I braved the cold today to survey my two observation sites on the Androscoggin River. Along with a bunch of other volunteers I am collecting data on bird occurrences on the major rivers of Maine. This is all part of an attempt to understand the impacts of dam removal on wildlife and other environmental factors.

All of the drama about wind-chill on the TV weather reports has had a bad effect on me. I used to work up a sweat cross-country skiing in the Adirondacks at 20 below zero (Fahrenheit) and now I am afraid to stand fifty feet from a car at zero degrees for 20 minutes? On a well-traveled road?

Well, it was pretty quiet on the river today. There were a couple of Herring Gulls and a Ring-billed Gull over a stretch of the Androscoggin in Durham. The river this morning was about 70% ice-covered and was making ice while I stood there. The sun felt nice however. I had my coat unzipped and got a little chill but all in all--not bad. Certainly nothing to panic about.

The number of ducks below Great Falls in Auburn has doubled to nearly 100 but nothing too exciting going on yet. All of the ducks were Mallards, as pictured above. There were two hybrids of Mallard and Black Ducks (ducks are famous for that) and one hybrid of a Mallard and a domestic variety that has been hanging out there all fall. And there were only a few Herring and Ring-billed Gulls.

A couple of years ago Derek and I spotted a nice Iceland Gull among the hundred or so gulls that were roosting on the ice here. Today the river here was only about 10% iced over. I am guessing that there is enough open water around that birds have not become concentrated here as they probably will as winter tightens its grip on the area.

My hour in the outdoors is "toughening me up" for the Christmas Bird Count. Tomorrow I will be taking off to Elizabethtown New York to do their CBC for what is possibly the 35th year for me.

I will begin my morning, if all goes well, at around 4 AM on the back roads of Lewis, New York listening for Saw-whet Owls. Then on my way down from the foothills of the Adirondack mountains, I will probably try for Barred Owl before ending in the farm country of the Lake Champlain valley listening for Great Horned. If I get really lucky I might spot a Short-eared Owl beating its way back and forth across the fields searching for breakfast as dawn approaches. I have had all of the above owls on the count. One I have never had there is a Snowy Owl. So here's hoping.

So nothing too exotic on my trip out today. Three Red-tailed Hawks circling together over the river just south of my observation area was a high number for this time of year.

But you have to be careful about becoming a bird bigot. If it were not so common there would be hundreds of people lined up to see this beautiful duck as imaged below and above by Kirk Rogers.

Final Harvest?

How quickly things change! A week ago it was seventy degrees and I was walking the beach at Sea Point in Kitttery, Maine. Yes, there was a Glaucous Gull, a winter visitor from the far north, riding waves off the point, but it sure seemed like winter was a long ways off.

Last night we had our second snow storm of the season. The thermometer is supposed to take a big dive tonight. So I decided it was time to harvest the carrots before things froze solid.

Beneath the 8 inches of snow the ground was still not frozen. It was sunny and the air temps were around 40 F so it wasn't bad digging. I actually worked up a sweat and shed a layer or two of clothing.



Mesh plant trays scavenged from the transfer station are handy for gathering vegetables. I walk them over to the pond and rinse them in the little waterfall where the pond empties into the brook.

A week ago Johnny Jump-ups were still blooming in the garden



And I got my grafted apple and pear trees wrapped as protection against the voles (and other critters) for the winter.





The Nantes Carrots from FEDCO seeds are the star of the show. They are sweet and crisp. I eat them raw, like candy.



Mokum Carrots, also from FEDCO, are not so tasty. They are an early carrot and perhaps I left them in the ground too long. They will be great for cooking though. I have a plan to brine some of them in canning jars. I have never done that before but it seems worth a try. I now have between 30 and 40 pounds of carrots so there is lots of room for experiments.

I bought a few cabbages at the winter farmer's market in Brunswick, Maine and I plan to make sauerkraut from this weekend. I have done this before. If you turn up your nose at sauerkraut possibly you have never had the home-made types. Home-made is a whole different beast--very nutty and crunchy. All you need is cabbage, a little pickling salt and a crock.

I will keep you posted on my results.

I am planning to brine some turnips as well. I was surprised that the turnip greens were crisp and ready to eat under the snow. They will be good in a stir fry of winter veggies tomorrow.



Now everything is frozen. We have over 30 Mourning Doves hanging out around the feeder. When it is this cold they sit low in the pines and absorb the heat from the sun angling beneath the branches. As we near the winter solstice the sun makes a low arc through the sky.

But the FEDCO 2010 seed catalog is here! It is time to select seeds for next summer and enjoy winter fantasies of another beautiful and productive garden.

