WildwingsBirds and Outdoor Issues as I see them

Earlier this summer I took part in a shorebird survey in SE North Dakota as part of a larger data collecting effort by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. My designated route takes me through a very diverse and rich natural landscape as part of the Sheyenne National Grasslands. It’s in this habitat–light sandy soils–that I have encountered every single Western hognose snake (Heterdon nasicus) I’ve ever found in North Dakota. Which makes sense since the animal thrives in sandy soils according to everything I’ve read.

I picked this one up and was kind of surprised at its continued belligerance. Usually these guys are all huff-and-puff which soon gives way to going completely limp in a “playing dead” strategy. This one never did play dead and even eventually “musked.” Luckily, I avoided getting any of this extremely nasty smelling substance on me.

You gotta like these tame and very handlable snakes. Unfortunately, many are needlessly killed (like a lot of snakes) and that’s too bad as they fill a nice little rodent-eating niche wherever they are found.

Not sure if you can see it well enough but the upturned face/nose is where the common name of this popular pet snake derives its name.

While not ostensibly there to look at birds, passion is one of those traits a person cannot turn off. So when the opportunity arose last Saturday to take a drive up from Calgary and into Banff National Park, I took along binoculars and my camera. Just in case.

Breathtaking in grandeur, the Canadian Rockies are nothing short of spectacular, a sumptuous feast for the eyes. Despite  the on-again, off-again weather, my buddy and I were able to catch glimpses of rugged cliffs, cascading glaciers, and turquoise blue lakes.

The birds were cooperative too. From memory, the short list of species included: golden-crowned kinglet, chipping sparrow, white-crowned sparrow, hermit thrush, Townsend’s solitaire, American pipit, Wilson’s warbler, yellow-rumped (Audubon’s warbler), gray jay, Clark’s nutcracker, dark-eyed (Oregon) junco, common raven, American crow, pine siskin, cliff swallow, violet-green swallow, and barn swallow. What is that 17 species? Not a great total but considering the birding was incidental to our other motivations (sight-seeing, hiking) not all that bad.

At the end of it all I was asked if any of the birds I saw could be found in North Dakota. I thought briefly about the answer before replying, ‘all of them.’ (Maybe not regularly but I’ve seen them all in the state at one time or another).

But seeing them on breeding territory is infinitely more satisfactory than the short migratory sightings we get here. Here’s a collage of some of the photos…

gray jay

Clark's nutcracker

Townsend's solitaire

American pipit

Finally, a pika. For those who’ve never seen one of these little rockpile-dwelling, tree-line hugging, alpine mammals, it’s something else. In fact, over the years I’ve come to a personal conclusion: this is the cutest wild animal that I know of in North America. What say you?

pika

“The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
    In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
    Wrapped up in a five pound note.”

So begins the nonsensical poem, The Owl and the Pussycat, by Edward Lear, published in 1871.

I’m not sure when or where the video contained in the link below was shot.  But it does another nice job of highlighting the sometimes unexplainable interaction between dissimilar creatures. In this case it’s a cat and a barn owl. It could be European I suppose (barn owls are found on just about every continent, house cats too, duh).

Anyway, to think that two fairly formidable predators from two widely separated families of the animal kingdom would engage in this sort of playfulness is noteworthy.

Sometimes the only thing left to do is stare and wonder. You can do so by clicking here.

The Red River will purportedly reach the 3rd highest crest on record sometime on Sunday or Monday. Land along the river is being swallowed up by the cold muddy waters of this whimsical stream. When that happens, it tends to dislocate whatever critters occupy the thin ribbon of riparian woods.

One local birder made note of the situation from his Moorhead backyard, which abuts the swelling Red. Dennis W. specifically addressed the invasion of voles onto higher ground:

“One look at the damage to our lawn, trees and shrubs suggests that the voles did quite well by this winter. But the flood has become the moment of reckoning, and it is not going so well for the voles. As they are flushed from their homes, the voles have captured the attention of a variety of predators. Species that were observed actually pouncing on or picking up voles this week included red-tailed hawk, Cooper’s hawk, great horned owl, mink, herring gull and crow.”

While my own residence is a long way from the river, it seems I can still stand witness to some relocation.

Over the years I’ve counted well over 100 species from the confines of my property. But I was pretty stunned this morning to see wild turkeys roosting in my neighbor’s boulevard tree. I have to think this quite common local species is finding life in the woods somewhat problematic at the moment, what with the high water and all. There is virtually no other compelling reason for turkeys to exit woody areas.

It was March 28, when I noticed a spring first: racoon prints on snow. A day later I saw one in a tree.

Muskrats have been evident for awhile now with quite a few animals being seen on top of  frozen water. This, of course, is not an awakening–the animals do not hibernate and can be seen ocassionally even in mid-winter. But muskrats certainly seem to enjoy getting out of their dens this time of year. Who wouldn’t?

During yesterday’s early morning walk I noticed something curious in one of West Fargo’s parks. It was a freshly dug den, right in the middle of snowy ground. Whatever had busied itself with digging through still-frozen ground was certainly driven. I thought it might be a woodchuck.

Farther down the walk I came upon an interesting sight: the first red fox I’d ever seen in the park. Now it gets curious. Was it the fox which had dug the den?

