Meditation on a bear's bum

I was standing beside the mossy rock viewing this impish brown thing for the first time. "What the hell . . . ?" I could barely make it out on the Sony's teeny weeny LCD. It kind of looked like a brown monkey. Was that a small face beneath a domed head? Or was the squinched little face higher up? Could it be a runtling Sasquatch? Was it doing step-up exercises on the mossy rock?

I clicked to the next picture, and then I knew. I had been fooled by a bear's "bum" (as the British would say).



Then I clicked up the date stamp: the bear had been there three days ago. Hmmmm. Not likely it's still around, I thought, but this little bear is too small to be independent. Wherever it is now, mother isn't far away, and any fool knows that finding yourself between a bear and its cub can be hazardous to your health.



The thought gave way to more serious considerations. . . . I mean, little bears can be dangerous too.

I learned that lesson in my curator days. One weekend in the 70s, a well-intentioned tourist from Washington D.C. delivered a bear cub to our facility. He found it crossing a country road near Shenandoah National Park. The little guy was as solid as a medicine ball, weighed about 12 lbs, and was crazed with hunger. I was finishing a tour when the cub arrived, and my guests immediately began to coo. Now the bear expert, I offered the cub my hand as if we were old friends. It was one of those Marlin Perkins moments, when the show doesn't go according to script. The jaws of little bears, I discovered, have the clamping power of a bench vise.

Which makes me wonder about a bear story that visits us every decade or so during family reunions -- did Uncle Fred know that bear wrestling was fraught with danger? Or did he have a trick up his sleeve? I mean, maybe he knew a secret hold that would render the bear helpless and allow him to collect the bets? Whatever the answer, it was a turning point in my grandfather, Poppy's life. His big brother was too reckless to be a partner in any venture.



The Norberg brothers were backwoods Swedes from Jamtland. When the earthquake struck San Francisco in '06, "Poppy" decided to find a safer haven, and succumbed to his brother's entreaties to join him in the Klondike. He arrived in Skagway as a stowaway in late summer. When they finally got to Uncle Fred's digs, it was too late for serious mining.

So the cabin-bound brothers rationed their whiskey and spent the winter playing cards, and dining on sheep meat. When the thaw came, they headed for Dawson City for supplies. That's where Uncle Fred got snockered. There was a bear tied to the hitching post outside the saloon, and Fred started taking wagers that he could whip it's. . .er . . . well, it's bum.

Poppy was appalled. The bear looked like a cub, he said, and may have been muzzled. What started as comedy became a brouhaha with calls to "get the drunk Swede out of here". Poppy decided to part ways, and became a lumberjack in Washington State.

We never did learn what possessed Uncle Fred to be a bear-fighter. Maybe whiskey fooled him like my Sony's teeny weeny LCD.

Or maybe it was just like Robert Service said,

"There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moiled for gold. . .".

Postscript: In WWI Uncle Fred fought in France with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, became a Canadian when he returned, and received a homestead grant of 700 acres in Northcentral British Columbia. In 1955 he was swept away in the Frazier River during the spring thaw. He was reckless to the end.

Feline sensuality on a mossy rock

And this is how she appeared, panting softly in the wake of her sensual interlude . . . It was all over at 19:12:50 hr . . . on 24 May 2007 -- three days ago (last Friday).

It started about 15 minutes earlier as she padded up the creek bed -- a few molecules of the magical substance impinged her olfactory epithelium. She followed her nose, moving up the gradient of scent. She found it on the mossy rock -- a redolent smudge of beaver castoreum. She engaged it with a passionate grip. It was wonderful. She sniffed, licked, and drooled uncontrollably.



But that wasn't enough. The substance summoned a languorous need for a whole-body experience.



Another taste activated Jacobsen's organ in the roof of her mouth. She grimaced uncontrollably.



Finally, the buzz started to dissipate, and she felt a strong urge to pee.



The party was over. It was time to look for rabbits and deer again.

Bunny Behavior Pop-Quiz

You weren't expecting this, but it's time for a pop-quiz. (Beware, more than one answer may be correct.)

