Category Archives: Squirrels

Finding joy in troubled times

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While working on photos for other blogs, it occurred to me that it might be more productive right now to focus on what we, everywhere, are facing with the current pandemic. It’s my hope that as many of us as possible will survive, thrive and overcome the distress we are facing. As we hunker down, like this beautiful mourning dove (Zenaida macroura), we can intensify our nature observations – or begin paying more attention to the wildlife around us when we do go for walks.

 

Practicing social quarantine and distancing is essential –- even if we live somewhere where authorities are not yet requiring this. Keeping away physically from those outside our households can protect them as well as ourselves. In most places, social distancing rules still allow us to get outside for walks in the fresh air and nature. I have never seen so many people, including families with children, in the local nature reserves and that is a welcome sight. Hopefully, a side effect of this will be much more social support and advocacy for environmental conservation and expansion of natural areas, parks and reserves now and in the future -– that would be an unexpected positive outcome to the measures we are taking to get through these troubled times! (Yellow trout lily above, Erythronium americanum).

For people who haven’t had the pleasure of getting out much on walks, I wanted to share something about how to possibly enjoy nature even more. From my perspective, a key element is learning to practice patience and to stop, wait, watch and explore frequently. Here are some examples of what you might find. (Common Blue Violet, Viola sororia)

Looking down at the ground can be a fruitful exercise, especially in spring. Fresh new blooms are emerging and can delight us with their beauty (like the Eastern spring beauties, Claytonia virginica).

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) – the leaves look like jigsaw puzzle pieces

Rue anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides)                  Tiny bluet (Houstonia pusilla)

Common chickweed (Stellaria media)

   

Little sweet Betsy (Trillium cuneatum)

   

Ground ivy – also known as creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea)

Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) and purple deadnettle (Lamium purpureum)

If you are out with kids, you can pay more attention to the plants –- take photos of them (most reserves and parks don’t want people to dig up and pick flowers) and then look them up at home and learn about them. Or make a game out of fallen leaves –- find three with very different shapes and identify the trees.

If you look closely at the flowers, you might glimpse small bugs flitting around the blooms. If you have a camera or phone camera, try to get a photo. When you enlarge it, you might find that you have actually seen a beautiful fly, bee or other insect whose shape and colors you couldn’t see with the naked eye. If you want to identify it, post the photo to the site BugGuide.net, where entomologists can perhaps tell you what species you saw.

Parasitic fly (Goninii, above)

 

 

Greater bee fly (Bombylius major)

Various species of syrphid flies are shown below; they are often mistaken for small bees. The first photos are all of the species Toxomerus geminatus.

 

Male                                                               Female

And below the male and female together.

 

A species of syrphid fly with a striped abdomen (Syrphus torvus) is characterized by “hairy” eyes (more so in males, like this one). Click to enlarge and see the hairs.

A larger species, Brachypalpus oarus, is not so colorful.

Even if you can’t get outside much, you might see an interesting insect around your house. For example, this male brown-tipped conehead katydid (Neoconocephalus triops) appeared on my porch when I was sweeping.

Butterflies are really starting to fly around now. The bluish spring azures (Celastrina ladon) are abundant right now.

I’ve been seeing falcate orangetips (Anthocharis midea), too.

Damselflies are also starting to appear; we tend to see them earlier than the dragonflies, who spread their wings horizontally when they alight on vegetation. This fragile forktail damselfly (Ischnura posita) was getting covered in yellow pine pollen –- much of North Carolina’s Piedmont region is bedecked in yellow dust during the spring weeks when the pine trees emit clouds of pollen.

 

Looking in the water can be productive, too. One day, I spent some time scanning the edge of a pond where the water was shallow enough to see the bottom. As I watched little fish darting to and fro, I suddenly noticed something larger moving about quickly. I looked more intently and discovered Eastern newts (also called red-spotted newts, Notophthalmus viridescens) down there – the first time I had seen these amphibians!!

