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Cedar Bark - UPDATE April 13, 2020

Crows are supposed to be one of the most intelligent birds. Actually all birds in that family (Corvidae) are known for their intelligence. Deer with quizzical lookBut so are bears and people. Maybe the binding proof is that all three use cedar bark for clothing, bedding, or nest material. I had no idea about crows, but "Pooch Pal" recorded the evidence in this 30-second video Birds Stripping Bark From NABC Logs

I had no idea about people, either, until a Lily Fan sent me an email letting me know that Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest used cedar bark for clothing. I scoured my emails for her email today and couldn’t find it, so I tried Wikipedia. There is was, just like she told me with a picture to ‘prove’ it:

Cedar bark textile was used by indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest region of modern-day Canada and the United States. Historically, most items of clothing were made of shredded and woven cedar bark.

The name of the trees which provide the bark material are of the genus Thuja, which has two species redcedar and cypress which are both known by the common name 'cedar' in North America. After the western redcedar or yellow cypress (often called "yellow cedar") bark was peeled in long strips from the trees, the outer layer was split away, and the flexible inner layer was shredded and processed. The resulting felted strips of bark were soft and could be plaited, sewn or woven into a variety of fabrics that were either dense and watertight, or soft and comfortable.

Women wore skirts and capes of red cedar bark, while men wore long capes of cedar bark into which some mountain goat wool was woven for decorative effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_bark_textile

Duck in small opening in iceOut the window, a duck was so desperate for open water that he settled for the tiny open patch shown in the picture.

As I cranked a window open today, a deer looked at me with such a quizzical look that I had to click. I think it is the buck that was limping earlier; this deer was walking fine. I hope it is the same one. I should compare pictures.Black bear at Wolf lake

The person who saw a bear at her bird feeder on April 8 got a picture of it back last evening, April 12. Not a bear I recognize.

Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center

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