Squirrel outside my 6th floor window, 4 May 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
8 May 2023
I live on the 6th floor of a high rise so I was startled to glance out the kitchen window last Thursday and see the back end of a squirrel. I know squirrels can climb but this one had to scale a brick wall, climbing more than 60 feet without the help of anything. No exterior fire escapes. No nearby trees. Nothing but bricks and window ledges.
The wall the squirrel had to climb, 5 May 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
When I saw him on my windowsill he was looking in the direction of a bird feeder more than 100 feet away on the building next door. City squirrels walk wires to cross the street so maybe he thought he’d find a wire connecting the buildings. No such thing.
He contemplated his exit. “How did I get here? How do I get back?”
Squirrel contemplates getting down from here, 4 May 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
He must have figured it out. He was gone the next time I looked.
p.s. Thank you to Chris Zurawsky for pointing out my Power of Ten problem. Indeed the squirrel was 60 feet up, not 600 feet as I originally wrote.
Fox kits in Schenley Park, 25 April 2020 (photo by Frank Izaguirre)
28 April 2023
Three years ago this week, five little foxes came out every day to play inside the fence surrounding their den under the Neill Log House in Schenley Park. At the end of April 2020 their antics were a bright spot in sixth week of the COVID shutdown and attracted a crowd.
Five little foxes attract a crowd in Schenley Park, 27 April 2020 (photo by Kate St. John)
After the fox family dispersed, Public Works cleaned up the log house basement and blocked access to the den. In the spring of 2021 the family denned in a rock outcrop below the Falloon Trail but that must have been too close to people and dogs. They haven’t been back since then.
When I saw this Twitter video by @urbanponds_101 I remembered the Schenley Park foxes.
Here in Pennsylvania when we see a photo of an armadillo we immediately think “Texas,” but we could just as well think Tennessee. Nine-banded armadillos expanded across Tennessee in less than 50 years and by the end of this century, probably sooner, they’ll walk into Pennsylvania. Their current (2006) and future ranges are shown on the map below.
Armadillos have no fur so they are sensitive to cold weather but not all of it. Yale Climate Connections says, “Researchers now believe that armadillos can thrive as long as average minimum temperatures stay above about 17 degrees Fahrenheit.” Pittsburgh has 12 to 32 days each winter that drop below 17, which are probably too many for an armadillo.
But just wait. They’ll get here. This video explains how and why.
Deer in Schenley Park, Aug 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
20 March 2023
Black-legged tick season is here again and with it comes the threat of Lyme disease. We now find ticks in neighborhoods where they never used to be and white-tailed deer are the reason why. More abundant deer mean more ticks. More abundant ticks mean more Lyme disease. Though deer themselves don’t spread Lyme disease they have an effect on its abundance. Let’s examine the Deer, Ticks, Lyme connection.
Lyme disease is a debilitating illness caused by a bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi) that’s transmitted by the bite of a black-legged tick.
Black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis and Ixodes pacificus) have a two year life cycle as egg, larva, nymph and adult. At each stage the tick must drink a blood meal to transition to the next one — from larva to nymph, from nymph to adult, and from adult female to produce eggs. (Note: Ticks eggs do not carry the Lyme bacteria.)
When a tick bites a host and sucks its blood it takes up the host’s blood and transfers some of its own body fluids into the host. If the host is infected with the bacteria, it infects the tick. If the tick is infected, it infects the host.
Deer are the adult ticks’ preferred host and their long distance transport system. Deer bodies are the place where adult ticks meet and mate in the fall. After mating the male dies but the female lives on. She sips a last blood meal, then drops off to the ground and hides in leaf litter while her body develops eggs over the winter.
Adult ticks meet in the fall during the rut while deer are moving around a lot. Bucks average 3-6 miles per day but may travel as much as 10-20 miles in search of does. Does may travel to meet or evade them.
Deer in western Pennsylvania (photo by Steve Gosser)
Meanwhile ticks are along for the ride. When a pregnant female tick drops off after her last blood meal she may be 3 to 20 miles from where she started and she’s carrying 1,000 to 3,000 eggs that she’ll lay in the spring.
Mike lives in Saskatoon, Canada where beavers (Castor canadensis) are more common than they are in Pittsburgh. Mike photographed seven at once last spring.
His persistence pays off. Watch this beaver eat a tree (3 minutes).
He also documents their behavior. For instance, how long does it take a beaver to break into an unfastened tree fence? See below.
Persistence pays off! ?? Whoever wrapped this tree forgot to fasten the edges together. Spud found the seam and worked her way in, and eventually left with the yummy tree inside. #beavers#funnyanimalspic.twitter.com/tR6XHjgeXW
— Mike’s Photos and Videos of Beavers (@MDigout99) March 2, 2023
Fuller sees them frequently, especially on his wildlife cams. He says, “Over the years I seem to have become a stoat rehabilitator – as well as a wildlife artist. But that’s fine because I have a soft spot for these cute mustelids. Watch the story of my latest rescue, an adorable stoat called Rocket.”
His 11+ minute video shows Rocket and two other orphaned baby stoats growing up. They learn, play and explore together and then are soft-released into the wild.
Coyotes (Canis latrans) are highly adaptable and very smart about food and humans because their lives depend upon it. Of course they live where food is plentiful but in places like Pennsylvania, where they’re hunted or trapped without limit all year long, they hide from humans and operate at night. In locations with less human pressure they forage during the day and encounter their familiars — ravens and sometimes crows.
Coyotes and Corvids often meet when it’s time to eat, especially at carcasses in winter. The carcass below attracted ravens and a black-billed magpie along with the coyote.
How do Corvids describe a coyote? Perhaps like this, as described by Doug Anderson.
Crows
Hunch in the trees to gossip about God and his inexorable experimenting, about deer guts and fish so stupid you could sell them air and how out in the deserts there’s a dog called coyote with their mind but no wings. …
Every autumn humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) migrate past California on their way to spend the winter off the coast of Mexico. They will linger, however, if they find lots of anchovies. Humpback whales love anchovies.
There were still lots of anchovies when the whales showed up this fall. Robin Agarwal took a whale watch out of Monterey Bay in early October and captured these scenes of lunge-feeding humpback whales.
The anchovies crowded close as the predators approached. The whales forced them to the surface where the tiny fish leapt out of the water to escape.
(humpback whale photos in Monterey Bay by Robin Gwen Agarwal on Flickr, Creative Commons license, food photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)
However, the native red squirrels are stabilizing in Scotland, in part because European pine martens (Martes martes) are increasing and they selectively prey on gray squirrels.
p.s. Gray (grey) squirrels are invasive in the UK but a 2016 study found that their populations are genetically distinct from their neighbors and they didn’t invade new places on their own. Humans spread them!
One of the worst offenders at spreading grey squirrels was the 11th Duke of Bedford, Herbrand Russell. Russell was involved in many successful animal conservation projects, but released and gifted many grey squirrels around the UK from his home at Woburn Park.
Russell also released populations [of grey squirrels] in Regent’s Park, likely creating the London epidemic of greys.
Groundhogs just keep going despite that wobbly feeling, not realizing that it’s hazardous to stand up. This particular groundhog got grouchy. He’s not a happy drunk.