The jackrabbit in photo 1 (above) is:
a) urinating
b) a young adult
c) an aged adult
d) stretching its legs before a race




The jackrabbit in photo 2 is:
a) resting
b) hungry
c) startled
d) looking for a mate




The jackrabbit in photo 3 is:
a) beginning to leap forward
b) spraying urine on a female
c) resuming a normal posture after standing upright on the hindlegs
d) playing




The jackrabbit in photo 4 is probably:
a) suffering from shin splints of the forelegs
b) grazing
c) waking up from a bunny nap
d) cleaning its mouth on the damp grass




The jackrabbit in photo 5 is probably:
a) hopping intermittently
b) running quickly
c) walking
d) posing for the camera


ANSWERS

Photo 1
a) urinating (QUITE POSSIBLE)
b) a young adult (DEFINITELY)
c) an aged adult (WRONG. DEFINITELY NOT)
d) stretching its legs before a race (WRONG. UNLIKELY)
(The animal was born this spring, and is not quite adult size yet. It still has that skinny look.)

Photo 2
a) resting (WRONG)
b) hungry (WRONG. DOES IT LOOK HUNGRY TO YOU?)
c) startled (DEFINITELY)
d) looking for a mate (WRONG. ITS TOO SCARED TO BE THINKING ABOUT THAT)
(This stance has all the signs of a startled animal -- hindlegs spread, body crouched, and ears forward. The sound of the camera might have triggered the response.)

Photo 3
a) beginning to leap forward (POSSIBLY)
b) spraying urine on a female (WRONG. DO YOU SEE SOMETHING I DON'T SEE? TRY AGAIN)
c) resuming a normal posture after standing upright on the hindlegs (PROBABLY)
d) playing (WRONG)
(Jackrabbits stand upright (bipedally) when scoping out the neighborhood for danger. I think this animal is resuming its normal stance after standing upright. Urine spraying is also a courtship behavior seen in rabbits and some rodents, but that is NOT what you are seeing here.)

Photo 4
a) suffering from shin splints of the forelegs (WRONG)
b) grazing (CORRECT)
c) waking up from a bunny nap (WRONG)
d) cleaning its mouth on the damp grass (WRONG)
(Sometimes jackrabbits graze while kneeling on bent forelegs, just as warthogs do. The legs may look injured, but they aren't.)

Photo 5
a) hopping intermittently (DOUBTFUL)
b) running quickly (MOST PROBABLY)
c) walking (WRONG)
d) posing for the camera (WRONG)
(Looks to me like this animal is running (technically, galloping), but doesn't appear to running "full-speed ahead".

If you answered all the questions right, you have wasted a lot of time watching animals and you have a healthy dose of biophilia.
If you answered them all wrong, you were probably thinking this was about two-legged bunnies.
If you answered one or two correctly, you need to spend more time out-of-doors.

Squirrel episode at the owl snag

As fledging day approaches the fickle finger of fate continues to thwart my efforts to photograph screech owl fluffies. These are trying times.

I've gotten only 8 photos since last week -- a few blanks and a couple of screech owl butts as the adults entered the nest cavity. Part of the problem has been poor sensor alignment. Then the controller batteries went out, and today the camera batteries were dead.

Last weekend I was convinced that the problem was squirrels. My late afternoon visit began well. It was the first time I saw the male owl in daylight. His 'owl camou' really worked -- dark facial streaks obliterated closed eyes, and his ear tufts were at full mast. He didn't look awake, but I had a feeling he was sleep-faking.

Well that's cool, I thought. If the male is roosting here, the nest hasn't been abandoned.

There were only two pictures on the memory stick, so I raised the camera on the fiberglass pole, and tried to adjust the senor's position better. (I am embarrassed to say I forgot the periscope.) I had trudged up the slope to sight-in on the camera's position when I noticed two dainty gray squirrelettes lounging on top of the snag. They must have just weaned, and yes, they were cute. But their proximity to the owl nest only 4 feet below was too close for comfort. My warm and cuddly feelings weren't there. They didn't understand boundaries, and needed to find another tree.

