The Cooper's Hawk and the Squirrel

 I've seen Cooper's hawks harassing squirrels before, but a few weeks ago there was quite a show in our front feeder area!  

This gorgeous bird was hungry!  I was busy doing breakfast dishes when she flew in.  I say, "she," but I'm only guessing because the bird seemed on the large size for Cooper's and as with most raptors, the females are a bit bigger than the males.  We have a feeder right outside the kitchen window (which is on the 2nd floor), so I can really watch what is going on while washing up!  Nice.   

(All of these pictures were taken through the window glass, and many, like this one, with my phone, so quality is iffy sometimes...)

What is she looking at?  She is watching a squirrel on the tree below her.   As you orient yourself with the next picture picture, the hawk is on the branch - her back to us - and the squirrel is on the left side of the tree, down near the ground, but above the bushes.

 

  

 We watched the interactions for the better part of 20 minutes (almost making us late to rehearsal!).  The two critters seemed to be teasing each other.  The squirrel would run around the other side of the tree, run up close, then back down.  The hawk watched and occasionally flew down, circling the tree!

In the next picture, the squirrel is pretty much right below the hawk on the right side, 

but still down near the ground!

 Hmm... Getting guttsy!

 In the next picture, the squirrel is close to the Coop, but one branch down on the left side of the tree... 

We left them here and did get to rehearsal on time! 

   

 

 

Another quick Cooper's Hawk Story (the Cooper's gets lunch): 

 It is well documented that the Coops will dive into a flock of birds around a feeder in hopes that one will turn toward the house and run into a window, thus providing a meal for the Coop.  

 

I was again doing dishes and there was a disruption below, around the feeder.  Suddenly a mourning dove crashed into the window, at my eye level about 3 feet from me!  It had barely bounced off the window when the Coop snatched it out of the air and dove into the bushes for a quiet lunch!  They are very agile birds and remarkable hunters!  That was a pretty amazing 10 seconds of my day!!

 

 A fox:

 Never a dull moment around here!  The pictures below were of another day, with a visit from our resident fox.  We had two that we'd see frequently, both red fox.  This fox but was more beige-ish gray, but still a red fox, and second was more red.  Sadly, we saw a dead red fox on the side of the road on Dutton a few days ago.  Probably "ours".

What a great place to live.  Is it any wonder that I don't complain about doing dishes??

 

 

 

 

TWO HAWKS, A FOX AND THE GREAT HORNED OWL

Two Hawks, a Fox and the Great Horned Owl…  This interesting wildlife report is a collaboration between us and our next door neighbors. We took what was seen by each household and put together the story of this vivid example of what our neighbor called,  "The 'Food Chain' law that rules the planet". 

About 9AM, here at our house, we were watching a Great Horned Owl who was about halfway down the hill toward the pond, maybe 50 feet away!  The owl was on the ground and seemed to be trying to grab some prey. 

Now, let’s go to the story next door. From their porch at about the same time, they noticed two hawks in some kind of altercation on their hill heading down toward the pond. Meanwhile there was a fox in their front yard, getting a drink of water. The fox heard the altercation, and as canines are wont to do, ran toward it! The fox tried to get the squirrel that the hawks were fighting over, but the hawks pecked at the fox and it ran off to look for an easier breakfast. 

Meanwhile, back at our house, we saw the owl suddenly fly off next door! We texted over there to let the neighbors know that there was a Great Horned Owl somewhere in their yard, on the hill heading down to the pond - we didn't see where it landed. 

"Ah, there it is!!" It was sitting on a log between our two houses, eating a squirrel! I guess the hawks decided that the owl was too big to mess with and left their prize. Tough getting a meal around here! 

OK - I hear you saying, "But owls are night-time critters!!  This was day time!"  Not all owls are nocturnal; the barred owl, for example (another owl we have around here) is also diurnal (up in the daytime) as well as nocturnal.  I think the Great Horned we saw (they are nocturnal) was probably feeding chicks and therefore hunting in the morning for herself.

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ONE OF THE WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT LIVING HERE is that we never know what Mother Nature is going to show us! It isn't always pleasant, but it is always interesting! 

Other wonderful things about our little area is that it is DARK at night -- no street lights, so the wild animals do wander through the yard at night, and during the day. 

