Today’s guest post comes from Jim in Clark’s Grove.
I like to explore nature and it has occurred to me that it would be interesting to study and document the animals than can be found in my yard or near the place where I live. So far I haven’t put a big effort into studying this nearby fauna, although I have noticed some things that I found interesting. Also, there were some creatures, which would not usually be thought of as wild life, which made an unexpected effort to populate my yard.
I am always amazed at the wide variety of birds that can be found in urban areas. My bird feeders, like most bird feeders, attract a fairly wide variety of birds. I am especially pleased that the number of Chickadees has increased this year. Many years ago there were large numbers of English sparrows coming to the feeders and now they seemed to have been replaced by House Finches. I don’t like seeing large flocks of either of these two kinds of birds because they are aggressive and are more or less an invasive species. I’m glad to report they haven’t been able to push out my more preferred visitors.
In the spring I see birds that are brief visitors as they migrate through our area. I particularly like seeing the tiny Kinglets that seem to like to rest in our yard on their way north. Of course, spring also marks the return of local birds that live in the south during the winter. I especially like to hear the singing of Wrens and Chipping Sparrows that ring out as they come back to their nesting areas. In the summer I sometimes see flocks of Cedar Wax Wings that move through our neighborhood looking for fruit. I have even had a visit from a Yellow Bellied Sap Sucker that I saw drinking sap from a hole it made in a tree.
We have a fairly large number of squirrels. I spread some bird seed on a picnic table for the squirrels to keep them from attacking my bird feeders. Our yard is also the home of Short-tailed Shrews. Short-tailed Shrews have a somewhat poisonous bite. Mice are included as one of their prey. I saw these shrews for the first time when I was cleaning out my compost pile and one of them gave me a painful nip, but I guess I was just too big to bring down. I’m glad we have these mouse predators in our yard because mice occasionally invade our garage and damage stored items.
Finally, we had a tree house in our yard that was used by our daughters. Neighbor kids also played in the tree house and I was glad that they could make use of it after my daughters grew up. One day I saw two young girls there that were not from our neighborhood. They had apparently decided this was now their “nest” and had even started to freshen it up with some paint. Since I had no idea where these two “birds” lived and they hadn’t asked permission to redecorate, I told them that they should find another place to do their nesting.
Have you noticed any interesting or unusual local fauna?
Trail Baboon 
Morning all – wonderful description of your habitat, Jim. I started feeding the birds (& squirrels) last year and quickly had to go purchase a little field guide so I could see what was visiting. I’ve been a little pre-occupied with my job the last few weeks, but I did see a big fat robin over the weekend… first one I’ve noticed this spring.
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I also saw my first robin a few days ago and there have been a few other birds that have returned from the South including the large flocks of grackles that live here. Some people don’t like grackles. I enjoy seeing them struting around with the light shining off thier shiney black feathers.
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
I am just in from my walk this morning. I thought I would report back after that on local fauna. The big find this morning: WORMS. Thousands of them out of the ground due to the rain. Big ones, too. I found a little school girl, about 5 or 6 years old, squatted down in front of one who said, “Look lady, the wormses are out.” And indeed she was closely examining a very large sample.
There were some robins feasting and nesting, too. Our neighbors have pileated woodpeckers but I heard or saw nothing of them this a.m.
Re: the mice. I loathe mice. We have a few that like to reside in the basement closet under the stairs so we have a constant set of traps out for them. I once lived in a trailer in Northern Minnesota in which the local mice fauna felt welcome to live with me. They were a problem until we got a cat who was deadly effective with that problem. Shudder.
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The completely unanticipated byproduct of adding Zorro the cat to our household years ago was an end to our rodent issue. I’m not sure how he does it; with only two exceptions over the years, I’ve never seen him w/ a mouse, I never see any little mouse carci (probably not the plural of carcass, but I like it), no evidence that mice have been around. So, do they just smell the cat and decide not to visit the house anymore?
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I have heard that the smell of cat is sometimes enough. Suppose we could borrow Zorro for a few days? Just saw some mousie evidence a couple of days ago…
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Our elderly pint-sized cat is our mouser. She is small, but fierce. I worry about a possible mouse incursion after she passes to the Great Radiator By the Window in the sky.
