wildlife

[SueNH]

Meet Chuck, my vegetable garden and daylily patch nemesis. Last year I replanted my vegetable garden 3x while searching for his den or quietly sitting with a rifle. He evaded me each and every time and I ran out of growing season and gave up. This year I was ready for him.



Chuck now lives in a big hay field on the far side of town with a fast running river between us. I'm so relieved I didn't have to do him in. With the state our local grocery stores have been in I need that big garden.

Chuck is a woodchuck or groundhog. The one that gets dragged out of his den to check his shadow in February.  Like your European marmots only bigger and greedier. He is also somewhat of a unique color. Most woodchucks are brown. Chuck will shed out to be solid black. Figured if I stuck with a chuck it may as well be a cool one.
https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Marmota_monax/

[Gail]

Those are impressive teeth - can see why he was a gardener's despair but glad to hear that he is safely haymaking! We have deer around here but so far they have not caused any damage to my plants.

[SueNH]

He was surprisingly calm until the car started moving. He chattered his teeth the whole way to let me know he was a big scary squirrel. I know I made a point of not letting my fingers touch the wire.

I blamed my biggest Canada lily being eaten on the deer last year but in retrospect it was probably the chuck.

[Maggi Young]

Chuck is  a  handsome  chap - most  unusal colour - I wondered  why  he  seemed familiar, then I  remembered this  photo of  a  South American bulb chomper which was  featured  in International Rock Gardener #122 of  February  2020
http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2020Feb281582900723IRG122.pdf

They  must  be  cousins!


 The cururo, Spalacopus cyanus, a tunnelling root and bulb eating rodent   pic by  late  Carlos  Celedon  in  IRG 122

[SueNH]

  Kissing cousins.

Chuck apparently has a lady friend I hadn't noticed. She was out there this afternoon. Luckily I still have a chunk of cabbage. Maybe I can reunite the couple tomorrow.

[ian mcdonald]

Fairly quiet in the garden today. Still a cool wind. A bee-fly paid a visit this morning. Butterflies seen were peacocks, small white and the first holly blue this year. A goldfinch paid a short visit this afternoon. There are still aircraft flying over but not as many as usual.







robin taking a bath.

[Gail]

Small tortoiseshells and peacocks here and a small blue butterfly which I assume was holly blue.

[ian mcdonald]

A warm day today with no wind. I saw the first comma of the year along with holly blue, small white and peacock. The most interesting activity today was a blue tit pulling pieces of leaf from an apple mint and taking them to the nest box. Maybe it was using the soft leaves for bedding? I read that mint is a deterrent to ants. Could it be that the blue tit was using the leaves to deter insects? A buzzard was circling around with a sparrow hawk. Blackthorn is in flower in the hedge. I noticed one of the garden mice was searching among fallen leaves. I put out food for them at night, peanuts or suet bits. A house sparrow is making a nest in the same part of the hedge as a blackbird. When the sparrow goes into the hedge the female blackbird usually follows. Maybe the sparrow is trying to take over the blackbirds nest? A squirrel is eating the new leaf buds on an oak tree.

[ian mcdonald]

Birds today were pigeon, collared dove, blackbird, starling, blue tit, house sparrow, dunnock, robin, buzzard, sparrow hawk, wren, magpie, chaffinch, crow, goldfinch and heron.

[ashley]

... The most interesting activity today was a blue tit pulling pieces of leaf from an apple mint and taking them to the nest box. Maybe it was using the soft leaves for bedding? I read that mint is a deterrent to ants. Could it be that the blue tit was using the leaves to deter insects?

Maybe to deter skin/feather mites that parasitize nestlings & can cause mortality?
Fascinating that we're not the only animals to use plants 'medicinally'.   

[ian mcdonald]

Ashley, it shows how much we are missing when we don,t bother to stop and look.

[ashley]

So true Ian.  The more we look the more we see.  Nature around us is endlessly fascinating.

[Gail]

Maybe to deter skin/feather mites that parasitize nestlings & can cause mortality?
Fascinating that we're not the only animals to use plants 'medicinally'.

There are quite a few recorded instances of birds using plants to control parasites; one researcher observed a common grackle treating its feathers with a lime fruit and wild carrot and fleabane used in nests reduces the emergence of mites. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6000146/

[ashley]

Thanks Gail.  That's a very interesting read.
Honeybees also gather plant resins to coat internal hive surfaces with propolis.  This may afford antibacterial and antiviral protection to the colony.

[brianw]

"Osprey watchers" may like to know that the pair with a webcam in Nova Scotia at (Dartmouth?)

https://www.novascotiawebcams.com/en/webcams/ospreycam/

were mating this morning at ~6.30am. At least I knew which was which sex for a few moments. I find them very difficult to differentiate from above. The supposed female necklace is not too visible, although the head markings are different.
Anyone know when egg laying is likely to start, assuming mating was successful?