Notes from a frozen river

The (partially) frozen Musconetcong, a nationally recognized 
"Wild and Scenic River."

There is a whole world going on in an around the icy river these days, completely undeterred by the ice and snow. The snow actually helped to reveal creatures that I hadn't been aware of, like the river otter and a cave-dwelling red fox...

Otter scat and tracks along the riverbank.

Otter scat detail: it's filled with fish scales.

The otters' "snow slide."

A tiny cave in a riverside cliff with fox tracks leading into it.

A guy named Steve who was out walking by the river (the first self-described "tracker" I've ever chanced upon in the woods) kindly pointed me to this black duck carcass. I regularly see flocks of 10-15 black ducks on the river (along with dozens of Canada geese and the occasional common merganser), but never their ubiquitous cousin the mallard...

The remains of an American black duck found on iced-over eddy. 
Possibly killed by the fox that left prints all around it.

Close up of the iridescent patch on the black duck's wing.

A muskrat swimming comfortably in the icy waters.

Notable Hermits: Estwick Evans

“I wished to acquire the simplicity, native feelings, and virtues of savage life; to divest myself of the factitious habits, prejudices and imperfections of civilization; to become a citizen of the world; and to find, amidst the solitude and grandeur of the western wilds, more correct views of human nature and of the true interests of man." – Estwick Evans (1787-1866) 

Wow, what a hermit. I found this on Stephen Bales' "nature calling" blog. Stephan (the author of Ghost Birds, about the Ivory Billed Woodpecker) describes him as:

"An attorney who walked, in the dead of an extreme winter, from his home in New Hampshire to Detroit dressed in buffalo skins. He wanted to experience the wilderness first hand" 

He wrote a book about his journey with the nice title "Evan's Pedestrious Tour of 4000 miles - 1818."

Finding a warm place to sleep

The nuthatch hole.

4:22. It seemed a little early for nuthatch bedtime. A full half-hour before sunset, and an hour before real darkness set in. So I decided to sit down on the river ice below the small knothole it had disappeared into and watch. I eyed the hole as steadily as other distractions would allow to see if it was in there for good, or just for a visit.

4:30. A red-bellied woodpecker clucked restlessly from branch to branch, checking out his own potential accommodations...4:40. A muskrat swam by...


4:44. Having almost forgotten about the sleeping nuthatch, I heard a scuffle overhead. Looking up I see two nuthatches tumbling out of the sky toward me, apparently having fallen straight out of the knothole. An interloper! The two fought it out in a squeaking blur of feathers for a few seconds until one (I imagine it to be the original inhabitant) emerged as the victor and returned to the hole. So that's why he went to bed so early. Possession is nine-tenths of tree-cavity law, or at least pretty important. Essentially, this was prime nuthatch real estate.

The nuthatch hole from a distance.

This made me think about all the other birds that sleep in holes, and how finding a good hole with all that competition can't be easy. In fact, it seems like most of the birds in the woods right now are "cavity nesters," which means they also generally sleep in knotholes, woodpecker holes, hollowed out branch stubs, nooks, birdhouses or whatever enclosed space is available. The titmouse, chickadee, nuthatch, bluebird, brown creeper, Carolina wren, 6 woodpeckers, and a screech owl: that's a lot of competition!

A titmouse finds shelter in a hollow silver maple branch (not a recent photo).

I would bet that for all of these species, finding a hole at night in winter is a primary concern, almost as big as finding food. Especially when it is 5 degrees and windy out. This is supported by the fact that a good hole seems to be worth fighting for. Remember the nuthatches? And last month the Cape May Bird Observatory posted an account (click and scroll down) of a sapsucker that wouldn't let a poor brown creeper sleep in the same tree nook with him! You would think that it would only make it warmer. (Bluebirds are known to sleep 10 to a box in winter for this very reason.) Maybe the sapsucker just didn't trust that strange-looking, pointy-beaked creeper - a case of speciesism. Or maybe you need just need to be previously acquainted! In the case of the nuthatches, maybe the interloper wasn't a sibling or close relative, but was from another tribe.

Or maybe there just wasn't enough room.

fine print: flying squirrel tracks

Two fresh sets of flying squirrel tracks in this morning's snow. They must have glided down from my roof because they start out of nowhere. I've seen them do this same maneuver before: glide from the roof down to the bottom of the oak, scurry up to the upper branches of the oak, and then glide far out over the garden. Surprisingly quick, too.

"I take pleasure in noting the minute things about me...One seldom takes a walk without encountering some of this fine print on nature's page." - John Burroughs

Snowbirds and snow angels

No bird loves snow like a junco. That is a scientific fact.

Their other common name - a more fitting one than "junk-o," my sister thinks - is the snowbird...or even better, the slate-colored snowbird.

A snow angel made by a snowbird.

The trail of the snowbird.

After the recent snow, I was watching them hop through junco-hip-deep snow with joy. They like the patterns that they create in new fallen snow. This much has been proven.

As an added bonus to the satisfying work of snow-angel-making, weed seeds become even more visible on the pristine white snow surface. Henry David Thoreau, in a December 1856 journal entry, called it their "clean white napkin" to eat off of.