A fox passes through our yard almost every morning to see if s/he can get some breakfast. And that will stay true because the area around the pond, the brooks and the wetlands is all protected. What that means is that home owners can't even cut a tree or clean up brush within 100 feet of the water. Within 200 feet, you have to get permission from the Sudbury Conservation Committee to do changes.  The law truly protects the waterways and the wildlife habitat in Sudbury.

Here is a link to "Protecting Sudbury's Wetlands" 
https://sudbury.ma.us/conservation/2019/03/26/about-protecting-sudburys-wetlands/

Wild forever, I hope!!

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OH!  Back to the owl.  I never managed to get a good picture of her (I think it was female as it was quite large and in the GHOWs, as with many raptors, the female is larger than the male).  I was shooting pictures through the window and she was always behind branches.  I didn't want to go out of the house as my presence could scare her away from her meal.  Here are a couple of very fuzzy pictures, but you can kind of see the face.

The photo below is one that I took of a great horned owl several years ago (2015). This owl was also up in the morning and roosting (resting) in a tree down near the pond for well over an hour.  If you look very carefully at the talons on the owl's left foot, you will see a bit of fur left over from the meal!

NEVER A DULL MOMENT HERE!  And we LOVE it wild.

STORIES IN THE SNOW

The snow tells stories.  I love a freshly fallen snow (preferably not TOO deep!).  I consider myself to be lucky to have a dog and that dog needs to be walked fairly early in the morning after my morning ablutions.  Anyway, every morning, usually before sunrise in the winter, I am out walking the dog.  If there is new snow, we are often making the first tracks on our driveway and road.  Sometimes, though, other critters have been there before us and I love trying to figure out their tracks and who was doing what.  I am NOT a good tracker, I know only a very little, but I enjoy trying.  Here are some basic hints so that if you've never tried it, you can learn to read the snow.  (If we're going to have this much snow, you might as well get out there and enjoy it!)

Deer Footprint

deer hoof

A deer print is a relatively easy one to figure out around here as we don't have a lot of different wild critters with the cloven hoof.  What is a cloven hoof?  A hoof that is split in two parts, the toes (see picture on the right). 

Notice in the picture above that there is a space between the marks of the two toes. The part that looks connected is the back of the hoof and the weight of the animal as she places her foot in the snow, makes it look like it connects.

Deer Tracks, Going From Right to Left

One morning we went out to MANY deer tracks in the driveway!  It looked like they had a party!  Upon closer examination, my supposition was that they were walking down the drive (3 or 4 of them?), hoping to find a place to cut through the yard (not a chance!  Our banks are too high!).  Upon not finding any cut-through, turned around and went back out.  I wondered if they were being chased, but the exiting footprints looked as relaxed as the goes-into prints.



Deer really struggle in deep snow; their feet are small and their legs skinny and they sink.  They can get stuck in the deep snow, so just after a big snowfall, you aren't likely to see their tracks.  We had four dining on our yew bush (which needs pruning anyway) and below is the entrance track of one of them.

Deer Walked in Deep Snow

In deep snow, sometimes you'll see a series of large holes where the deer jumped from one place to the next.  Sometimes, it is possible to identify deer tracks by the small holes that go way down (see below).

Deep Deer Track

And of course, a pile of scat is always a good indication the deer were there!  This pile was under our feeder -- probably the deer was feasting on the cracked corn that we put out for the jays and mourning doves.

Deer Scat

The dog, fox, coyote, and wolf tracks are all similar in that canine tracks show four toes and a pad behind the toes.  The toes include claw marks.  Size, the shape of the pads, the distance between the marks, and how the back feet land near or on the spot where the front feet landed, indicate the type of canine.  

If you see four toes and a pad, but no claw marks, it could be a feline animal because they retract their claws when they walk.

Below are Blake's trotting tracks.  The top one is clear.  When he walks or trots, his tracks are in a straight line and his back feet land almost exactly on top of where the front one was.  When he runs, his back feet are close and move together, as if they were connected by a short rod, but his front feet are a bit wider, so his running track looks different than the one below.

Blake's Trotting Tracks

Squirrels are interesting!  They show large feet in the back and smaller feet in the front.  If the track is clear, you can see the toes with claws and the imprint of the back part of the foot.  The squirrel below was standing still here, or had jumped and landed in this spot.