Conversations with a Porcupine

While talking with a friend on the phone I looked out the back window and saw a big, fat porcupine in my garden.

"What are you eating?" was my first thought. (In a previous post I wrote about the porcupine mowing down my winter lettuce crop.) "You better not be going after my elderberry."

Later in the phone conversation I made another check on the porcupine. It had moved a little--not very far--and appeared to be in the middle of my carrot bed. "Maybe the porcupine is trying to tell me that I need to dig these carrots up before the voles get them." (Third thought).

After the call ended I thought I had better make sure the porcupine had not started munching the carrots in advance of the voles. I didn't know what exactly I might do about that. Ten of my apple grafts are within waddling distance of the carrot bed and if I were a porcupine I would be seriously considering munching some of the fragrant apple bark. (I don't have my vole guards on the apples yet either.)

The porcupine was sitting in the aisle between the raised beds with its head butted up, chin tucked in, against the row of carrots. It appeared to be asleep. It was asleep. I watched it breath for awhile.

I was curious as to how fast a sleeping porcupine breathes. I watched its guard hairs rise and fall and quiver with the breaths. The porcupine's pelage is quite complex. Long delicate hairs rose above the thick fur and quivered in the breeze. Perhaps they warn sleeping porcupines of close contacts with undetected predators and allow the porcupine to react before fangs reach the surface of its skin.

The soft hair of the sleeping porcupine

A porcupine has 30,000 quills and countless more hairs of other types. At any rate it is said that they never experience cold and the hollow quills make them excellent swimmers.

I was jealous of the porcupine. It must be nice to be able to fall asleep anywhere, anytime and not be cold. (I am always cold and sleep under a pile of comforters most of the year.) And to not be afraid of anyone bothering you. Most animals are exceedingly vigilant.

A friend of mine spent forty nights, in mid-winter, sleeping under the branches of a hemlock a half-mile down the road from her house. She had spotted a porcupine sleeping high in the tree and wanted to see if it ever came down. For at least forty days and nights it did not.

At that point her children were threatening to leave and her husband to divorce her and she gave up her investigation.

The porcupine spent its days chewing bark from the slender upper branches of the hemlock. It relocated itself regularly when it exhausted the supply of fresh bark within reach. The porcupine ate and slept in the tree for over a month. It clung to the high branches of the hemlock, doing whatever porcupines do, through snow storms, wind storms and ice storms. The few sunny days when the warmth of the winter sun reflected from the snow must have been very comforting.

With their few personal needs so easily met one might ask what porcupines do with all of their free time. Personally I think that they ponder the question of the origin of the universe. Some version of "String Theory" I believe is the latest happening thing on that topic.

I think this is why porcupines move so slowly and sleep so much. They have been working on this for a long time and it's exhausting. There you are munching winter lettuce in Dan's garden, equations spinning around in your head and, suddenly, it is just to much. You press your aching forehead up against the bed of carrots and fall asleep amid the delicate fronds of carrot leaves.

I recently met a kitten who explores strings--those loose threads hanging from your sweaters for instance. But she is too quick in temperament--in and out of the topic in a flash. Then she moves on to attack a sock worn by someone who is trying to enjoy a cup of coffee and a bagel. Not in it for the long haul. It is all in the moment for kittens. They are an amusing diversion but they will never advance the theory of the universe very much.

Porcupines on the other hand, I believe spend much time deep in thought--it takes time to think--and it's hard to converse with one. Their thoughts develop slowly and there are long pauses in which not much happens in the way of a conversation. They have lots of time, so why not go about the job deliberately? We modern humans who are busy and overcaffeinated can have a hard time with this kind of relationship. You have to be the kind of person who will sleep for forty nights under a hemlock tree in winter to get very far in a relationship with a porcupine. Mostly we are mildly amused for a moment and then move on.

I think the theoretical conclusions of porcupines have been developed over generations. Kind of like Stonehenge where scientists figure it must have taken many generations of disciplined astronomical observation to lay out the rock formations that accurately mark the passing of a year. And we think of these people from perhaps a hundred generations ago as primitive.

I have found porcupine dens under the ledges of local ridge-tops. From the size of the piles of the dry, aromatic porcupine droppings it appears that countless millenia of porcupines have inhabited these dens. The scent of the porcupine den is very pleasant and soothing. Sometimes I locate the dens by their smell as I am walking in the woods. For all know the generations of porcupines leave the results of their ponderings painted in musk on the walls of their caves for other porcupines to read. Much of this, alas, is lost on us.

But here I am by the carrot patch asking questions of a porcupine and, so far, getting no answers. The porcupine woke with a start. It must have picked up somehow on all the neural activity going on a few feet away from it.

