Nature is Never Spent

It's nice returning to places at different times of the year. You might think it would be boring, say, hiking the same trail several times, but there are always new things to notice. Today I returned to a trail I discovered in April.

It's an urban hiking trail, but except for one end of the park where you can hear traffic on a busy road, you'd think you were in the middle of wilderness. It's just a narrow path through the forest, winding down a ridge, crossing a stream several times and running along a small gorge. Quiet, birds calling, lots of wild plant diversity, evidence of wildlife. Most prominently, today I heard chipmunks giving warning calls as I passed, several places along the trail. If I didn't know better I'd say they had some sort of Midnight Bark network! I also saw a couple of big, gorgeous millipedes, one dead and one decidedly alive--when it realized it had been discovered, it started flipping and twisting itself up into a curl. I see lots of centipedes, but millipedes, not so often, and they're always larger than I remember.

The biggest difference on the trail, last month to this month, is that the creek is almost dry now. It was flowing along happily in early April, but now it's not flowing at all in most places. There's really only water left in the deepest pools. I don't know if it's always seasonal, or if last year's drought and this month's relative lack of rain is affecting it. This spring hasn't been nearly as wet as last, when we had an unusual number of tornadoes and floods.


Millipede | Raccoon jawbones in a creek bed


Dogwood bent by a fallen tree

Fun animal sightings in the past couple of weeks:

1. I was taking a break from class, which is in a building with outdoor walkways on all levels, and textured concrete outer walls. There's a sort of alcove between the main building and the elevator/bathroom shaft (can you believe the architect won an award for this place?) and in the morning, it's in shadow. I looked up to the level above and saw a large-ish brown clump on the outer wall. It was maybe the size of my fist, maybe a little smaller, but bigger than I would expect from a wad of leaves and caterpillar silk, or a mud dauber nest, and it's the wrong season, anyway. Finally I realized: it was a BAT. Yay, bat! Possibly disoriented, though, so I hope it found its way home.

2. Out at the farm, walking the dog in the pasture in the evening, we came down to the pond, and across the water up on the far hill was a deer. I slowed down and the dog went into a stalking crouch, and we watched the deer graze for a minute. In the spring you can't tell bucks from does by the antlers, because the antlers have been shed. But based on size this might have been a buck. Finally the dog walked forward a few steps, the deer's head went up and he was on the move... and then we saw the other seven deer. They were just grazing in the pasture at dusk. I've mentioned this before, the deer around the farm are shyer than suburban deer, and we've only seen them in the past few years. I'd never seen this many at once!

3. Short story, but the best sighting of all. Today while driving in a woody area of the city, I spotted a melanistic squirrel! (Link goes to someone else's photo.) My first one ever.

My cat and I spent a good ten minutes this evening watching our Rat friend forage on the balcony. It wasn't quite dark, though the dark clouds made it a little greyer. Rattie licked up rainwater from the balcony boards, sniffed all around the plant pots and found a few stray birdseeds from among the dead pine needles. He walked boldly right by the glass door, confident that the pouncing cat behind it held no danger. I'm sure he must have heard my cat's head bump the door.

I say "he." This is quite possibly the same rat I photographed a couple of months ago, but whereas before I had a tiny bit of doubt about the rat/mouse identification based on size, now there is no doubt it's a rat. And it's male. He's grown! And his tail seems so much longer than the tails of the domestic rats I used to have as pets.

A bit of history of what has happened since my last rat post. In my apartment, on one end of the tiny kitchen is a door that opens to an unfinished closet holding the gas heating unit and the hot water tank. This is also where I store my pet food and birdseed—in sealed plastic containers due to previous experiences with a squirrel. The closet has various holes in the ceiling and walls that open to the attic area, which leads to the outdoor shed, which also has holes. You can bet we hear things walking in the ceiling often during the winter.

About a month ago, I discovered droppings on the cat food container, and a couple of days later there was a large hole chewed through the lid of the dog food tub. I totally don't blame the rat for taking advantage of the delicious bounty available to it, but I couldn't just let it continue, for financial and health reasons. So, reluctantly, I called the apartment management and they sent a fellow who set up glue traps and taped up the dog food container with some kind of metal tape. I didn't feel good about this, but... I wasn't sure how else to proceed.

The result of all this was that Rattie showed himself to be cleverer than the traps. He avoided the glue trap, chewed right through the metal tape, and got himself back into the dog food. Inside, I was kind of cheering him, I admit. I cleared everything else out of the closet, washed it all, got a new dog food bin and replaced the food, and now... I guess we're just living a compromise? No, not a compromise. I have simply ceded the closet to Rat. As long as he doesn't come into the apartment proper, we live and let live.

Upon hearing that the glue traps had failed, the apartment manager suggested that I fill the hole with steel wool; the rat would eat the steel wool and die. (Horribly, I assume.) I just can't do it. I would really like to have use of that closet again, because in my little apartment I don't actually have a good place to store these tubs of pet chow. But at this point I think I'd rather be inconvenienced than kill a cute, innocent animal inhumanely. When I have time, I may research humane/live traps. We'll see.

In the meantime, I salute you, Rat!

Speaking of rodents, the rat isn't the only one making a living on my balcony!

Whitetail deer can be pretty tame, especially when they know it isn't hunting season. (And they do know!) They're regularly seen in suburban areas close to fields and woods. But where I am in the city, it's too far in, and the woods are too tiny. I see squirrels aplenty and the occasional fox, but the deer are farther out. Around the farm, though, as I've said before, they're becoming more common. I saw a pair this morning as I was driving on a one-lane rural road. They were very nonchalant about the vehicle, and just ambled off into the woods even when I stopped my car to take their picture.

Foggy winter day today. The fog never cleared and still hasn't. It obscures things, of course, but in doing so, like snow, makes some things clearer. The silhouettes of trees stand out better when they're not seen against a background of brown and other trees.



In fact, apropos to yesterday's post, I was able to see a squirrel's drey quite well in the the middle of a tall white oak.

Even though it's the middle of winter, it's nice to know the fox squirrels aren't going hungry! When I was walking down by their trees the other day I discovered a very healthy pile of freshly-gnawed hickory nuts.

It's December, can you believe it? I'll have to start tagging things "winter" soon.

I mentioned it's easier to see things in the trees now. Today I noticed... squirrels' nests!


You can see the sweet gum balls and, in the lower branches, the squirrel's nest

August has dawned true to reputation: miserably hot. Last year it was an unusually cool and wet month, but we may make up for that this year.

I went to the zoo this morning. It may have been the first time since I started this daily posting project. That's unusual for me; usually I go a couple of times a month, sometimes more. It's a peaceful place for me; safer than a park, but full of trees and plants and water right in the middle of the city; and there are interesting animals.

The exotic, kept animals are the point, of course; but there are also the common ones. The squirrels, the crows and doves and mockingbirds, the guinea fowl roaming freely. I've discovered over time that these are no more or less interesting to me than the giraffes and flamingos and bush dogs. They're animals. I just like to watch how they behave. I try to work with the light and capture their character. There's always something new.

Today I saw this fellow lying with his or her belly on the same rail, legs splayed out over the sides. Very droopy for a squirrel. It's been blazing hot for a couple of weeks now, and we could really use some rain. I put a shallow pan of water out on the balcony for the birds and squirrels. If I change it every day, it shouldn't be able to breed mosquitoes.