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I’m here to disprove the cat smell theory… I’ve always had cats AND always had mice. My cats have never shown much interest in the mice, so maybe that’s the key. I also had a steady stream of short-tailed shrews sneaking into my house to eat the cat food one winter… and STILL had mice. Go figure! This is the first year where I’ve had neither mice nor shrews, but I attribute that to this crazy weather and not my cat, Gizmo.
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I used to have a cat who was an affection junkie. He cared about nothing but my companionship and cuddling. He would sit in the kitchen while I cooked supper – purring contentedly with his eyes closed while mice would be scurrying around behind him.
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That describes Gizmo to a tee, Edith… we always say “he’s a lover, not a fighter”.
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Sounds like Garfield!
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We had a cat, Pippin, that turned into a deadly mouser. He had to show off what he had killed. Pippin would catch maybe half a dozen mice a night, eating them all up except their little black noses and whiskers. Each night he would do this and then line up the noses (with whiskers attached) in a neat row on the floor by our bed for us to admire when we woke up. We learned not to jump out of bed and walk around in bare feet without looking carefully because it was icky to step on one of Pippin’s trophy collections.
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We’ve had good luck mouseproofing the family cabin over the winter by putting out dryer sheets — in closets, under sinks, in kitchen drawers, among blankets and linens, anywhere and everywhere. Ever since we started doing this — NO MICE or any evidence of them, come spring. And easy to pick up, too. No carci, no droppings. Like magic. Don’t know what kind of chemicals are in dryer sheets,….?
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I have heard that dryer sheets work well for that.
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Good to know – gonna try that! Does kinda make you wonder about dryer sheets.
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I will be positive and say that mice don’t like the slippery surface texture.
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I stick them in my yarn stash, too, to fend off the winged beasties. It can’t hurt and it might help.
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We had a weasel in the garage for a short while. We also had some mice in the garage this winter. Since we have Hanta Virus out here, I think we have to take some extra safety precautions when we clean out the garage this Spring. Our next door neighbors operate a cattle feed lot and often park their cattle trailer in front of their house. Once, some feral kittens from the feed lot hopped a ride into town in their trailer and took refuge in our garage. They were really hard to catch and we had to call the animal control officer to catch them. In the back yard we feed birds and have squirrel marauders. They like our hazel bushes. We have downy woodpeckers, red and white breasted nuthatches, various finches, juncos, towhees, flickers, and eurasian collared doves. There is a little Merlin patrolling the neighborhood but it hasn’t attacked the birds by our feeder as yet. Our yard is fenced, so we don’t have human marauders in the back. Hugo and Finnian, neighbor cats, sometimes slink in and out, for their own nefarious purposes.
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That’s an amazing photo you got of the shrew, Jim – I think we have something like them (have seen tunnels) but have never seen one up close. Glad to know they keep down the mice population, since we are currently cat-less.
We live right by a nature park, and are rich in fauna.We get several different woodpeckers at the suet feeder, though my favorite is the red bellied woodpecker whose red-orange head looks like a teen’s cap put on backwards.
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-bellied_Woodpecker/id/ac
We get the usual cardinals, blue jays, goldfinches, and dark-eyed juncos. In spring and fall I hear the white throated sparrow as it’s migrating through, and once saw an indigo bunting.
Then there are the racoons, a woodchuck, and fewer chipmunks lately, probably because of a small hawk (norther harrier) nesting nearby, who regularly perches on a utility pole and surveys his kingdom.
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We have cats in our back yard from time to time. I wish that the people that own the cats would keep them inside because they catch and kill song birds. I always kept mine inside when we had cats. I saw one with a Nut Hatch in it’s mouth. I put up with the cats because I don’t have any choice. I’ve told my nieghbors that owns cats that I think it would be good if they kept them in side. They love cats and think it is unfair to the cats to not let them go out side.
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Print out this flyer and give it to your neighbors:
Click to access Cats-Outdoors-Hazards.pdf
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I love this. I also have friends who say it’s “unfair” but I’m not buying it. Zorro is as happy as can be and he never puts a paw outside!
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We live in South Minneapolis, and one night saw a mama raccoon and three babies come out from under the neighbor’s deck. Even with the neighbor’s porch light on, they seemed completely unconcerned, and climbed into a nearby tree, where the young ones started playing. I’d never seen a raccoon before, though in the suburb I grew up in there was a population of skunks–never saw one, but occasionally you’d smell one.