Squirrel

Squirrels can also be assumed if the track starts or ends at a tree with a little space between the tree and the first track - the squirrel jumped to or from the tree. In the picture below, the black spot near the top is the trunk of a tree and this squirrel was headed toward our bird feeders.

Squirrel from the Tree, top left

Birds tracks are cute!  The ones below were under my truck.  The birds seem to congregate under the vehicles; I'm not sure why (anyone know??).  We have many overgrown bushes for better roosting places and we don't put food under the vehicles, although I suppose it makes a decent resting place out of the wind and snow.  Each bird type has a different foot pattern.  Most are three toes in the front and a fourth behind. (Woodpeckers have a two and two arrangement to better cling to the tree, but you aren't likely to find them on the ground.)

Bird Tracks

So here is a quiz.  (But be aware, the following story in the snow is happier for one participant than the other.)  Look at the picture below and see if you can piece together what happened and who was involved.  The story begins in the top left corner of the picture.

 
Yes, that is blood in the center of the picture; the dark spots are grey fur.  Notice the tracks leading to the disruption in the snow from the upper left corner?  The squirrel jumped off the tree (it was heading toward the bird feeders for breakfast) and was intercepted by a red-tailed hawk looking for her breakfast.  If you look carefully around the center hole, you can see feather marks:  to the left of the bloody hole are flat & pointed marks made by her spread tail, perhaps as the hawk landed to capture the squirrel.  To the right are wing tip marks - looking a lot like fingers.  I am guessing that those were made as I disrupted breakfast by coming to fill the feeders; at that moment, the hawk lifted up out of the snow, carrying her meal to some place safer for dining, thus the wingtip prints in the snow. 

Below, the tracks on the pond tell more benign stories, most of which we can't see clearly from the bank.  One of my suppositions, though, is that the dark spot, right center, with a well worn path next to it and footsteps coming closer to it at this end, show the watering hole.  Whose tracks?  Hard to tell without being close, but it is obviously a busy thoroughfare.  The pond has been frozen for several weeks, so parts are very solid.  The hole could very well be made by the muskrats coming up and then used by the land animals.  Suzanne saw a large coyote on the pond several days ago (and we saw a coyote chasing deer last year), the fishers use the pond road, and we frequently see fox (although our local fox has been very sick with mange.  It was looking better this fall, but did not have the usual thick and shiny fur.  We have not seen it all winter; it may not have survived this cold weather.)  Deer likely drink from closer to shore (there are several open holes there), as their feet are so small and bodies so heavy, they know they would likely break through the ice.  Some tracks could also be squirrels or birds or other smaller critters.  

Much goes on near our houses that we never see, and can only be surmised by the stories in the snow.

Stearns Mill Pond

CAROLINA WREN UPDATE, PLUS

Five days is a lot in the life of Carolina Wren nestlings and ours are REALLY growing!  It amazes me that they are so tolerant of noise and activity near the nest.  Yesterday I had the house AC being serviced, a consultant in on HVAC for the Studio that we are building and the carpenter running saws, hammer guns, etc.  (Of course, they are used to the carpenter, as he has been here their entire lives, with the generator running right next to the nest before we knew that the nest was occupied!

Anyway, there is a lot of bird activity around the nest this morning, and I would not be surprised to find that they fledge today!  Both mama and papa are near by and mama was sitting on the construction wood pile with a bug in her mouth, calling. "Hungry?  Of course you are!  Come and get it!"  When we looked in the nest this morning, the nestling that is clearly the oldest and strongest was sitting in the mouth of the hole and it has an eyebrow stripe!!! 

May 15 - This is NOT the parent bird - you can still see the yellow of the baby gape, but today there is an eyebrow stripe!

The picture below is from yesterday - there is a HUGE difference overnight!

May 14 - beakier and beginnings of eyebrow stripe

In the picture above, the beaks look more like beaks and less like gapes, but the yellow is still there.  The bottom right nestling is starting to get a bit of an eyebrow stripe, but it is not as defined as the top picture.  These two pictures above were taken just ONE DAY APART!

Going back one more day, the picture below was taken May 13 and feathers are starting to show under the chin.