Porcupine wakes with a start.

It turned and faced me.

The deep impenetrable gaze of the porcupine

It said nothing. No response to any of my questions. I was able to read no answer in its dark eyes shrouded in soft dark hair. Was it an air of annoyance? I think so.

I am not generally comfortable when a wild animal stares at me, especially close up. I think humans have spent at least as much time as possible prey as they have as predators and we still have that response imprinted in us that gazelles and zebras have when the lion wakes from her nap and begins to scan the savanna for lunch offerings.

I began to talk to the porcupine again "What are you thinking?" I offered warily. It turned its head back to the carrot bed and I think let go a sigh of disgust.

I decided to move away and let the porcupine go back to whatever it had been doing before I disturbed it. It didn't seem to be eating my carrots, just enjoying them.

However it didn't seem to enjoy my passing behind it. It raised its guard hairs and exposed some very nasty looking quills. All of a sudden it did not look so warm and fuzzy. The message was getting clearer.

Porcupine on alert



Still on alert

I turned to get one more photo and it started walking toward me.

Porcupine on a mission; but what mission?

I don't like it when wild animals walk toward me. "What are you doing? I asked. I got no answer, it just kept coming.

I do what I usually do--I slowly backed away, trying to show no fear.

Porcupines have no time for petty human concerns. It turned before it got to me and passed under the door to the horse shed.

What does it take to get a nap around this place?

I believe that it muttered "Insufferable humans!" as it entered my shed but I am not sure. Like most humans I can be so defensive.

I guess we are on a moment to moment, live and let live basis for now--the porcupine and I.
I will deal with the carrots and get the vole (or, possibly, porcupine) guards on my young apple trees soon.

If it starts climbing the older apple trees and feasting on their bark we will have to another, more serious, conversation and I am really not looking forward to that one. When you come right down to it, despite my occasional warm and fuzzy appearance, I can be at least as intransigent as a porcupine.

The Downtown Owl

Barred Owl at Faneuil Hall in Boston (Addie Flisser from the Boston Globe)

I have had lots of reports of barred owls from hither and yon. Some people are hearing their usual "Who cooks for you?" calls and others are asking me about the cat-like screamings coming from the woods at night.

It must have been a good year for raising young barred owls. A lot of that depends of the availability of prey and owl populations can go up and down based on the size of the local rodent population at the time.

After the breeding season the young birds disperse. I suspect all of the noise in the woods lately is about turf wars. Each young owl is searching for a good territory, rich in prey species, in which to spend the winter. While moving around they run into other owls who make it known in their own way, "Hey, pal, this seat is taken."

The following story came from the Maine chat line of Birdingonthe.net.

Check out the article from The Boston Globe on this young vagrant that has made its way to Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston, Massachusetts:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/11/20/faneuil_hall_mall_is_where_one_wild_thing_is/ 

Caution: Mammals at Work

Up and around before dawn, as usual, I went out to the garage to fill the feeders and get white millet to spread on the ledge for the sparrows.

The sparrows, white-throated sparrows in particular, are up early. I like to spread the seed before daylight so that I don't spook them when they arrive for their early morning foraging.

When I stepped out of the garage something in the dim light cast from the kitchen door caught my eye. I had come within inches of stepping on a porcupine.

The porcupine's quills were raised in defense. I was very lucky to have missed what could have been a painful encounter. A light pair of pajamas would not have afforded much protection against the sharp quills.

I had suspected that a porcupine was around because a few days earlier something had done a neat job of mowing down my late planting of lettuce. (And the lettuce had been doing so well!)

Porcupine helps with lettuce harvest

I looked for deer tracks thinking that a deer might have squeezed through a narrow gap in the fence. No deer tracks. I figured that the woodchucks were all asleep for the winter and, anyway, I had relocated those months ago. That left me with a memory of a porcupine that I had discovered a couple of years ago in the old horse shed. It had spent a few nights at about this time of year snuggled up in some old hay bales.

On close inspection of my lettuce bed I could see the imprint of the heavy belly of the porcupine impressed upon the mats of chickweed that bordered the lettuce patch. I allow some of the chickweed to grow because it is a nutritious weed and provides me with the first greens of the year each spring. Apparently the porcupine was unimpressed by the chickweed and strongly favored my winter lettuce.

Down the road another mammal has been busy making preparations for winter.

Beaver Dam on "Town Line Brook"

In only a couple of months a beaver has created a sizable dam on the brook at the bottom of the hill. It is now about four feet tall and the beaver has been amassing a cache of alder branches just behind the dam.

One of several poplars being felled by the beaver

Further up the road, at the little pond where a mallard raised a brood of ten this summer, a muskrat has built a mud lodge for itself.

