March 19, 2010

13 degrees at 8 p.m. Partly cloudy.
Sun rises at 7:09 and sets at 7:13.
Wind from the southwest at 22 km/hr.
Moon a waxing crescent at 16 % of full.

And it's way too warm. Spring is about three weeks earlier than usual. Three weeks! Normal temperatures for this date are +4 and -7 but tonight it will be +1. But- how we all enjoy it! Suddenly the birds are back; robins, cardinals, grackles, little nuthatches, the ubiquitous chickadees. Goldfinches, not yet gold, swoop in and hang upside down on the feeder, eating niger seed. Redwings perch on cat-tails calling out for brides. A pair of downy woodpeckers echo each others tappings. A flock of five wild turkeys strutted past for two mornings this week, they look very determined indeed but probably aren't.

Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) are native to North America, it turns out. And I learn from Wikipedia that, like other gamebirds, they exhibit strong sexual dimorphism. That just means that males are different from females. They are quite a bit larger, for one thing, and their feathers have red, purple, green, copper, bronze, and gold iridescence, while the females are dull brown and grey, poor things. Parasites can dull the colours, though. Turkeys have 5000 to 6000 feathers, apparently, I wonder who counted? They can fly quite well, if not far and are omniverous- nuts, berries and the occasional small reptile. Males can make a drumming sound using air sacks in their chests, females yelp.

Males are polygamous- and this is interesting- they court in pairs or groups with members of the group being close relatives and sharing more than half of their genetic material. (The image was taken from Wikipedia under a Creative Commons license, author is Sasha Kopf)

February 10

Sunrise 7:12 Sunset 5:22 Zero degrees and beautifully sunny. Moon waning crescent, 10% of full. Went for a wonderful snowshoe. I'm trying to suck the juice out of this activity as every day the snow cover diminishes. We've had very little snow this year and though flurries are often forecast they don't seem to happen. There is an old wood- birch, apples, crabapples, ash, maples-past our marsh. It's hard to get to in the summer because a stream must be crossed but it's just a little snowshoe hop right now. I found highbush cranberry growing there which is super exciting news as so far I've only found it in two spots. There is also wild grape and an ancient crabapple that must have been loaded with fruit- only the stems remain.

February 9

Sunrise at 7:14, sunset at 5:21, moon a waning crescent, 17% of full.
Temperature is -8, partly cloudy, bit of a wind.

This particular moon has been glorious throughout its cycle, and I'll be sad to see it go. This is apparently why- the average distance of the Moon is 384,000 km. However, it's an ellipse and the point closest to the Earth is 25,000 km closer than the average. And that's the case this month. So it looks bigger. Also the Earth and the Moon are closest to the Sun in January. So the surface of the Moon receives in January more light than in any other month. The result is one of the brightest Full Moons in years: 30 percent brighter than the dimmest full moon.

This morning I went for a snowshoe to the point and came back along the frozen river. Lots of fishing cabins farther out and lots and lots of fox tracks by the shore. Last year I saw a coyote mooching about out by the fishing cabins, haven't seen one this year. But there are lots of tracks. Met a great big deer this morning in the marsh near the Wild Wood. We usually see deer all the time but they've been elusive recently. I wondered if they might be mating but no, it seems they mate around November in this part of their range and the fawns are born in May.

If they are around I can usually smell them which is not unusual. They have several glands which allow them to deposit scent.Glands between the antlers and the eye are used to deposit scent on branches overhanging scrapes.This from Wikipedia- the tarsal glands are found on the upper inside of the middle joint on each hind leg. Scent is deposited from these glands when deer walk through and rub against vegetation. These scrapes are used by bucks as a sort of "sign-post" by which bucks know which other bucks are in the area, and to let does know that a buck is regularly passing through the area—for breeding purposes. The scent from the metatarsal glands, found on the outside of each hind leg, between the ankle and hooves, may be used as an alarm scent.