May 13 - Starting to show some feathers among the down

Papa has been singing all around the area, from the dogwood, to the Studio roof top, to the piles of construction wood, to the porch railing near where I am sitting.

Papa watching over his territory

 
Elsewhere in the yard, a squirrel decided to sample the fruit I put out hoping to entice the Scarlet Tanager to return. 

I had a half a bag of peanuts get wet in the bird food can and many were moldy and  not edible.  Some were still OK, so I put them out for the squirrels.  Our fox decided to sample them.  Blake was on the porch - some foxer he is!  Didn't even notice 'cuz he was looking the other way.  I didn't tell him...

And the flicker has been around a lot -- EAT THOSE ANTS!!!!!  Notice how hard it is to see him in the stones!  I never realized the camouflage effect that their feathers have!

Flicker eating ants, camouflaged in the stones.

 OK... back to work!

CHILLY WINTER, BUT SIGNS OF SPRING

Sure has been a chilly winter!  The birds are snarfing the food; I'm glad I got a birdbath heater for them this year, so at least they can have some water without having use up their internal warmth melting snow. 

-7º at 7:45 this morning!

The deer have been around a lot, too.  Particularly around the bird feeder with the corn and also munching on our Yew bushes (they need trimming anyway...).  After the little dusting of snow a couple days ago, there were many tracks in our yard and on the road -- looked like a party had been happening in our yard!  Canine tracks (fox, I think) came out from the hollow across the street and crossed with the deer tracks - two of each, is my guess; I'd like to know more about tracking.  The other critters are sure acting like spring is coming; it was downright cacophonous in our yard Monday night!  Driving the local dogs crazy. Is this the time the fox kits are being born?

Meanwhile, I'm toasty with a fire in the fireplace, getting stuff done and communing with the Carolina Wren who pays a visit outside my window almost every day.  Hope everyone else is finding warmth and something to smile about on these chilly mornings!  Leave a comment... what makes you smile when you step outside?

AFTER THE STORM

I haven't posted since the big 20+" snow storm of February 9, so I'd better catch up!  How can anyone not like snow!  Look at how gorgeous this is!!

Stearns Mill Pond after storm

 
Saturday, we obviously spent shoveling -- now, Blake is only 14" at the shoulder and the snow was 20" or more, so when we went out first thing in the morning, before shoveling, he wasn't thrilled! I bounded through the snow until I realized I had a taut leash.  I looked back and he was sitting down.

No.  I'll wait.

Sunday I strapped on the snowshoes and went down to the pond to see if I could find any tracks.  Interestingly, most of the snow was blown off of the pond with those heavy winds.  

I saw one set of tracks on the pond; I am assuming the fox, but I didn't venture onto the ice to check.  Double clicking on the pond picture, will come up with a larger size and you can see the tracks, especially on the left side.  I went a ways around from our landing in both directions and didn't see any tracks on the shore.  The tracks on the pond came in toward the shore several times, but never came up onto the shore from where I could see.  But, on the other hand, the snow disappeared close to the shore and became ice (or very close to the shore, some open water), so the tracks disappeared.  I didn't go very far upstream and couldn't see the end of the tracks in that direction.  The interesting thing is that the tracks only went in one direction - they never came back.  I looked with the binoculars, but couldn't see tracks on the other side of the pond.

I wondered the next day, if my snowshoe tracks made it possible for the fox to get from the pond up to the hollow across the street as the next morning, I saw tracks in the snow through the trees and over to the hollow. 

Today, we saw the fox out on the south side of the pond, opposite our house.  It was just walking down the pond, near the shore.  Periodically, it would stop and look, but then kept going until it was out of our sight.  It looks healthy and strong.

Haven't seen the bluebirds in over two weeks; they are probably gone.  We enjoyed them for the weeks they were here!  

TRACKS IN THE SNOW

I'm supposed to be working, but what good is it to be semi-retired if you can't go look at nature?!?  I had been thinking about going down to the pond to see if there were any tracks in the new snow, but started working and was studiously avoiding checking my email every time it dinged, consequently missed Suzanne's email:
"There is a very beautiful fox out on the frozen pond.  Been watching for 10 min. he’s just hanging out, meandering around, stopping to sniff in the snow now and then or just standing still.   Healthy looking."