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our neighbors – also in s. mpls – have racoons living in a big, old tree in their yard
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South Mpls here too. Several sightings of raccoons, sometimes whole families. Once they ate all of the fish in a neighbor’s pond. Very sad for the children on the block and, of course, the fish. Lately, there has been a bald eagle fishing in Powderhorn Pond. Rough neighborhood for fish.
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This is a fun theme, Jim. I live in a 1920s bungalow, and they were built like little caves, with few windows. I pay relatively little attention to wildlife outside my Saint Paul window for it is so much less exotic than what I see at the cabin. On my last trip to the cabin, with Linda as a passenger, we saw a lynx hunting along the side of Highway 13. That’s pretty rare. Out the cabin window I have seen lynx, wolves, fox, porkies, black bears and hundreds of deer.
In my city yard, however, critters are limited. Saw a goldfinch this week. We used to have an albino squirrel hanging around. Bird life is dominated by cardinals, house finches, robins, doves, sparrows and chickadees. It could be worse.
Mice are a huge problem at both residences. At the cabin they periodically overrun the place. Once, after reflecting on the problem with several scotches, I brought out a pellet pistol and blazed away at some particularly brazen mice that thought they could safely run around in the open. My daughter was shocked at the carnage, but I sure felt better after that little gunfight was over. I’ve had cats from time to time, but I’m not sure mouse poop is more disgusting than a cat litter box.
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Cat litter vs. mouse droppings…not sure which is worse, either.
Deer are something I’ve seen only rarely down here, and only in areas a bit further north than I am. They do reside in the south of Florida too, but there are only so many undeveloped areas for them to use as habitat these days.
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It would startle a Floridian to see how many deer live in suburbs in this country. They eat people’s landscaping and enjoy life without natural predators. In many western cities (like Helena) mule deer have moved in town, sleeping under swing sets and mostly ignoring the neighborhood dogs.
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I’d love to have more of them around, but it’s just not a place they seem to want to be. On the few times I have seen them, it’s a lovely experience.
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I live in western North Dakota, and out here and in other western States, mouse droppings can kill you with Hanta Virus. I will take cat litter any time.
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Me too.
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Nice post, Jim, and good pics, too! 🙂
I live in a semi-rural area, and we have all sorts of critters running/crawling/flying/slithering around. There are always lizards, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, rabbits, turtles, woodpeckers, hawks, herons, ibis, blue jays, sandhill cranes, and (unfortunately) snakes to be found on a regular basis. Robins and cardinals are here on a seasonal basis, and we still have a good number of them here right now. They’re very pretty to look at, and I’ve tried a couple of times to get a good picture of them, but I haven’t managed it yet!
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Your Sandhill cranes are famous and fascinating, as the Florida subspecies of Sandhills does not migrate. Over time they have adapted to living closely with humans. A friend in Florida had one come by each morning to stand politely at the screened back door, waiting for a meal.
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We’ve got a family of them that do the same thing up and down our street! They have very distinctive (and loud) calls which they use to get our attention, if nobody seems to be feeding them when they are hungry!
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from the sounds overhead this morning, SiP, the entire U.S. Sandhill Crane population was just above our farm. also Snow Geese in large numbers (or maybe Tundra Swans – i didn’t get a really good look) and on the pond the Canada Geese are setting up housekeeping (and making lots of noise) as well as the Hooded Mergansers, Wood Ducks, and throw in a few Mallards for good balance. i’ve heard Blue Heron overhead and the Spring Peepers started a couple nights ago.
Thanks, Jim for an interesting post and great pictures!
OT – no goat kiddos yet – but Kona (due Sunday) looks like she’ll decide that’s enough by saturday, i’m hoping.
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Good story about the bald eagles that have been hanging out near Le Sueur (southern MN) lately. I used to drive by there twice a day to drive my kiddos to school. They’re quite an amazing sight…
http://mankatofreepress.com/local/x426443000/Bald-eagles-not-so-rare-anymore
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While locating the bald eagle video, I stumbled across this one of the DNR Fish Hatchery in Waterville where Krista works. It shows the whole process she described of what goes on at the hatchery…
http://vimeo.com/38951567
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Because you don’t mention it, that video must not show Krista working in her skimpy workplace clothing. Too bad.