When you see an Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) scurrying across the leaves in the forest or even alongside a road, stop and watch a bit. I did the other day and saw the mammal locate a winter stash and dig up some food it had stored. This article describes their storage process and reveals that they can probably remember where up to 95% of their stashes are hidden!

Paying attention to fallen logs can reveal beauty, too. This tree that fell across a creek ended up providing a growing place for common blue violets (Viola sororia).

As I walked by some other fallen trees, a common five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) popped briefly into view, gave me a pensive look and then disappeared into the leaf and twig litter.

Looking up at the trees, you might be lucky to see a wasp nest. The paper wasps (Polistes) make compartmentalized nests, with a place for each individual egg.

Or you may see a large bald-faced hornet’s nest (Dolichovespula maculata).

               

If you take the time to watch birds, you may see them engaged in looking for food (like insects, nuts, berries and seeds).

Tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor)         Brown-headed nuthatch (Sitta pusilla)

Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) White-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis)

Blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata)                          Cedar waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum)

 

Black & white warbler (Mniotilta varia)    Field sparrow (Spizella pusilla)

On one of my latest walks, I heard rapid knocking and was able to watch a yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) engaged in beginning a new series of sap holes, which provide sweet drinking spots for themselves and other birds.

If you’re able to look at trees, bushes or nest boxes during walks or from your windows, you might catch birds collecting materials for their nests. Just the other day, I saw a Carolina chickadee gathering up some spider web to use in a nest.

If you find a nest, be sure to maintain a good distance, but then watch the parents bringing food to their nestlings after they hatch. If you’re lucky, you may even see the babies fledge! And if you are not near any trees, watch some birds at their nests through webcams online: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/ – https://www.audubon.org/birdcams – https://birdwatchinghq.com/live-bird-cams/ –
https://birdcams.live/

If, at some point, we are “stuck” inside, we can follow this link to international wildlife days. If we find one to celebrate during our quarantine, we can spend some time learning about that animal and drawing or painting it. And we can do the same for other environmental days as well at this link.

To end, I’d like to share some resources with free online nature activities – for children and adults! Not all the sites require having a yard; even readers living in apartments could get out for a short walk and find something to see, investigate, etc.  Enjoy!!

 

 

 

 

Marvelous mammals, part 2 – at parks and reserves

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Some of the mammals that I see when visiting parks and nature reserves are the same as my yard visitors (see the previous blog). For example, on a recent walk at a wetland area, an Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) decided to engage me in conversation as I walked under its tree. It would descend a few feet, look at me intently and utter sounds.

 

I responded (in English) and it would look at me quizzically, ascend the tree and then turn around to come closer again.

This went on for about 10 minutes. When I walked further on, another squirrel was perched on a small limb eating a snack and stopped to observe me as I passed under its tree. There was some communication going on between us, although I confess that I wasn’t sure what she was saying.

 

Other mammals I only see rarely in my yard but a little more often in public natural areas. An example is the groundhog (Marmota monax), which also goes by the common name of woodchuck.

Last year, I had a groundhog come up on my front porch where I had a container garden; it was really enjoying the tomatoes to my surprise! More recently, a friend and I were stopped on a road through agricultural fields when a groundhog emerged from a culvert. The animal looked around at its leisure and then eventually retreated to the culvert when our car began moving forward.

 

And then there are mammals that I don’t see at all where I live since my yard is not close to wetlands, bogs or rivers. A recent trip to the North Carolina (NC) Atlantic Coast gave me a chance to see a muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), which some Native Americans called a musquash. Fellow birders alerted me to its presence as it was sitting at the edge of a small pond where they had been watching water birds.

The muskrat can be distinguished from the nutria, which looks very similar, by a couple features explained to me by a park employee. The muskrat has much less prominent whiskers than the nutria and its tail has somewhat flattened sides. Overall, they are smaller than nutria. I do think a muskrat I saw in our nearby Haw River was fairly big.

Muskrats dig burrows into river banks and the sides of ponds and canals; sometimes, they also will construct a large lodge atop mud and roots in marshes. Their babies are born blind and hairless; as they mature, they get either brown (70%) or black fur (30%).

