The excitement today was seeing the female pine marten coming across the second floor deck and hop up on top of the covered feeder to uncover the date mash and dig in. 
Pine martenShe ignores suet and sunflower seed hearts. She is so wary—always looking around. She left by the same route today as a couple days ago, climbed a little way up the same tree to look around, and then disappeared along the same trail as before.
Hairy woodpeckerA mystery solved, I think. We wondered why the pileated woodpecker investigated the little woodpecker hole. We wondered if it was a hole the hairy woodpeckers had used to hold a piece of suet to peck it apart. Today, a hairy woodpecker went to that very same hole to eat a piece of suet where we photographed the pileated. It is a hole the hairies use. I don’t know how the pileated knew to go to that very hole.
Deer fawn restingA last year’s fawn bedded right outside the window. The sun bounces off the Wildlife Research Institute cabin and makes it a little warmer there on this below zero F day. It’s the first place the snow melts in the yard here in spring. She seemed comfortable there, even when she saw me in the window.
Last year's doe fawnYesterday morning, fresh wolf tracks were on the driveway here at the Wildlife Research Institute. Yesterday, a half mile away, a neighbor saw it go through his yard—a light-colored wolf. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a wolf or heard one howling. Today, the same neighbor and his wife saw the wolf leaving their yard with a gray fox in its mouth. He’s had up to nine gray foxes in his yard at once this winter, he’s told me. We love all the wildlife and hate to think of any of them dying, but we know that wolves have to eat, too. It gives a feeling, though.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center