tick as it was called then (now re-named black-legged tick) embedded itself in my side. That was the beginning, since then I’ve had several embedded black-legged ticks each year. The total number seen crawling on my pants is now beyond remembering.

Ticks wouldn’t be anything but a yucky annoyance if they didn’t carry a number of very unpleasant diseases. Some of the diseases that ticks transmit to humans are fairly uncommon, but Lyme disease isn’t at all uncommon. Most outdoors folks have heard of Lyme disease and the debilitating problems that can result from an untreated infection – extreme fatigue, severe headaches, swollen joints and arthritis, heart problems and mental disorders. It’s not a disease that anyone should take for granted.

From CDC

My field pants are regularly sprayed with the insecticide Permethrin, which is reported to have very low toxicity to mammals, be poorly absorbed through the skin once it’s dry, and rapidly inactivated if it is absorbed. Only once have I had an embedded tick following a day in the field wearing treated pants.  Permethrin works – I’ve taken ticks that were crawling on my pants and put them in a specimen bottle, 10-15 minutes later they were dead.

Spring and fall have been the worst times for picking up a tick since they require high humidity and tend to spend the summer on the ground in the leaf litter instead of on vegetation searching for a host. 

Adult Female and Nymph - from University of Maine

Speaking of hosts, adult black-legged ticks spend the winter on deer, while the nymphs feed on white-footed mice and other small hosts in warmer weather. It’s those mice that carry Lyme disease and where the ticks acquire the parasite. Several studies have shown that in some areas as many as 30-40% of black-legged ticks carry the disease and that, while the numbers vary widely, there may easily be over 150 infected ticks per acre. 
  

A couple of years ago a fiend and I had walked through a forested area when it was 34° and snowing. We got back to the car and there on my pants leg were two black-legged ticks crawling about. With a warming climate black-legged ticks may well be active year-round. So, all of us who spend time outdoors – farmers, hunters, hikers, fishermen, naturalists ... anyone – can expect to encounter ticks. But, that won’t keep me out of the woods and hopefully it won’t deter anyone else from enjoying the outdoors.

The Second Life of a Dead Owl

The dead screech owl lay beneath a conifer in the yard; but it hadn’t been dead long. It was in full rigor mortis which, in an animal this size and depending on temperature, usually begins an hour or less after death and lasts less than 24 hours. The bird appeared to have a broken right wing which drooped somewhat loosely.

Rather than burying the bird, I decided to set a  camera trap to capture photos of the scavengers that came for a meal. During the first 24 hours the camera was in place, nothing fed on the carcass. The next night an opossum visited and a series of photographs showed that it ate part of the owl.

The next night a gray fox arrived –

And the fox marked the spot as its own –

The fox visited repeatedly over the next week, eating some of the screech owl on numerous occasions.

At about the same time a wandering house cat stopped by; but there was only a single photograph of it so it apparently didn’t stay long.

Other visitors to the remains were an eastern chipmunk, which came on the eighth day –

And a gray squirrel, or squirrels, that visited repeatedly –

Rodents like the chipmunk and squirrel regularly gnaw on bones for the calcium they contain. What many people don’t realize is that these rodents also eat meat and frequently kill and eat nestling birds and smaller mammals.

The last visitor before the camera was removed was a gray fox that came on the 17^th day –

By that time, the only discernible remains of the screech owl were several of the long primary wing feathers. The fox must have been attracted by the residual scent because there was nothing left to eat.

The Euphemism

This was a year of an extremely bountiful apple crop and we harvested enough for many loaves of apple bread and lots of containers of apple sauce as well as apples for lunch and snacks. The apple growers in the area and beyond also had plentiful harvests.

As autumn advanced farmers harvested their soybean and corn crops; squirrels and chipmunks harvested acorns and hickory nuts to store for the winter – blue jays and black-capped chickadees also store the harvest they glean. Harvest seems a totally appropriate term for gathering the fruits and seeds that so many plants produce.

With fall comes the time for butchering the steers and hogs that folks who rear their own have been raising all summer in anticipation of steaks, roasts, ground beef and sausage. With fall also come various hunting seasons – squirrel, rabbit, grouse, turkey, bear and deer.