At the coast, we also got to see the nutria (Myocastor coypus), swimming at the edge of a wetland near a road. These rodents are native to South America and were introduced to the USA in the 1800s; they are now found in 22 states. In North Carolina, they are only found in the coastal and Eastern parts of the state.

 

 

Nutrias are larger than muskrats and smaller than beavers; their very white whiskers are distinctive.

They construct floating platforms with vegetation on which they rest, groom and eat. They may live in colonies of up to 15-20 individuals. Their eyesight is poor and they sense danger through their sense of hearing.

They are considered a nuisance animal as they can convert marshes to open water and are known to eat farmers’ crops. Their numbers have partly been kept down in NC because of hunting (trapping) and partly because they have an elevated mortality during cold winters, to which they are not adapted. I’m guessing that the nutria will not have an easy future in this state.

Another water-loving mammal that has had problems with humans is the North American beaver (Castor canandensis). One of my book clubs is currently reading Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb. He details how they were trapped and killed by the millions when Europeans arrived in North America and how this changed much of the landscape throughout the country – often causing a deteriorating environment.

In NC, the last native beaver was trapped in 1897; we only have them now because the NC Wildlife Resources Commission reintroduced beavers in the 1930s. Still, these mammals often face negative reactions from human neighbors, who frequently have them “removed”.

Goldfarb details different ways in which humans and beavers can peacefully co-exist. He notes one way (among many others) in which they can be quite beneficial: “As the climate warms, more precipitation is falling as rain rather than snow. Instead of remaining in snowpack and gradually melting throughout the course of the spring and summer and fall and keeping rivers and streams wet well into the dry season, now all that precipitation is falling as rain. Any entity that can store water on the landscape, that can keep water high in some of these mountain headwaters in places like the Cascades or the Sierra, becomes incredibly valuable. What stores water better than a beaver? Basically nothing.”

Beavers live in a several places not far from my home. At the Sandy Creek Park, the beavers were posing a challenge as their dams had led to flooding of a paved path which makes the park more accessible to people in wheelchairs, with strollers, etc. Beaver deceivers (pond levelers) have been installed and the pond level has decreased; the beavers appear to be adjusting to the new situation.

At another site, neighboring home-owners took sides on whether the beavers were a community benefit. Some were in favor of the beavers and hired wildlife biologists to help them figure out how to install beaver deceivers. Others opposed the mammals’ presence (defacing a fan’s tribute to the beavers on a bridge) and a homeowners association had a beaver lodge destroyed and the wetland drained in order to drive the beavers away. The variety of wildlife in the area immediately declined greatly.

 

As the NC Wildlife Resources Commission notes: “By damming streams and forming shallow ponds, beavers create wetlands. These wetlands provide habitat for a tremendous diversity of plants, invertebrates, and wildlife, such as waterfowl, deer, bats, otter, herons, songbirds, raptors, salamanders, turtles, frogs, and fish.”

Fortunately, one lodge was left there and a pair of beavers, who mate for life, is still in residence. Their lodge is currently also being used by another water-loving mammal that I love to see — the American river otter (Lutra canadensis lataxina). On a recent very overcast day, I was lucky to see three of them.

These beautiful mammals have also lost much ground in the USA due to trapping, wetland drainage and water pollution.

The otters look for food in the beaver-maintained pond, diving into the murky water and coming up covered in mud. This requires vigorous grooming, which they do sitting on the lodge. On the day I saw them, three were busy with this task. One pair helped each other.

A third otter was busy cleaning him/herself without help. It was interesting to see how the sleek muddy fur was licked clean.

S/he also used the lodge higher up as a toilet area. Geese have had a nest atop the lodge so it has proved useful as a multi-functional structure.

Otters are perhaps more popular than groundhogs, muskrats and beavers because they can be playful and people enjoy watching them. The restoration of otters throughout NC also benefited the state in another way – river otters captured in the Eastern part of NC were donated to the state of West Virginia and NC received wild turkeys in return, leading to restoration of a population of these wild birds in the state.

