Today it is clear, sunny, and a “warm” 30 degrees. A breeze is blowing from the
Today, my camera is working again, and there are lots of tracks. I’m a bit more sensitive to tracking as a result of our last class. I had been surprised by the amount of scat we observed during our class session right outside the LS&A building at Washtenaw. I went looking to see if I could find a similar “rabbit bathroom” on our property. I found one behind a tall “stand” of Teasel just west of the road on a flat which has been significantly disturbed several times in recent years. Apparently the last disturbance opened the area up to Teasel and they loved it. There are several dozen stalks over 6’ tall. Behind the stand, the land drops off quickly making it easy for animals to “disappear” from view if they hear anything to the north of their position.
Photo 1
Teasel
Apparently both the rabbits and deer found something quite attractive in this location. There were lots of rabbit tracks going back and forth along the edge of the teasel patch, and up and down the little hill behind it. The rabbits were not the only animal to use this area as a bathroom.
Photo 2
Rabbit Scat
I think a small deer made this contribution, based on the nearby tracks. The size of the individual pieces of feces was not that much larger than those of the rabbits, but it was bigger and not as hard. It was also a lot darker in color.
Photo 3
Deer droppings?
The rabbits obviously “hang out” on the lee side of the teasel patch, hopping around, leaving droppings, and even urinating in the snow.
Photo 4
Rabbit Run
I spent several minutes trying to figure out what it was that attracted both the deer and the rabbits to this particular area other than the strategic cover it provided. There is a crab apple tree very close by which appears to have had a good crop of fruit, some of which remains on the tree. I did not see evidence that the animals were browsing the tree or digging up fallen crabapples but it is possible.
One of the deer which was walking around under the edge of the hillside appears to have a limp. It drags a hoof across the snow on the left side of its track but not the right. Other deer tracks in the area are even and the snow shows no “drag marks” between the hoof prints. Unfortunately, my attempt to photograph the limping deer track didn’t turn out well.
Next I went down one of the marked trails which have been built by members of the UUAA congregation over the past few years. No one had walked the trail recently except the woman I met on her way out. I heard a couple of chickadees calling and discovered that a bird feeder had been installed on a tree near one of the benches built along the trail. With some effort I was able to get a good digital picture of one of the two chickadees gorging themselves on the thistle supply which had been left in the feeder. The bird would hop through the feeder and then pause in a neighboring tree and seemed to “pick its toes.” I’m guessing that it grabbed some seed in the feeder, and then moved to an open place in a tree where it felt safer to feed.
Photo 5
Chicadee feeding
The birds had created a patch of disturbed snow below the feeder where wind had spread some of the seed from its supply. Because there had not been any snow for about a week, the patch was really rough.
Photo 6
Under the feeder
After watching the birds for a while I moved off to see if possibly the deer reported near the outdoor sanctuary was still around. I didn’t find the deer, but it appeared that something had stripped the bark off a young smooth barked tree which I believe was planted a couple of years ago in an effort to enhance the appearance of the outdoor sanctuary area. If it was a nursery tree, the deer had a very expensive lunch.
Photo 7
Deer browse?
The young tree had bright red buds and showed pairs of new branches in a regular pattern of pairs on opposite sides of the main stem. The “limper” had been in the vicinity during the past week but there were no fresh tracks coming directly up to this tree. I think someone had mentioned planting a sugar maple as a part of the effort to make the area more attractive. Do deer browse sugar maple? I’ll have to check.
I was surprised to find a couple of abandoned bird nests in the tops of low growing weeds in a small open area. I’m not sure what bird would nest this close to the ground, but they obviously chose a place where they could fly away if they saw something coming. Just below one of the nests, where bird dirt was likely to have accumulated, I also noticed the remains of an insect nest. I wonder if a bug that fed on bird dirt made it?
Photo 8
Bird Nest
Photo 9
Insect nest
Next I headed for the very south end of the property where there is a big clearing created by the recent expansion of our septic field. On my way, I stopped to look at one of the deer highways which crisscross the lower woods. When we have snow on the ground you can see how busy some of these trails really are. This one had been crisscrossed at least five times in the past week. People and dogs had also followed the same route.