"December 1st, 1856 - Slate-colored snowbirds flit before me in the path, feeding on the seeds on the snow, the countless little brown seeds that begin to be scattered over the snow, so much more obvious to bird and beast. A hundred kinds of indigenous grain are harvested now, broadcast upon the surface of the snow. Thus at a critical season these seeds are shaken down on to a clean white napkin, unmixed with dirt and rubbish, and off this the little pensioners pick them. Their clean table is thus spread a few inches or feet above the ground."


A patch of red-top, a warm-season grass, in seed. Note all the junco footprints below.

Proof that this stem had been ridden to the ground: it lined up with one of their wing-print snow angels when I bent it down. Note the seeds.

Further proof of their snow-love can be found in their favorite winter sport: riding grass stems. They hop on a red-top seedhead (pictured above), and riding them to the ground they pick up any fallen seeds off of the "clean table" of the snow. A type of winter fun, no doubt, much like Robert Frost's swinging on birches, but with the added bonus of a meal at the end. Maybe they are not the only bird with a sense of winter joy: a (rare) reader of this journal commented on the same behavior by chickadees.

In the face of all this indisputable proof of a bird that enjoys winter, snow, fun, and (I daresay) beauty...how could we not ask ourselves these questions that Thoreau concludes his journal entry with...

"Will wonder become extinct in me?" he muses. To this he adds (weirdly): "Shall I become insensible as a fungus?" How is he so sure that fungi are insensible?

fine print: virginia creeper sap

"fine print" is a new recurring feature to quickly post new things I learn while walking around...

"I take pleasure in noting the minute things about me...One seldom takes a walk without encountering some of this fine print on nature's page." - John Burroughs

An obviously-not-recent photo of a Virginia creeper vine (taken in the fall). I found one with sapsucker wells. The sap was sticky and sweet and I saw a nuthatch eating it.

Found a white-breasted nuthatch drinking from some liquid on a vine yesterday. Upon closer inspection it was a sticky sap leaking from a small hole in a 1-inch-diameter Virginia creeper stem. The hole, drilled by a yellow-bellied sapsucker, was one of many all leaking sap. I tasted it, and it was the consistency of syrup and was actually sweet!* Who knew?

*I looked it up and it is also supposedly poisonous! But only a little bit. USDA says it has oxalic acid crystals in it (like skunk cabbage) that should make your mouth burn. I felt no burning.

Notable hermits: Alvah Dunning

Alvah Dunning (1816-1902) was known as the Hermit Guide of the Adirondacks. "He could lure the timid mink from its hole by imitative chippering."

My criteria for a Nature Hermit is simple: a person who appreciates nature so much that they are compelled to live in it. It doesn't matter if you are solitary or live with a family. Whether you grew up there or came later. Whether you stayed a lifetime or less than a year. If you lived IN nature by choice, because you weren't content only to visit in your free time, then you are a nature hermit.

That said, I read something recently by W.H.H. Murray about guides in the Adirondacks in the 1800's. (It was in an anthology.) The "good" guides, as he described them, seemed to fit my bill:

"Born and bred as many of them were, in this wilderness, skilled in all the lore of woodcraft, handy with the rod, superb at the paddle, modest in demeanor and speech, honest to a proverb, they deserve and receive the admiration of all who make their acquaintance. Bronzed and hardy, fearless of danger, eager to please, uncontaminated with the vicious habits of civilized life, they are not unworthy of the magnificent surroundings amid which they dwell...The wilderness has unfolded to them its mysteries, and made them wise with a wisdom nowhere written in books. This wilderness is their home. Here they were born, here have they lived, and here it is that they expect to die. Their graves will be made under the pines where in childhood they played..."

Another Adirondack guide and his so-called "sport" (what they called the rich city fellows that hired them).

And then there was Alvah Dunning. He was moody and cantankerous, according to the Adirondack Museum's website (a profile worth reading). But he was also (according to a 1921 book by Afred Donaldson) "probably the most wily and resourceful hunter, fisher, and trapper the Adirondacks ever housed. He lived in the woods all of the time, and for the most part alone. The human voice was less familiar to him than the noises of birds and animals, and he often seemed able to understand and speak their language. He could lure the timid mink from its hole by imitative chippering, and trick a frightened deer back to the water's edge by deceptive bleating with his throat and splashing with his hands." (My Italics.)

Now that's a Nature Hermit!!!

I'm not saying he was perfect. He hated wolves and women, and maybe, just maybe, killed the last moose in the Adirondacks. But he also was a nature lover who "knew every tree, every flower, and every forest animal" according to those that knew him, and he disapproved of killing for sport alone. Quote the hermit: "In the old days I could kill a little meat when I needed it, but now they're a-savin' it for the city dudes with velvet suits and pop-guns, that can't hit a deer if they see it, and don't want it if they do hit it." He went to his grave eschewing modern technology, and firmly believing that the Earth was not round!

More Adirondack guides and their "sports".

All photos and info came from Wikipedia and the Adirondack Museum. Here's some newspaper articles written about Alvah, and here's a whole bunch more info on other Adirondack guides in the Adirondacks, where I found this nice picture of a bark hut on Tupper Lake (1899):