My biggest treat lately has been watching Atlantic bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) off the NC coast. They swim close enough to shore that you can at least see their flippers emerge from the water. While other birders on our trip were intent on identifying avian species such as gannets, gulls, pelicans, etc. I was busy photographing two pods of dolphins that were swimming by.

These intelligent animals form groups of about 10-25 individuals; I saw about 5-10 swimming near one another. That was exciting; many years ago, I had gone on a boat trip with my nephew to see dolphins, but we failed to see any on that trip.

I discovered that there are certain dolphin families that inhabit the waters of NC’s Outer Banks: Onion and his family summer around Nags Head and winter around Beaufort. Since we were at Nags Head in the winter, the dolphins I saw may have been a different family.

A few animals that I’d hoped to see on my trip to the Outer Banks in January were the black bear, coyote and red wolf. The man who organizes the annual black bear festival in Plymouth told me that it was unlikely we would see bears since the mothers would be in their dens and other bears would also not come out much with the sudden fall in temperature we had that weekend. He was right and we also didn’t see coyotes or wolves. I did discover some scat, indicating some mammal had been on the road. Perhaps I’ll be lucky and see one of the resident coyotes at the nature reserve where I volunteer soon; one can always hope!

Marvelous mammals, part 1 – at the homestead

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Judging from how many blogs I’ve written about birds, you might assume that I’m mainly a devotee of avian wildlife but that is certainly not the case. Without a doubt, I do love birds, but I really enjoy observing, learning about and photographing all kinds of other wildlife.  Fortunately, my own yard provides me with some opportunities for that as I have a number of regular mammalian visitors. Sometimes, their visits entail a bit of drama but often their presence is quite peaceful.

The Eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus) like to visit the front porch to see if there’s something of interest among the potted plants or to take a drink from a water source.

These cute little rodents are more than willing to mingle with the ground-feeding birds looking for seed under the feeders. They scurry away as fast as their little legs will carry them when birds of prey appear – and they can certainly run quickly!

 

When it’s very cold, I sometimes offer them a small tray of seed just for themselves on the porch. They scarf down the goodies, filling their cheek pouches to what seems like almost bursting before dashing away to store the goodies for later consumption.

 

A pair of Eastern cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) lives in my yard and both mom and dad are very good about taking care of their young. I don’t see them much in the winter but expect they will be out and about again in the spring, doing their “leapfrogging” courtship ritual.

When it’s breeding season, I may see raccoons (Procyon lotor) in the daytime but lately they have been coming to the yard at night to pick up whatever seed is left on the ground from the daytime visitors. My wildlife cam caught a not-so-clear photo of this happening.

Another visitor who mostly comes at night is the opossum (Didelphis virginiana), one of my favorites given their propensity to eat lots and lots of ticks! Many people seem to think that they are ugly or scary, but I actually think they are kind of cute.

The largest mammalian visitors I see daily are the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). I’ve loved them ever since I got to know a particular individual, whom I named Schatje (Dutch for “dear”). She approached me when she was a yearling and made friends with me, sitting next to me in the grass and thereafter bringing her newborn fawns to the yard right after their births. She unfortunately died in a car accident after some years, but through her I learned to really appreciate these mammals.

Some people dislike deer intensely because they eat their flowers and prized shrubs. But I’ve found that consistent application of a deer repellent on my plants keeps them off the vegetation that I want to preserve. Also, I let them eat bird seed and sometimes apple slices that I put out for the ground-feeding birds like white-throated sparrows, Eastern towhees, dark-sided juncos, American crows (the apple lovers) and brown thrashers.

So I’ve been watching the deer for many years now and a very odd occurrence happened over the past half year. At least four deer have appeared with broken hind legs or feet. When “Mama”, a doe with twins, showed up with a terrible break on her leg, I wondered if it happened when she jumped a fence. The bone was jutting out and it was obviously very painful. She hobbled on three legs.