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Still hanging on to that vision… are we, Steve? 😉
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Living where I do in the city, I see a fair number of the Variegated Library Habitué, Domestic Canine Perambulators, Lycra-clad Velocipede Enthusiasts, and the odd Firewater Costermonger. Also we had a fox last summer and fall, various hawks (including a lovely little kestrel one year),cardinals, finches, an occasional woodpecker, and far too many bunnies. Closer to the creek there is yet more, including a lovely heron hanging out on the creek bank one afternoon.
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You got crazy critters there!
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I find the Variegated Library Habitué to be especially wily. They can be identified by tomes they sometimes carry, but some VLHs have learned to mimic other similar species and hide their quarry in canvas bags.
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Well done, Anna. 🙂
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I think I saw one of those Variegated Library Habitue today. Oh wait, maybe that was me…
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Me, too. It takes one to know one.
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“Firewater Costermonger”! Love that one! I think the whole “-monger” suffix is awesome and underused. When we visit my husband’s family in the UK we do still see signs for the local fishmonger, but that’s about it. Not enough mongering anymore, IMHO! 🙂
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Whoops, meant to post this as a reply to Anna – sorry y’all!
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Ectopic post (see glossary).
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For awhile there it seemed we had too much fear mongering and war mongering – and not enough other mongering. Power to the non-violent mongers!
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Earlier this winter, a guy up by Watford City, bout 80 miles from my town, came into his farm house to find all his house cats dead and a juvenile mountain lion sleeping on the sofa. That is a little too close to local fauna for my taste.
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Good morning to all. I’m having trouble getting my computer or Word Press to cooperate when I try to post a reply to comments. It could be a problem due to this very slow computer I am using until I get my other one fixed or replaced. I do see tunnels made by the Short-tailed Shrews as mentioned by BiR. Those are pictures I found on the internet. Domestic Canine Perambulators, including me, do a lot of roaming in our neighborhood. I am enjoying all comments on all the various kind of local fauna.
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Heavy snows last winter provided cover for voles who would normally be prey for feathered and furry predators, and lots of people had serious vole problems in the garden last summer. The voles ate everything in some gardens, drilling through pumpkins and squashes and eating them from the inside.
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Morning everyone-
Thanks for the writing Jim and nice pictures indeed.
I did not know shrews ate mice. My wife will be pleased to hear that but no less thrilled to have any sort of furry little critter about.
We have bird feeders; I think my favorite summer bird is the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak.
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Rose-breasted_Grosbeak/id/ac
Orioles and hummingbirds are fun too. We used to have an Oriole that would cling to the window screen of the house if their feeder was empty.
I see a few pileated woodpeckers around. Only once several years ago did I see a Scarlet Tanager; that was cool.
Lots of racoons, too many deer to count, turkeys, coyotes, hawks, vultures, the occasional heron, Once in a while we’ll see giant horned owls. One had a nest at the edge of a field where I was hauling manure. Every day as soon as I entered the far side of the field from the nest it would fly away.
When i still had a corn crib full of ear corn we had a rat problem. I had one dog that was a *very* good, what, ‘ratter’? He’d come in the crib with me and as I got the end of the corn and the rats would start running out, he’d be all over them. Zack was a good dog all around. Ratting was just one of his talents.
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Lots of wildlife where I live… the bird feeders are always to capacity with the usual suspects. I do get little treats from time-to-time… blue indigo, a pileated woodpecker that took up residence for a full week & nearly downed a large tree in the yard, all variety of hawks (a Cooper’s hawk that lives close by has saved me from going broke buying bird seed), peregrine falcons on occasion, and even a rare loggerhead shrike (I’ve heard them described as “average sized songbirds with big bird of prey personalities”) which made itself known to me by preying on a bird outside my window. I also enjoy a constant population of hummingbirds & orioles come springtime. Non-bird visitors include shrew, opossum, wabbit (some wascally ones), squirrel, woodchuck (they don’t chuck wood by the way), raccoon, and deer (when there’s deep snow in the woods).