I made a pathetic attempt to scare them off by tossing short twigs. They hardly noticed. Then I resorted to a long dead tree limb, but these efforts were equally laughable because I was endangering the camera. Finally the squirrels scampered down the snag and climbed a nearby oak.

I was again sighting-in on the camera when I was distracted by a big squirrel chasing one of the youngsters down the snag it had just climbed. This did not look like play or maternal discipline. They scuffled on the ground, someone squeaked, and the small squirrel broke free and bounded down the slope with big squirrel in hot pursuit. They scrambled up another tree, and -- OH NO -- big squirrel caught little squirrel again, and there was more squeaking. At this point little squirrel literally bailed out, free-falling about 25 feet to the ground, where he bounced on the leaf litter, and apparently none the worse for wear, ran down the slope and out of sight.

As if that wasn't enough excitement, I now heard a wheezy cough behind me.

"Chunka-chunka-chunk! . . . chunk-chunk-chunk!".

Another squirrel -- and a very large and agitated squirrel at that, was peering beyond me toward the victorious squirrel in the tree. Was this the mother of the vanquished weanlings? (I could see from its revealing posture that it lacked testes.)

"Chunka-chunka-chunk", replied the attack squirrel.

A chunka-chunk duel went on for a full minute, and then petered out.

The squirrel episode neutralized my funk about my bad luck with the owls. I've seen squirrel chases and rough and tumble play, but this looked like child abuse by the neighbor next door. What was going on?

Pack on my back, I looked up for the screech owl as I started home. I was almost directly beneath him, and though everything appeared as before, I noticed that his head was tilted down. He was watching me through squinted eyes. The bird was definitely sleep-faking.

A victim of Nackenbiss

Check out the skunk's neck. Yes, yes, yes -- that's a mouse in its mouth (and a trespasser from my garage where no mouse is tolerated.) But that's not the point. I want you to look at the skunk's neck. Can you see that the wounds are on both sides of the neck?



Sooner or later those who live close to nature encounter the diseased and injured, and it sinks in that "nature is red in tooth and claw".

So how did this happen? I offer four scenarios based on the observation that the wounds look traumatic, rather than the result of irritation.

Scenario 1: The skunk got its neck caught in some chicken wire, and scratched itself trying to get out.
This is possible, but I don't think it is likely. No one in the neighborhood keeps chickens or keeps chicken-wire cages, and the chicken-wire under our deck has already been breeched and offers free and safe access to critters seeking shelter.

Scenario 2: The skunk suffered from a neck bite during a sexual tryst.
If we knew this to be a female skunk, and it was earlier in the year -- like January or February -- a romantic interlude would be quite possible. The courthip of mustelids (members of the weasel family) is well known for prolonged bouts of neck biting along with all the other stuff. But the breeding season is past, and little skunks should be appearing soon; so I don't think it is very likely. I might also add that I haven't seen wounds like this in skunks photographed earlier in the year when "love is in the air".

Scenario 3: The skunk suffered from a predatory encounter with a naive bobcat or coyote.
Many mammalian predators, especially cats and weasels, dispatch their prey with a neck bite which severs the spine. Note that this skunk shows wounds not only on its neck. There are also scratches on its head.



In this case the hypothetical predator might have lost its appetite when overpowered by skunk musk. This scenario is feasible. A naive predator might try to nail a skunk once, but the skunk's chemical defense and uniquely bicolored coat are highly effective teaching tools. Smart predators learn their lesson from a single experience. (Domestic dogs seem to require several trials, and some never seem to get it.)

Scenario 4: The skunk had a brawl with another skunk.
This would be more likely in male than female skunks. Carnivores tend to fight over food and sex. Since skunks don't have to defend their food (which comes in small packets), I suspect that studly skunks fight over females. Whether male skunks fight by attacking each other's necks, I just don't know. It seems possible, but perhaps a mammalogist out there can enlighten us.

We haven't solved the problem, but my guess is that the luckless skunk was attacked by a coyote, bobcat, or fox. By discharging its scent gland, it not only saved its own damaged neck, but taught one more predator that 'ole stripey' isn't to be trifled with. In other words, his own close calls and occasional misfortune benefits other members of his species.

