Owls, and new book

I haven't had time to sit down and create anything of substance for a while, but there's stuff waiting in the wings. A new book is out and it is utterly dynamite! I'll post some info and thoughts on that later, along with some cool owl stuff.

Blogger is also having a snit, and in one of its uncooperative photo uploading moods. Hopefully it'll be in a better digital frame of mind upon my return today, which will make life in the Blogosphere much easier.

Weasel in the basement! Weasel in the basement!

Just when you think you've seen it all... A short time back, I made THIS POST about a Long-tailed Weasel, Mustela frenata, that cam-masters David and Laura Hughes had filmed in the outback of Monroe County, Ohio. So today, a comment rolls in on that post, as follows: "Hey Jim, I'm from upstate NY, I just came across a long tailed weasel in its white winter coat in my basement. Any suggestions as to what to do with it. Thanks Ron".

Well, I was a bit flummoxed, I don't mind telling you that. And also possibly a bit suspicious. It seemed too ludicrous to be true. Being a bit of a practical joker myself, when I encounter major oddball occurrences I can be a bit skeptical...

 Photo: Ron Shephard

 

Ron wasn't pulling the figurative wool over my cynical eyes after all - a bit later he piped along this photo, taken with his iPhone in the dim recesses of his basement. How'd you like to pop downstairs into the subterranean recesses of your dwelling, and spot a tubular white weasel eyeballing you from the rafters? Never mind, most of the readership of this blog would probably think it was cool. But if you were a normal person, it would likely startle the bezeezus out of you.

 

 

 Video: Ron Shephard

 

Ron shot this short vid with his trusty iPhone - smart phones do it all, get one if you don't have one. We see the weasel peering out from some shelving, undulating from side to side. It's swaying because that's what weasels do when they're trying to better detect the scent of something, prey usually. Ron can at least be grateful that he is larger than the weasel, or a meal he might be.

 

And why is this creature white? Long-tailed Weasels occupy a massive range that extends from southern Canada all the way into northern South America. In the northernmost reaches of their distribution, they change from brown to snow-white come winter. I am not 100% certain, but I believe Ohio is on the edge of the white-to-brown weasel shape-shifting. Weasels in northern Ohio tend to whiten up, while our southern weasels remain brown. Even when they turn white, as Ron's beast has, Long-tailed Weasels retain their black-tipped tail.

 

Video: Ron Shephard

 

Look at the little speedster go! Ron's very logical query was "what do I do with it?". My possibly rather unhelpful reply was to herd it into a box or sack and take it outside. Right. Seems like a good idea but rounding up weasels is easier said than done, as you might suspect after watching the above video. Hopefully the weasel will find its way back out through whatever portal it entered the basement.

 

On a positive note, Ron reports fewer mice.

 

Good luck with the weasel, Ron, and many thanks for sharing your story with us. Let me know what happens...

 

First bird of 2013 is a loud one!

(bad photo, but the best I could muster on short notice)

Many birders eagerly anticipate the first bird that they see in each New Year. Some even attach various omens or tidings to their inaugural New Year's Day sighting, to the degree that they will go out of their way to avoid having some "bad" bird be the first of the year. I, too, always make note of my first year-bird, but tend to just accept whatever it may be without undue superstition.

This morning - first day of 2013 - I must admit to being pleased to hear the rousing chorus of a Carolina Wren ringing from the backyard bushes. Normally I must settle for a European Starling, and I certainly rank these jaunty little wrens several notches above the starling on the avian social scale. Funny thing is, I haven't heard a Carolina Wren around here for months.

Beaver, oiling up

The following video shows something that I bet you've never seen. It was definitely new to me. Those ultimate cam-masters, David and Laura Hughes, sent along a new crop of animal videos from one of their magical Monroe County game trails. This one depicts a Beaver, Castor canadensis, maintaining its pelage. Dave and Laura had sent along another Beaver video previously, and I expounded a bit about their engineering feats IN THAT POST.