What was amazing was the fact that her two-year-old son began caring for her. He already had a nice set of antlers and by rights should have left to join the stag group in the neighborhood, but he stayed with her and tended the wound, licking it, and also grooming her! I had not heard of a stag doing that before, so I named him Sweetie. He stayed with her for months!

Mama kept caring for her twins (a male and female). (The past couple years, she had only had male offspring so that cut down on the number of deer we might otherwise have had). And she tended her wound on her own as well.

Mama also had to withstand the advances of the dominant neighborhood stag, who was intent on mating with her. Sweetie tried to be there to fend off the interloper, but he had to give in and move off as he was no match for the big buck. Mama tried to get away, but he kept trying to mount her – unsuccessfully, since her back quarters would collapse as she could not bear any weight on the broken leg. She finally got away and ran, which must have been terribly painful for her.

 

Mama could not stand up for herself with the hurt leg so she began being bullied by another doe who showed up. That deer, who I called Bossy, was ill-tempered and a bit nasty; she even would chase her own son away from seed on the ground, even when her son also got a broken leg!

Then two adult males turned up with breaks – one had a broken foot. I wondered if someone was feeding them deer corn, which can be bad for their health and affect their hooves so that perhaps leg breaks would happen more easily. Or was someone taking potshots at them? It remains a mystery, but I’ve learned that the deer can overcome something like this although the healing takes months.

And then we come to my “nemesis” yard mammal, the Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). As all bird-feeding people know, squirrels will do their utmost to eat all and any bird food that is put out — this has generated an industry devoted to producing squirrel baffles and “squirrel-proof” feeders. Even when I had smeared a bit of suet on a holly bush for the ruby-crowned kinglet who was sometimes crowded away from the feeder, a squirrel discovered the treat there and consumed what s/he could.

I’ve been fairly fortunate in having the baffles work until recently, when a couple squirrels used their little brains to figure out ways to get around them. It was my belief that I had put the feeder poles sufficiently far from the roof or large tree branches so that the squirrel couldn’t make the leap. One kept trying over and over and finally succeeded in lengthening his/her “long jump”!

I moved the poles further away. But two poles were about five feet apart and I then saw a squirrel use a strategy that really looked very clever to me. S/he would take a run at one pole, launch him/herself onto the pole at high velocity just under the baffle and then turn to vault from that height up and over the baffles on the neighboring pole! I really did admire the creature’s ingenuity and gained a new respect for their intelligence.

After moving the feeder poles further apart, I then noticed that a couple feeders on one pole were being emptied quickly. Looking out my window one day, I saw a squirrel perched atop the pole, enjoying seed after having managed to move the baffles down the pole. How was s/he doing that?

 

I set aside time to watch and discovered the squirrel’s secret.

 

The animal was hanging onto the raccoon baffle, biting it and jerking down at the same time. This eventually loosened the screws in the apparatus on which the baffle rested so that the baffle finally slid down the pole!

 

The screws have now been tightened and the next move is up to the squirrels. They are clever and tenacious. This was further brought home to me when a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) recently landed on a squirrel nest and did its best to extricate the mammal with its claws. The hawk eventually had to leave without its envisioned meal.

The yard mammals are certainly entertaining. If any of you readers have had interesting experiences with them, I’d love to hear about them in comments on this blog’s page! (Except for cats running free outside – goodbye from my two indoor cats, Ogi and Moasi!)

Costa Rican mammals, part 1 – those similar to our Carolina wildlife neighbors!

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While the trip I took this past August to Costa Rica was mainly focused on birding, our guides fortunately were also quite willing to stop and look for mammals, amphibians, reptiles and insects – people after my own heart! Here I’ll focus on some of the mammals we saw, starting in this 2-part blog with those that were familiar.

Fellow traveler Nan especially was drawn to the canines we came across – there wasn’t a dog (Canis) that she was unwilling to pet!

 

And they often were very cute.