[By the way, German-speaking ethologists identified the Nackenbiss (=neck bite) as a fixed action pattern. It is innate (=genetically programmed), typical of the species, and is tiggered by specific sign stimuli. It is used in predatory, sexual, and maternal situations with very different effects.]

A ratty flashback

Ever since discovering the screech owl nest I've been scouting for nest cavities of other owls.

I'm about to give up. With the exception of the fortuitous encounter with the saw-whet owl, none of the tree cavities I've staked out during the past 2 weeks have yielded anything but deer mice and wood rats.

These pictures were from the most active site. A gopher snake was resting quietly at the base of the tree when I arrived. As it parted ways it occurred to me that I might be wasting my time. The snake might have eaten the occupants, but then again, maybe the snake would come back and eat the occupants after I left. Now, that would make a story.

Three days later there were 44 exposures; 14 were of deer mice, and 9 were of a wood rat. The rat and mouse visitations were separated by a couple hours.



The wood rat must have found the quarters a little cramped.



Nonetheless woodrats and deer mice cohabitate in the rats' stick nests. In fact, the coastal subspecies of the California mouse (Peromyscus californicus) was dubbed "parasiticus" because of its habit of living in nests of the dusky-footed wood rat.

The Allegheny woodrat, on the other hand, may not be as mouse-tolerant. If you'll excuse a flashback, I'll explain.

Many years ago a senior colleague of mine at the National Zoo had an uninvited dinner guest in the form of an Allegheny woodrat. This was shortly after Guy had moved into a partially renovated cottage at the zoo's Conservation & Research Center. Aware that the rodent was the previous occupant, and perhaps with a twinge of guilt, Guy offered it some hamburger from his plate.

Guy related the story in my office the next morning. After going to bed that night the rat had lived up to its moniker of "trade rat". It had deposited several pieces of plaster on the floor near the dinner table. (There was apparently a large supply of the relics of the lath and plaster walls under the house.)

Might the rodent become a nuisance? I asked. He didn't think so. The completion of the dry-walls would create a rat-proof boundary.

The dry walls were completed a few days later, but the rat kept showing up at dinnertime and continued delivering its nightly gift. Guy's amusement quickly wore off. I knew the game was over when he came puffing into my office one morning and deposited a bag of broken plaster on my desk. He explained that this vast amount--enough to fill a 2 lb coffee can--was deposited just last night.

It was time to catch the rat.

I live-trapped the rodent, and put it in a large cage of 1/2" hardware cloth in my chicken coop. In due course it made a respectable nest out of shredded feed bags and -- you won't believe it -- its own fecal pellets, which it heaped on top of the nest box.

The rat was particularly fond of animal protein. It tackled chunks of ham fat with the ferocity of a predator, literally throwing itself against the mesh, pulling the scraps through the mesh, and dragging them into its "lair".

Curiously, no mouse was permitted to share its domain. It promptly dispatched trespassing mice, and incorporated the carcasses into the pellet pile, which became a grotesque collection of fly-blown mouse mummies.

The rat thrived for 6 months, and then one night I left the cage open, thinking it might return for a day or two to the familiarity of its old digs.

Apparently it never looked back..

Such are the flashbacks after a bad day on the camera trapline.

Screech Owl update

Last week, after two days of no pictures and nagging fears that a squirrel had dined on screech owl eggs, I was ready to throw in the towel. I decided to wait a few days for my luck to change before going back to pull the camera. When I checked the camera yesterday I found 368 pictures (4 days worth) on the memory stick! Hallelujah!

There were no pictures of nestlings, but all signs indicate that there are young in the nest. Up till now, I never got a photo of two owls, and rarely got pictures of either owl going into the nest cavity. That's no longer the case.



And up till now, I only occasionally found pictures of the owls in the cavity. Now, 40% of the pictures were of the commotion in the nest cavity. There's a lot of flapping and excitement when the food is delivered.



Oddly, there were only three photos of prey: a Jerusalem cricket (or potato bug), and an insect larva.




Where are the mice? The woods are crawling with them. Or do dismembered mice invite blowflies and predators? I plan on keeping a camera on this nest until they fledge. Maybe I'll get a few pictures of the "fluffies".