Muskrat lodge (Image from weforanimals.com NPS photo)

It is still actively foraging even though ice has lately skimmed the surface of the pond on a few mornings.

Muskrat image from weforanimals.com NPS photo

Lastly I am happy to say that the most dominant animals in my surroundings have finished stacking the four cords of wood which will heat the house in the winter of '10.

Ready for whatever comes our way

(Porcupine image from Jim Peaco weforanimals.com NPS photo)

Gos!

Crows are usually up to something. The three crows dive-bombing a pine tree in a neighboring yard caught my attention on Monday. I made several trips to the site but could not locate whatever they were diving on.

Later in the day, however, another crow behavior caught my eye. A dozen crows were cawing madly and circling high above the yard.
From previous observations going back to the '70s in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, I recognized this as a behavior that crows exhibit when a goshawk is in the area.

Goshawks are the size of a crow and a fierce predator, able to take prey the size of ruffed grouse or snowshoe hares. There are stories of goshawks following prey on foot into a shrubby tangle.

Once, on the Webster Road in Freeport, I saw a gos take a power dive below some mourning doves perched on a utility line and then come up on them from underneath. Usually a bird feels relatively comfortable when they are above a hawk but in the case of a gos--not so much, as the currently popular saying goes.

Hence, the crows behavior. While they commonly harass red-tailed hawks by diving on them from above, they take no chances with a goshawk. The goshawks have relatively short wings for a large bird and a long tail which steers them on rapid pursuits of prey in thick woods. The crow's best defense is to climb high above the bird and announce its presence to others of their kind in the area.

I searched the tall trees around the house for a perched gos to no avail. But after a few minutes the gos appeared in a leisurely flight above the tree tops and circled high above our clearing in the woods for about five minutes before moving on.

It has been a wonderful week for working outdoors. A red-tailed hawk passed overhead as the goshawk departed. Lingering Yellow-rumped warblers have been hawking flying insects over the compost bin. I had not realized until this week what a bird-magnet the compost bin is. The late Redstart pictured in my previous post was seen hawking insects in the same area.

Yellow-rumped Warbler by Len Blumen via Birdshare and Flickr

The yard has been busy with birds, except when the gos is around. We have had a couple of hairy woodpeckers coming to the suet, a downy prefers the nut log purchased at Freeport Wild Bird Supply, a couple of ruby-crowned kinglets have been hanging around. Up to seven robins have been feeding in the various crabapple trees. White-throated and song sparrows, along with Juncos come from the raspberry tangles to feed on white millet that I scatter on a ledge and in the driveway. Chickadees, tufted titmouse and nuthatches busy themselves at the sunflower feeders. An occasional cardinal drops by. A few goldfinches are the only finches that I have seen in the yard this fall.

On Wednesday the crows were raising a ruckus high in the sky again, so I assumed that the gos is still hanging around. Monday I saw only the second-ever partridge or ruffed grouse in the yard. Perhaps, despite the wet spring, this has been a good year for the grouse and the goshawk is taking advantage of an abundance of prey in the area.

Goshawk image by Stefan Willoughby via Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefwillo/ / CC BY 2.0

Wood Smoke, Fallen Leaves, Lingering Migrants

A lingering American Redstart was hawking flying insects in the yard on a warm day this week along with some Myrtle Warblers and a late Blue-headed Vireo. A grackle was also hanging out in the yard and robins work over the Zumi Crabapple for its fruit that persists on the tree into winter.

The warm days seem like real gifts now. A few trees hold yellow, red or orange leaves that light up in the low angle of the sun late in the day. There is the smell of wood smoke, the sour smell of fallen leaves dampened by chill fall rains and the sound of the chain saws as people, like myself, get around to the chore of cutting wood that should have been done months ago.

Our weather has been alternately pleasant and chilling. We are enjoying a new wood stove which is so much more efficient than the old one. A slight accumulation of snow late Sunday night put a little urgency into winter clean up. We will be wrapping our young apple trees next weekend, so that the meadow voles will not be munching their bark and girdling them below the snow pack this winter. I finished planting daffodils, tulips, allium and garlic bulbs for spring blooming.

The garlic is already up. Cynthia tells me that this is a problem for one of these varieties in that it winter kills when the hard frost hits. I will try a mat of leaves over the bed and we will see if that helps.

It is always interesting to see what remains of summer at this time of year--small flying insects that show against the sun on a warm evening, the late migrants--song and white-throated sparrows singing feeble songs while I work in the garden. My feeders are full and birds are busy fortifying themselves against the lengthening nights and for their long migrations. Winter is just around the corner.

(American Redstart photo by Kirk Rogers)