I’ve never heard anyone say that they were “harvesting” the steer in the pasture or the hog in the pen. But for some reason in the last few years the hunting fraternity has increasingly adopted the term “harvest” to describe the killing of wild animals and birds as if the only reason for those species being on earth is to provide meat or trophies for hunters – nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone reading hunting-oriented magazines sees “harvest” used many, many times in relation to hunters killing their quarry. Earlier this year an issue of one magazine used “harvest” nine times in a short two-page article. 

And so, I’ve come to think of “harvest” as a slick euphemism; euphemism is defined as: a mild or pleasant word or phrase that is used instead of one that is unpleasant or offensive.

“Harvest” has become the euphemism for the killing of wildlife during hunting season. Why? Is it to make the act of killing more acceptable to non-hunters or anti-hunters? Is it to make it less wrenching to hunters themselves? Calling it by another name doesn’t change the fact that a living creature that feels pain, typically cares for its offspring and, in many cases, appears capable of conscious thought, has been slain.

Having watched the life drain from an animal I’ve killed (for whatever reason) has never been without a twinge of … regret, sadness, remorse – I can’t put a name on it, but I’ve always felt it. Killing a deer or grouse isn’t the same as picking a blueberry or plucking an apple from a branch. No matter what the hunting magazines or wildlife agencies may call it, it’s not a “harvest”.  

He's Still Alive

In November of 2013 the camera traps above the house captured photos of a male white-tailed deer with very distinctive antlers – two of the antlers’ largest tines had small tines on their side.

November 2013 –

The buck appeared on camera again in January 2014 – twice in one week. He had an obvious injury high on his left front leg, dragging the leg which seemingly couldn’t bear much weight; presumably he had been hit by a vehicle or wounded by a poacher or during a previous hunting season. Photos of the buck at that time were posted here and here. In looking at those earlier photos of him, it seems that the leg might even have been injured before November 2013.

January 2014 –

The buck then disappeared and we concluded that he hadn’t survived the winter. But, almost a full year later, in February 2015 he reappeared without those distinctive antlers which he had shed. With the cold and snow of winter, and still walking with difficulty, we again felt that he wouldn’t live until spring.

February 2015 –

The camera traps didn’t get any photographs of the buck during the spring and summer this year – they hadn’t gotten spring or summer photos in 2013 or 2014 either. Had he succumbed to the winter? The winter, which was colder with more, and longer lasting snow, on the ground than in recent years. 

But then in early November he reappeared again. Now those distinctive antlers are thicker than in previous years – as is normal as bucks reach their prime. Again, there are small secondary tines on his antlers.

November 2015 –

The injured leg is in roughly the same position in each of the photos as he drags it along, a result of the injury. He would have real problems whenever snow accumulates to much depth - how has he survived the winters?  Where does the buck spend the warmer months and how far does he travel? How does the buck manage to escape the deer-chasing dogs, the coyotes and the hunters who roam the woodland each fall?

Bois d’Arc

Occasionally I walk around on an old farm that was last cultivated during World War II. Along one of the old stonerows there grows a row of contorted, tangled, short trees – a row of Osage-orange trees.

Osage-orange isn’t native to Pennsylvania; historically it was only found in southern Arkansas, southern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas. However, the species was once widely planted as a hedge or living fence. The small branches usually have one-inch long, sharp thorns that deter passage by livestock – and humans. The wood is also resistant to decay and very hard, so trees were also planted as a source of fenceposts.

The tree’s most common name refers to its fruit which, although inedible, somewhat resembles an orange in appearance.

But this is a tree of many names:  hedge apple (since it was planted as a hedge and, to people who had never seen an orange, the green fruit was thought to resemble an apple), horse apple (since horses are one of the few animals that eat the fruit), bois d'arc (the wood was a favorite of Native Americans for making bows), and bodoc and bodark (derived from the French bois d’arc).

There is some thought that the tree was more widespread in the distant past and that the large mammals, which became extinct at about the same time as humans arrived in North America, fed on the tree’s fruit and thus dispersed the seeds. 

The leaves are rather plain with smooth edges, glossy dark green in summer, turning a drab pale yellow in the fall.

In all my wandering in northcentral Pennsylvania I’ve only found a few locations where Osage-orange grows, and those all appeared to be planted trees. From one of those spots, years ago I picked up a dead limb and used that to fashion the tuning pegs for a dulcimer that I made for my wife. The wood is beautiful, orange with a yellow cast when fresh cut, darkening to a rich dark brown with age – but it’s so hard that it rapidly dulls ordinary steel tools.