Only slightly OT: just learned last night about Scott’s putting insecticide in their Morning Song and Country Pride bird seed (toxic to birds). Here’s a link…
http://grist.org/list/scotts-miracle-gro-pleads-guilty-to-selling-poisoned-bird-seed/
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… oh, guess I neglected to mention the snakes (can you blame me?).
And my butterfly garden is beginning to work it’s charms & lure some real beauties in!
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i am near the river on the bluffs and the deer like my hosta but my dos like the der. they have boundries and each understand that if attention is not paid the dog in wait will have a trophy to puff up his chest over. i am about to put an end to the racooncycle that has been on display since november to allw zeke to relive his proud moment again and again. the turkeys were prevailant when we moved in are neighbors now rather than visitors. the cats look out the windows at the goldfinches at the feeders. the cardianal and woodpeckers stop by but there must be beter food elsewhere. bald eagles soar and cranes and herrons will be back soon crusing the river bottoms, the snakes squirrels and ground hogs are the main attraction for my dogs to preoccupy themselve with. mice. god i have one living in my car eating what i leave behind every day. it took me a while to figure out what those little scratches on my oranges were but the sunflower seeds moving from the passanger seat to the back seat was a giveaway. they live in my storage cupboards in the house and garage. the cats love doing the all night vigil and they leave us little trophies too but they are no match for mother nature. mice rule. glass containers is the answer but the pantry is full of stuff that gets touched before the chef gets to it. sometimes i throw it sometimes i feed the masses form the mouse feed. huh some kind of disease asociated with mouse droppings? do you think thats what could have happened to those two small children who came to visit a while back . oh never mind.. i love the critters here on the river bottom. thanks jim
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I don’t think Hanta Virus has spread east of the Missouri River.
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Back in the fall of 2011, whooping cranes were spotted nearby. A friend captured a series of photographs of the pair. It was a pretty big deal & totally cool. Here’s an article about them…
http://northfield.patch.com/articles/whooping-cranes-spots-in-rice-lesueur-counties
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Beautiful and fascinating critter tales and pictures, Jim – and everyone else. My house isn’t the cave that Steve describes but from my kitchen table where I spend much of my time, I see mostly my neighbor’s peeling 4 season porch and some sky. I’d like to hang a bird feeder in front of that window but haven’t taken the time to figure out how to do that (procrastination).
Squirrels perch on my office windowsill and consume chunks of bread they have found somewhere. I had a nest of bun-buns in a pile of leaves one year.
I don’t HATE mice but am not crazy about what they do. I have some plastic traps that are easy to set and easy to empty but they have been doing an inhumane job this year. Sadly, I’ve had some still alive with a leg caught and some dead, caught by lower body. I released the leg-trapped ones (my sister said I should have drowned them in the toilet) and they were able to walk away. I figure that if they were wise, they woudn’t come back.
This is a reminder that I should replace those traps. If the mousies have to be killed, let it be quick.
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Still having trouble putting replies under comments already made. It is probably due to the old slow commuter I am using which also puts the icons of pictures on top of names so that I can only see the longer names. Although I can’t see Ben’s name, I’m sure I know what he wrote.
I like the wild life observations from your farm, Ben. I have a book about birds named Birding From a Tractor Seat. The author, Charles Flugum, wrote that birds didn’t seem to know that he was there when he was on his tractor and he could get a close look at them from that position. He said that a hawk would sit in a tree by a field he was working and go after prey that he scared up as he did his field work.
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Jim, are you saying I’m predictable? 🙂
Mr. Flugum is right; I’ve had hawks swoop down within 20′ of the tractor to snatch whatever it is they’re after. I think cutting and raking hay is their favorite as doing that exposes the most field and possible critters.
I was cutting hay once and there was a hawk watching something. As I got to the end of the field and the last little patch of hay I could see the stems moving; something was in there. Just as I came to the end the hawk dived down and the creature ran out– it was a skunk. The hawk pulled up, I hit the brakes; we let that one go.
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Smart hawk.
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And/or experienced…
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When We were logging or cutting firewood when I was a child, the animals would get used to us each winter and clearly brand us as harmless and/or interesting. Deer would come watch us and make friends with the horse, wolves would walk past, foxes would sit off in the brush and watch, rabbits would come through, squirrels and chipmunks would gather around, crows and ravens would sit in the tree tops by us. Little birds would hang around us but we put out suet for them from our butchering.