Photo 10
Deer trail.
On the way, I stopped and picked out some details I had missed on an
earlier trip. I photographed the characteristic
shiny bark and lenticils of a young cherry tree, and
the clear evidence of our Emerald Ash Borer infection.
Photo 11
Wild Cherry
Photo 12
Ash Borer Infestation
The bark of these two ash trees is cracking off in the wind where it has been undermined and the living tissue behind it killed by the tunneling of the ash borer. Woodpeckers tear up the bark trying to get at the worms underneath. Close up you can see characteristic exit holes where the borers dig their way out to fly off, mate, and infect another tree. Amazingly there were leaves on some branches of both of these two trees last summer. Apparently the borers had not completely girdled them yet, although the one on the right has been dying ever since I first started coming here three years ago.
Down in the valley near the road, deer have been digging in the snow to expose something.
Photo 13
Deer “dig”
In some of the areas where the deer had been digging you can see remains of something which was apparently still green and growing under the snow. There wasn’t enough left intact for me to be sure what plant they are after, but I can go back again to this place and see if I can find some intact leaves.
Photo 14
Greens the deer dug up
Part of our assignment in the field this week was to remain still in one place for an extended period of time. I chose the opening created by our septic field excavation because it is sheltered by the contour of the ground from the cold breeze and warmer than the surrounding woods in the noonday sun. Animals have crossed this open area relatively infrequently in the past week. I think one of our neighbors lets a dog wander back here. There are also squirrels and rabbits around. The “edge” of the old wooded area next to the golf course on the other side of the creek is very apparent in this picture. While I stood motionless in the clearing for about 20 minutes, I heard only the sounds of equipment working somewhere to the east and a couple of bird calls. No birds or animals ventured by. Maybe I need to find a place where I can “hide” to observe.
Photo 15
Septic Drain Field
For a long time I have been puzzled by the complexity of the fencing
abandoned on the UUAA property. It
appears as though a significant effort was made to keep cattle out of the flat
which is currently cut on the east by our little creek. In the spring the surface of this entire area
is sometimes under a sheet of about six inches of water and ice. If cattle tried to walk around in it at that
time of year, they would very likely get stuck.
A four wheel drive vehicle entered the area from the south (trespasser!)
and really rutted things up in one place a couple of years ago. Now you can’t even find the ruts, the ground
seems to be soft enough to very quickly flow back. The vegetation helps. That year I tried crossing the area and almost
lost my boot in the mud. This is
interesting because the area appears to be covered by grasses and vines, there
are no cattails or other indicators of a “swamp” but the clay is obviously very
saturated sometimes and behaves almost like “quicksand.” I have been speculating that possibly quite a
while ago there might have been a beaver dam and accompanying shallow wetland
along either the creek that cuts our property or more likely, the one it feeds
which is now exposed within the mowed grasses of a Travis Pointe Golf Course fairway. I’m going to see what I can dig up from the
historical society if there is one in
It is difficult to give a clear impression of the “lay of the land” with photos, but these two shots illustrate the flat area. One shows the creek cutting the eastern edge and the other its’ fence border on the west.
Photo 16
Looking east toward the creek which follows the line of large trees
Photo 17
Looking west at a broken down fence.
This “flat” covers four or five acres in an irregular pattern at the south end of the UUAA property. The trees and pasture grasses remaining in the areas which were fenced off from the flat are indicative of an abandoned pasture. The trees within the flat are mostly young trees too, but fifteen or twenty years older than the ones outside the fences that seem to screen off the area. There are parts of the flat that are fairly open in the sense that there are few small trees, but in summer the edges of the road and the underbrush to the east along the creek are so thick that it is difficult to get into this area. What was here? What is going on here now?
On the way back up the hill, I noticed a different looking set of tracks made by something which was obviously quite light and which seemed to be hopping along. For a size perspective, the big tracks going left to right at the top of the picture are deer tracks. I’m wondering if this was made by a bird that came down, hopped along a ways and then took off again.
Photo 18
Hopper tracks…Bird?