Just before I headed out for a hike, an 8-point buck walked through my yard. First time I’d seen him. Then as I headed down my driveway, I saw where a grouse had come in for a landing—leaving wing marks in the snow and neat ‘stitch’ tracks as it walked along the edge of the woods.
Today, I repeated the hike I did last Christmas Day, but without snowshoes this time. Last year, the snow was so deep I was in trouble when I fell while clambering over a log. I had to take the snowshoes off to get up. This year, I enjoyed the freeing feeling of hiking without them and had energy enough to hike around the beaver pond rather than just to it. I’m glad I did.
Beaver ponds (left) are great areas to explore. Some people feel beavers destroy habitat, but I’ve always felt they create new habitat. It’s all a matter of perspective—and where the beavers have taken up residence. This pond is deep in the woods—an ideal location. I found the beavers gone—perhaps of their own accord but more likely trapped out. The pond had drained sometime after ice had formed. Huge areas were covered with 2 inches of ice with nothing but air beneath. Of course I had to find that out the hard way.
When I reached solid ground I quickly found mink tracks (above left). The mink must have been active this morning. The tracks had only a bit of this morning’s snow in them. As I backtracked to verify my identification of the tracks, I found the mink had climbed partway up a leaning tree. I thought it was odd but, checking closer, I found a fresh-killed vole (above center left) stashed there. After stashing the vole, the mink had moved upslope and appeared to be hunting red squirrels.
As I circumnavigated the pond, I continued to run into the mink tracks and found several good ‘slides’ (above center right and right)) Minks slide nearly as much as otters. I did find some old otter slides and one fairly good otter track (right) under a log where it was protected from the fresh snow.
I pushed on a short ways to the bear trees I had found last year. The balsam has fresh bites from this past year. A large section of bark has been pulled off and the wood splintered by bears’ canines (left). The white pine sapling was in much the same disarray as I remember from last year, though the hair on it appeared to be fresh from this year (right). The markings were likely done by a male during last spring’s mating season. These making trees are in Dot’s territory and only a quarter mile from her den of last winter.
So, deer, grouse, red squirrel, snowshoe hare, mink, otter—but at the end of the day it's bears.
I promised pictures of the Christmas Eve candle-lighting. With so little snow it was very different than last year. Someone had the idea of lighting up the front yard. Others lined the driveway with candles. I placed some out back where I could see them from the kitchen window. At 3 AM many were still burning brightly.
Merry Christmas!
—Sue Mansfield, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center