Whenever I see Chuck A. on my caller I.D., I know it’s something worthwhile. This gentleman is truly a joy to be around. His mind is so sharp, his ideas so profound, his drive so unstoppable, that I relish the moments we spend together. There are a scant few individuals that I know with similar traits. I cherish them all.

Sometimes the calls are physics-related (he owns a number of patents), sometimes work-related, and sometimes wildlife-related. This time it was the latter of the three.

He said he was in north Fargo and had seen two large dark critters along the edge of the Red River. Initially he had thought they were perhaps beavers or maybe mink. But once he watched them haul themselves onto an ice shelf with a fish and seen their long muscly tails, he knew they were otters.

I was engaged with appointments and so couldn’t join him immediately. Ninety minutes later I caught up with him near a bridge. Chuck had been watching, following, and photographing these animals for two hours.

I finally got a chance at a photo when the two emerged from the bridge’s shadow (see photo). Unfortunately, it was a dorsal view looking straight down which lacks any profile or facial features. Nonetheless it’s the best I got.

I, too, watched the animals for quite some time, with every car along Cass hwy 20 slowing to a near-stop. Probably to make sure we weren’t going to jump in the river or something.

We witnessed some intriguing behavior. The otters (or more likely just one), were killing a lot of fish and dragging them onto the ice with barely a nick out of them (see photo). Were they caching food? I doubt it. Were they merely having fun and acting instinctual? Again, I have doubts. I am not at all versed on otter behavior but I suspect the male was readily killing fish in an effort to show the female he was a capable mate, in a sort of courtship thing.

If anyone knows about this otter behavior, I’d love to hear about it.

kcorliss@forumcomm.com

A weekend drive to the western portions of Cass County (No. Dak.) late in January was notable for being not very notable.

A nice find was an adult golden eagle, a bird which can be tough to find in Cass County (it’s pretty much a winter-only species here). So tough in fact, I missed it entirely last year.

But my traveling companion was taken with a certain small mammal, the fox squirrel. Frankly, I gloss over these quite common tree squirrels most times. But it took someone from another country (Sri Lanka)  to reawaken me to their prevalence.

Of the three tree squirrels found here, fox squirrel is, by far, the largest. If a person is out hunting squirrels, these guys are the target.

Funny thing about fox squirrels is there habit of regularly foraging away from trees. Our gray squirrels and red squirrels make it to the ground but they don’t like it much and quickly scurry to the refuge of trees. However, in cultivated farm fields, it’s not uncommon to see fox squirrels feeding much like deer. Here’s one big fat one feeding on the buds of a box elder tree.

This video, more than just about anything I’ve seen, illustrates just how little we fully understand of the natural world. I just don’t know what to say other than, maybe, ‘it’s a whacky world out there.’

Click here to watch.

We’ve discussed shrikes here in the past, both northern and loggerhead. I only bring it up again because I had a pretty decent up-close-and-personal encounter with a northern shrike this afternoon.

A glorious sunny afternoon in the 40s and little was stirring in this small copse of woods and grass. But something popped out of cover and flew a short distance before putting itself again in heavy brush. I could tell it was a shrike when it flew, I could also tell it had a kill in its small talons.

The bird let me watch it–albeit at a wary distance–as it tore into its meal. The photo above is the best I could do. It’s barely recognizable but trust me, it’s a northern shrike.

As a brief reminder, these are curious songbirds in that they are also raptors. They don’t come with the menacingly large hooked beaks, the razor talons, or the shrieking cry. No, these small birds are rather innocuous looking, maybe that’s their technique. Perhaps more than anything else they are known to impale prey on thorns or barbed wire, likely as a result of their small weak feet.

In any case, I moved slightly and the bird took off leaving whatever it was it was eating in place. I walked over and snapped this photo. Now I’m no expert on small mammals but I believe this is (was?) a southern redback vole. That’s the best I could figure from a quick perusal of my Peterson’s Mammals book. If anyone else would like to offer up a better guess I’d like to hear it.

As one can see from the photo, like all raptors, shrikes appear to eat the head first.

As I was making my way home this week I past through a somewhat rural, but developing, area south of West Fargo. I went by a harvested soybean field and noticed several curious dark lumps so pulled over and checked them out. Then it got even more curious as the lumps began to move. They were white-tailed jackrabbits (which are actually hares and not rabbits).

I don’t know that much about them in terms of population cycles but I’m guessing these critters go through ups and downs similar to other creatures–some years I see a lot of them, others very few.

They are currently undergoing a change in color (something rabbits do not do), transitioning from their summer drab grayish brown to the all-white coat of winter. Well, all except the tips of their ears, which remains black. Currently, they are in a transition phase with elements of both summer and winter appearances.

Unlike some would think, this change in coat comes not from ever-colder temperatures, but from shortening daylength. Chemical changes in the body are stimulated by the lack of sun with the reversal coming in spring.

In any case, this looks to have been quite a successful breeding season for them as I counted 26 individuals in all. By the way, jackrabbit young are born fully-furred and ready to hop. Contrast this with rabbits which are born blind and nearly hairless.

The other huge difference between hares and rabbits is a personal one. Hares look kind of scary (well, except snowshoe hares). I think it’s those bulging goat-like eyes and the unworldly huge ears. Whatever it is they sort of give me the creeps.