Throughout the year deer will rub-urinate, a process during which a deer squats while urinating so that urine will run down the insides of the deer's legs, over the tarsal glands, and onto the hair covering these glands. Bucks rub-urinate more frequently during the breeding season. Secretions from the tarsal gland mix with the urine and bacteria to produce a strong smelling (very!) odor. During the breeding season does release hormones and pheromones that tell bucks that a doe is in heat and able to breed. Bucks also rub trees and shrubs with their antlers and head during the breeding season, possibly transferring scent from the forehead glands to the tree, leaving a scent other deer can detect.

No wonder Rosie-the-dog goes mad with sniffing.

Here's more- sign-post marking (scrapes and rubs) are a very obvious way that white-tailed deer communicate. Although bucks do most of the marking, does visit these locations often. To make a rub, a buck will use its antlers to strip the bark off of small diameter trees, helping to mark his territory and polish his antlers. To mark areas they regularly pass through bucks will make scrapes. Often occurring in patterns known as scrape lines, scrapes are areas where a buck has used its front hooves to expose bare earth. They often rub-urinate into these scrapes, which are often found under twigs that have been marked with scent from the forehead glands.

So that's something to look for!

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January 17

There's a new moon, well, it was new yesterday- a waxing crescent, 4% of full as I write.
The sun will rise at 7:38 and set at 6:49.

The days are getting longer, as they do. That's all very well but the weather is MISERABLE. Damp and grey and the temperature hovers around zero and is apparently going to continue to do so. The snow is melting away.

January 8

The sun rose at 7:42 today and will set at 16:38. The day is a minute longer than yesterday, therefore, which doesn't seem like much to those of us who have lived in the Arctic.

The temperature is -7 at the moment. The moon is a waning crescent at 37% of full. Orion is the constellation at the forefront right now.

There was an interview on CBC this morning about birds and why there are fewer of them around this year. Apparently it has to do with pine trees not producing seeds. Unusually, this year, cycles of a number of species have coincided- ordinarily some species would be producing seeds while others wouldn't. Not this year, it seems. That's a relief, at least it isn't another phenomenon associated with global warming.

January 7

Moon in the third quarter, 48% of full.
The sun rose at 7:42 and will set at at 16:37.
It's somewhat sunny and -4 degrees.

Drawing of elecampane in winter. It's an introduced species, tall, with yellow flowers. Not common but there's a patch near the trail at the end of the marsh.

2:30 p.m. Just back from a snowshoe. The sun had disappeared by the time I strapped on my snowshoes but there were patches of cerulean sky, the first for twelve days. For eleven of those days it snowed, never hard, but fairly constantly. To step off the trail is to know how much snow can accumulate that way. There's a crust part way down which crumbles with every step.

I believe that a coyote has been visiting the compost piles. Something has certainly been feasting on a pomegranate at the base of a tree at the edge of the field and there were tracks on our little trail which looked like coyote tracks. Unfortunately I stomped all over them before looking them up, some naturalist, I am! But now I know that if it is a coyote the fore prints are larger than the hind prints. The hind heel pad rarely registers clearly. Claw marks only register on the two centre toes. Perhaps it was a fox but I think the tracks were too big for a fox. I also now know that fox tracks have a distinctive bar across the fore heel pad.

Rosie and I went bushwhacking. (By the way, readers may as well know that Rosie-the-dog joins me in the natural area at every opportunity. We go elsewhere on the weekends when skiers are about but there is rarely anyone around during the rest of the week. I have strong opinions about the NCC policies regarding the use of this area, would be happy to discuss.) There is an area to the north-west of the marsh I like to visit in the winter when the stream which bars the way for the rest of the year is frozen. Nope, not frozen yet, which answers my questions about whether it's too soon to snowshoe on the river, doesn't it? So, we didn't get there but we did ramble through the forest, looking for signs of porcupines. Well, I looked for signs, Rosie looked for anything edible. No porcupines and I'm concerned about this. We watched one fail and die last winter- can there be a porcupine plague?