This time around, the Beaver has the good manners to stop right in front of the trail cam, plunk down, and begin oiling its fur. Beavers have a pair of glands located near the tail - the castor glands - that exude an oily water-repellent secretion known as castoreum. The castoreum is the fourth tier of protection insulating the animal from the icy waters of winter. A beaver has a dense layer of fat, overlain by a dense cloak of short underfur. Overtopping that are longer and coarser guard hairs. The final protective coat is the castoreum, which we see the beaver applying in Dave and Laura's video. With all of these protective layers in place, water has no chance of penetrating to the Beaver's skin, and the furry engineers can operate with impunity, even in the frigid winter waters.

People have found uses for castoreum, too. It is used in various products as a food additive, and also in some perfumes. Glamorous models strutting the runways scented with Beaver castoreum probably do not know that fur trappers also use the pungent mask as a lure for other animals.

Thanks, as always, to David and Laura for allowing me to share their work.

A crab spider hug

Winter brings its charms, but as I get older I also find myself pining for spring, warmer weather, and the explosion of life, earlier each year. Here it is in late December and I'm already longing for bugs, flowers, warblers and all of that other stuff of the balmy months.

 

The good thing about taking, and keeping, reams of photos is that I can beam myself back in time via pictures. I clicked into a folder from an Adams County, Ohio foray of last August 18th - that day was MUCH warmer than it is right now - and ran across these crab spider photos.

 

The animal had staked out the discoid flowers of a Wingstem, Verbesina alternifolia, and was awaiting its next meal. Any tiny flower fly or other well-intentioned pollinator would die a grisly death soon after alighting on this blossom. The spider was a juvenile, and tiny, and I don't know the species other than it's some sort of crab spider. Good enough for now.

As the front glass of my lens neared his eight-eyed grill, the itsy-bitsy spider menacingly spread its forelegs wide, as if to give your narrator an arachnoid hug. No backing off here, in spite of my size advantage. I made my images and let the little crab spider get back to its homicidal work.

White-tailed Deer bucks

This is an oft-viewed vista at the Wilds - the landscape as seen from the birding platform at Jeffrey Point. I was exploring the 10,000 acres of this massive reclaimed strip mine area last Saturday as part of the Chandlersville Christmas Bird Count. Towards day's end, a few hardy teams went to favored Short-eared Owl hunting meadows to tally these strange birds. Chilly and windy as this spot may be, I was not disappointed - five owls were hunting the grasslands before me, at times so close that I could hear their curious terrierlike barks.

Owls weren't the only thing in view...

White-tailed Deer, Odocoileus virginianus, abound within the Wilds, and it's not uncommon to sizeable herds of the beasts grazing in the fields. There are always some good-looking bucks sprinkled in, such as the fellow above. While he's a fine-looking specimen, the animal probably isn't much above average size, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 lbs. That's a far cry from the heaviest specimen on record, which was shot by Carl Lenander in Minnesota in 1926. The brute weighed in at 402 pounds, field dressed, and it was estimated to have been about 511 pounds when alive.

I never tire of looking at deer, especially bucks with racks. Judging by the condition of the base of this one's antlers, I'd say he'll soon shed them. Bucks lose their antlers every winter, and begin to regrow a new rack in spring. Many people enjoy searching for the "sheds", but it can take a lot of time and footwork to luck into some.

If you want to explore the Wilds firsthand with experienced guides, the Ohio Ornithological Society hosts their 9th annual Wilds Winter Raptor Extravaganza on January 19th. Participants should see some interesting birds - we had the old reliable Golden Eagle last Saturday, and numerous Northern Harriers and Rough-legged Hawks of both color morphs, among many other species. All the details ARE HERE.

Long-tailed Weasel caught on video!

David and Laura Hughes are trail cam masters, and have been getting the coolest video footage that I've ever seen by way of cams. They've got some magical spots in eastern Ohio's Monroe County that are teeming with critters, all of which the Hughes' seem to capture on film.

Brief as it may be, the video below is incredible and shows an animal that is seldom seen by most of us. In all of my time afield, I believe that I've only encountered four Long-tailed Weasels, Mustela frenata, well enough to get any sort of decent look. They aren't rare and occur across Ohio, but weasels are normally nocturnal, and as we shall see, quite speedy.

Note the insane speed with which this weasel locomotes! I wouldn't want to be a mouse or some other lesser creature, and get caught in the sights of this thing!

Thanks as always to Dave and Laura for sharing their stellar work.