 

As we drove from one destination to another, it was not uncommon to see light-colored cattle (Bos taurus) grazing in fields. It turns out that about 75% of the country’s cattle are found in Guanacaste province (where we started our trip) and that the Brahman breed is the one commonly raised for the meat industry.

I saw mostly cows, but during a visit to southern Costa Rica last year, we also saw a laid-back steer.

 

There were horses (Equus caballus) grazing in some fields and mountain valleys.

Everywhere we went, there were squirrels scurrying about on the ground, in trees and at feeding stations. The most commonly seen squirrel in the country is the variegated squirrel (Sciurus variegatoides), which varies in color from gray hues to dark brown colors.

  

This species spends most of its time in trees and does not hoard food.

 

Their main dietary selection consists of various seeds, although they also eat acorns, fruit and insects.

   

Another cute rodent is the red-tailed squirrel (Notosciurus granatensis), which is usually found in the cloud forests and wet/humid areas.

Although in some places, people warn against feeding mammals, we saw a red-tailed squirrel enjoying fruit at a restaurant that attracts tourists with its plants that attract hummingbirds.

 

While we do have wild boars in some mountainous North Carolina counties, as well as feral swine in Eastern coastal areas, we will not see collared peccaries (Pecari tajacu) roaming our forests and woods. They share some characteristics of the pig family but are not classified as pigs.

They are both carnivorous and vegetarian, even eating tulip bulbs, which are poisonous for humans. It’s said they usually ignore humans and that was the case for this peccary, which paid us no mind as it plodded about the gardens in one reserve.

 

Our final, at least partly familiar, mammal was observed near the restaurant of a hotel where we stayed. We were lucky to see it since these animals are both arboreal and nocturnal. Fellow birder Ylva got a nice photo of the visiting Central American woolly opossum (Caluromys derbianus). Not only is this marsupial a real cutie, it is also a nectar feeder, pollinator and seed disperser so that we got to see a species that fulfills multiple roles in its rain forest habitat.

Next up – the mammals we won’t see in North or South Carolina (yet).

Quebec chronicles – the non-avian wildlife

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While birding has become a beloved pastime for me, I think of myself mostly as a wildlife photographer. I enjoy observing (new) insects, reptiles and mammals as much as I like seeing birds and find their behaviors just as fascinating. So I was also on the lookout for non-avian wildlife during our recent migration trip.

You could tell that springtime was flourishing as plants were putting out new leaves and buds. There were gorgeous red (Trillium erectum) and white trilliums (Trillium grandiflorum).

 

Fiddlehead ferns were popping up everywhere. And a new flower for me was the white baneberry (Actaea pachypoda).

Yellow trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) were emerging and red columbines (Aquilegia canadensis) dangled their pretty red and yellow blooms.

Red osier dogwoods (Cornus sericea) were in meadows at one park and in the area where we were staying, multiple shadbush (serviceberry, Amelanchier) trees were in bloom.

Quite an unusual plant turned up in Pointe au Pic near an area with local shops. I had not seen one like this before – a helpful member of a plant identification group told me it was a rhubarb (Rheum).

The dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) we saw were very large in comparison to those I’ve seen in North Carolina (NC). Interesting is that the official name in French is “pissenlit”, which literally translated would be “piss in bed” (although proper French speakers would say “Pisse au lit”). In any event, dandelions can not only be eaten in salads but also be used as a diuretic, so perhaps centuries ago the French Quebeçois were referring to the flower’s properties in describing it. Another French name for the bloom is “lion’s teeth” or “dents de lion” (from which the English word dandelion came).

The insects were taking advantage of those edible yellow flowers; both spiders and ants were busy crawling around them.

 

A beautiful syrphid fly was also busy getting its meal, while an unknown moth flitted down to rest in the middle of a road.

There were butterflies at the shorelines, like this Lucia azure (Celastrina lucia) and mussel shells rested on rocks.

 

 

A spur-throated grasshopper (Melanoplus) was hanging out on a pissenlit, and a diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella) turned up in a photo of another plant (not a great photo but a lifer insect for me).