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Sounds like a scene out of a Disney cartoon!
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Just came in from going out to the Back 20 with Neighbor who wanted to photograph the wild turkey that decided to visit today.
Our veggie garden way out back is pretty strange looking – layers of various fencing: gotta be 7 feet high to keep out the deer; chicken wire on the bottom to keep out the bunnies. Of course, you can’t do a thing about the squirrels going after the pears, but last year they saved us some. At least we can see where the albino squirrel is…
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I would say you are somewhat unique in a good way, Ben, not predictable. Thanks for telling us about your own interesting experiences with birding from a tractor seat.
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The comments by Clyde about animals coming close when doing logging in the North woods reminds me of Helen Hoover’s books about wild life on the Gun Flint Trail. She got to see many kinds of wild life up close during the winter when there were very few people that stayed in that area at that time of year.
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Yes, Helen Hoover’s books are wonderful, and it’s time to dig them out and re-read, I think. Jim, thank you so much for your post and wonderful photos. It feels so good to be thawing and looking outward again after such a mediocre winter. My favorite back yard birds here in S Minneapolis are the cardinals for their many songs and their color, especially the female with her apricot beak and smoky coloring. And the fact that they never leave, they stay with us all year round! But I have to put in a fond word for our neighbor’s chickens and ducks. They may not be native, but we’ve grown accustomed to their gentle clucking, kind of like a little burbling brook underlying the usual city alley sounds. There are 18 of them, Buff Orpingtons (a warm caramel color) and araucanias (beautiful blue green eggs), named Helen Reddy, Madeline Albright, Hillary, Lucky (who survived the infamous 2008 raccoon massacre), Eglet (who broke her wing falling off the garage roof and sadly died post-surgery) …
We had a close encounter once, too. At our last home in Golden Valley in February/March of 2000, great horned owls nested in a tall spruce tree right in front of our living room window. Two babies hatched that year, a week apart, and when they fledged, they fell to the ground. We discovered the first one (“Horton”) in our garage, making a clacking racket behind the garden hoses. Little downy body, about the size of a baby golden retriever puppy, huge round yellow eyes and massive clawed feet. The Raptor Center advised us that the parents would feed him at night, but that he would be at some risk from dogs and traffic during the day, so they showed me how to lift him into the bottom branches of our huge Norway spruce. A week later his brother fell down (“Brody” after the guy who fell off the Brooklyn Bridge and lived to tell the tale). The two of them lived on a branch for the next 6 weeks, staring into our living room as we stared back, like we were watching each other on TV 🙂
We lived on a hill by Basset Creek with egrets, ducks and the occasional blue heron out back. One night in the lower level family room we noticed Horton sitting on top of the wood pile staring in at us and, incredibly, his mother on the ground less than a foot away standing watch. She stood about two and a half feet tall and her eyes glowed in the dark. Soon after, early one evening when I went to lift Brody back onto his branch, she dove by my knees, close enough to give me chills, a clear warning that the night was her territory and it was time for me to back off! The parents and two babies lived in our neighborhood through the summer and fall because apparently great horned owls continue to feed their babies for up to 9 months. Drove the crows crazy. That was an amazing summer 🙂
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Robin, what vivid descriptions of chickens and owls! I love the image of the gently thudding Horton and Brody as they fell and your careful handling as you replaced them in the tree.Thanks for the lovely telling.
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It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, Lisa! I know that naming them kind of anthropomorphizes/Bambifies the entire episode, but we were so careful to just watch from a slight distance and not intrude except for keeping them off the ground for a week or two. Even as babies, the owls had wicked beaks and talons. You wouldn’t want to mess with that 🙂 BiR, do you remember coming over to see the baby owls?
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My cats presented me with three very small meadow voles about four or five months ago. Not all at once, but one a week or so for several weeks. Don’t know why they were in the house – I’ve never had voles before. None survived the experience.
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Linda, we’ve always had golden retrievers and they’re called “soft mouth” dogs because they can carry a bird or animal in their mouth without injuring it. Our dog Teddy once came in from the back yard with his lips closed and his cheeks puffed out, Kind of like a kid holding the liver in his mouth, can’t swallow it, can’t spit it out. It was a baby rabbit, alive and well and Teddy sure hated to give it up.
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