DANG!  I have been looking up at the feeder every once in a while, to look at the bluebirds or nuthatches or other visitors.  (Had a gorgeous red-breasted nuthatch the other day! Have seen it before, but not for as long, with such a great viewing!)

I finally got up from my computer and took my camera on a walk to the pond.  Suzanne was right - there were MANY fox paths!  A couple up in the yard, too.  (One has me suspect that perhaps the fox got a squirrel for breakfast, but it might have been tracks at two separate times.)

In the lower left corner, you can see the imprint of the pads on the above pix.  (I am not a tracker, but I am assuming these are fox tracks, as they are canine looking and Suzanne saw a fox wandering around on the pond.)

The tracks lead over to the area where I have seen scat and where I think the fox had a den in past years, but most of the tracks were more "wandering" than this set (see below)

Yesterday, I saw the resident Cooper's Hawk on the branch outside the kitchen window.  It is so much smaller than that big accipiter Linda, Carol & I saw last week!  I heard back from Marj Rines (who really knows her birds) who said she thinks it is a Coopers, not a Goshawk.  She's probably right, but I'm gonna keep watching!  The fun is in the looking more than the IDing.
:-)  

POND ICES OVER

The temps were in the lower single digits when I took Blake out for his morning walk (about 5:30 AM) on Thursday, January 3.  It was the first day that the pond was totally frozen over with no soft ice and no water around the edges.  Later in the afternoon, I went out to follow the tracks, which I think are fox, and see if the fox is using the den by the pond.  Didn't see any tracks to or from that area, but had fun following to and fro.  One part looked like the fox must have been chasing something as it kept weaving in and out, but I didn't see any other tracks of the prey.

There is a very odd set of tracks in our yard, longish with no foot prints showing and spaced about 5 feet apart - looks like someone was running and leaping.  Unfortunately, this was 4 days after the snow, so much of the clarity is gone.

The ice looked odd -- there were circles (crop circles?) textured into the ice.  You can kind of see it in the picture.

Swirls in the ice

(The stream bed that looks like running water is actually iced over)

Nice to be out around the pond today.  :-)

COYOTE OR FOX HOWLING?

This morning, about 5:30 AM, when Linda & I were having our coffee & tea on the porch, listening to the night sounds, we again heard a call that we can't identify coming from the other side of the pond.  In my uneducated terms, it sounded like a cross between a rooster and what I imagine is a coyote.  Too early for roosters and the farm is in the other direction down the pond, but there were little, short noises, usually 3 of them ("Hey, Hey, Hey!") then a howl.  I'm thinking coyote.  But then I also did some looking at YouTube for fox sounds.  I am unconvinced on either.  Next time I should run in and grab my recorder so that I can really remember.

Here are a couple of YouTube videos with sounds of each:

Coyotes calling together (audio only)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3MrcUUzKgo

Coyote yips and howl (with video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbHeTPwWBbk

Fox calls - interesting - as the caption says, it could explain some of those strange noises heard at night!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6NuhlibHsM&feature=related

FOX and POSSIBLE GREEN TEAL

The leaves are on fire when the early morning sun is finally up and hits the tops of the trees along the south side of the pond!  It is just gorgeous when the tops of the trees are lit up and the bottoms still in shadow; interestingly, it doesn't matter if they are fall trees, spring trees or summer trees, the color contrasts are always beautiful!  And winter trees?  My favorites.  I love the patterns they etch in the sky. 

Early Morning Sun Hits the Treetops

 Saw a fox yesterday as I was out walking the dog about 6:30 AM.  Not sure if it was "Patches" or some other.  We have one that has a patch on its side that makes it very obvious.  Two summers ago we had a whole family down in the hollow and we saw the kits all the time.  This year when I see one, it is usually walking along the pond edge.  I think there is a den on the other side of the cove.

Saw those little brown ducks again when Linda & I were out yesterday.  One flashed a large patch of green, so I'm thinking the are probably green teal; both male & female green teal look like little brown ducks in the winter and they are the smallest dabbling ducks we have.  These guys looked smaller than the wood ducks they were with.

There was a photographer on the dam this morning (Linda & I were out just before sunrise).  He said he was trying to get the mist on the falls and the colors of the leaves.  I wished I'd asked who he was and if he had a website where he would be posting his pictures.  

Painted Turtles Enjoy Morning Sun