A beautiful honey bee (Apis mellifera) was covered in pollen.

Another new insect for me was the tricolored bumble bee (Bombus ternarius).

A few mammals appeared during our spring vacation, although not the hoped-for moose. (We unfortunately saw one black bear, but it had been hit on the road.) On several days, I caught sight of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) bounding away, both in the area where we were staying and in the parks that we visited. I managed to catch a glimpse of an Eastern chipmunk, too, but it wouldn’t come out from behind some twigs for a photo shoot.

Much more cooperative were the American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), which feed primarily on conifer cone seeds. They also enjoy other foods such as mushrooms, which were beginning to grow profusely like this nice morel.

The chickarees (another name for these rodents) were often out and about along the roadway where our rental house was located.

On one day, I ran into a small squirrel that seemed to have a problem with its left eye. However, it might have been a trick of the light. I tried to get another view, but the little rodent wouldn’t let me get around to its other side to take a photo. In any event, they are beautiful little creatures (generally smaller than the large gray squirrels that reside in my yard).

A very pleasant surprise during our trip was running into some groundhogs (Marmota monax, also known as whistle pigs and woodchucks). It is said that they tend to avoid swampy areas and like open fields and meadows but both woodchucks we saw were spotted near water. The first one we saw popped up near a cove on a paved road leading down to the water. The mammal was surprised by our group which had occupied a space between the water and nearby vegetation areas.

 

We tried to stay in one area so the groundhog could go around us, but s/he was uncertain about passing us, making several forays in our direction, turning around and then heading back again to get to the bushes and trees.

 

Finally, the groundhog screwed up its courage and ran at high speed past us and disappeared into the trees.

 

A couple days later, one of our group spotted another groundhog that was foraging in the newly leafing out shrubs alongside a creek that ran into a cove. The large rodent was agile and able to climb up into spindly little trees.

 

 

 

 

Its bulk also made it lose its footing a few times, but the mammal managed to hold on and regain its balance so that it could continue munching on the fresh food. It was delightful watching this beautiful rodent going about its daily business.

Another mammal that proved to be a bit elusive for me (others in our group were able to get some good out-in-the-open views) was the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus). During our first full day of exploring, we spotted one bounding away into the underbrush, which was quite exciting. Then a few days later in the Tadoussac dunes, a hare suddenly bounded out of nearby shrubs to dash across the sand into another group of shrubs. I didn’t get sharp shots as I only caught sight of it out of the corner of my eye and it was almost gone as I swung my camera around.

The hares that we saw were not yet done changing into their “summer” colors and still had some winter white fur on their impressive huge feet. These mammals begin breeding in mid-March and females may have up to four litters a year. They often communicate with one another using their feet, thumping them on the ground to make messages.

On another day, I spotted a hare foraging in a brushy area. In the winter, they eat twigs, bark and buds but in summer they can enjoy grasses, clover, dandelions and other green plants. This hare was enjoying the fresh food, but I felt sad looking at her (or him) as its head was covered in ticks. I don’t know if the animal was particularly vulnerable because it was young, maybe not completely healthy or just had the bad luck to have sat in a nest of the nasty insects. I hoped that the hare would be able to go on in health after the insects fell off.

 

 

The snowshoe hares prefer to be in dense groundcover, so they are somewhat hidden from predators (coyotes, fox, lynx, minks, owls, hawks) while they search for food. Their “cousins” back in my residential area, the Eastern cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) also need to worry about predators (owls, hawks, crows, raccoons) but one pair has become quite relaxed in my yard. Here you see dad (left) and mom (right).

As far as I can tell, they had one surviving offspring. They don’t generally seem too frightened, however, and almost everyday I see them lounging in a relaxed manner in the back yard, in contrast to those beautiful but elusive snowshoe hares. I was glad to have seen the hares though.

Two more Quebec chronicles to go: the “flashy” and yellowish birds and signs of humans along the St. Lawrence Seaway.