November’s Wild Game

 In the past week, pheasants with a death wish crossed my path twice on separate occasions while I was driving.  The first time, the corner of the vehicle caught a female who continued her flight into the woods after leaving a flurry of feathers in the air.  The second time, an enormous male came within inches of the windshield as he flew to safety across the road.  

Female Ring-necked Pheasant

There is an amazing wildness to the look of these large ground birds when seen up close.  Feather patterns are strikingly beautiful and eye and beak colours assumed to be a dull grey from a distance, are anything but.  

Although pheasants are visible year-round in Cow Bay, and are often seen crossing the roads in a leisurely manner, they seem even more out in the open at this time of year.  I don’t recall seeing so many females along the side of the road in years past.  I’m either getting better at spotting them or they’re getting bolder.  Maybe they’re just trying to get out of the woods where hunting season is in full swing for their species until December 15th.

Earlier this week I noticed a male working very hard at directing a female’s movements in the front yard.  I’m not sure what that was all about.  Mating season is over and males usually congregate by themselves as the winter approaches.   Maybe he was trying to tell her to stay here where it was safe, instead of wandering into the more dangerous woods.

Yesterday a ruffed grouse that didn’t want its picture taken suddenly appeared in the yard.  They are much more secretive than pheasants and quick runners.  Their feathers certainly help them stay well camouflaged, so it may have been hanging around for some time before I managed to see it. 

November’s shorter daylight hours bring about a change in the colour of snowshoe hares, making them easier to spot on the landscape.

Snowshoe Hare in November

A favorite resting area for them during the day is under the spruce and fir trees.  Although they’re visible year round, their lighter fur in the fall is more eye-catching than usual, even on grey rainy days such as this one. 

This particular one looks quite rounded and ready for the winter.  But if the snow doesn’t fly soon, it will have to be extra careful to keep itself hidden from predators.

Snowshoe hares, ring-necked pheasants and ruffed grouse are all hunted in Nova Scotia at this time of year. 

For more information on regulations regarding hunting small game in Nova Scotia, see http://www.gov.ns.ca/natr/hunt/smlgame.asp

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Coyote Problems in Nova Scotia

Coyotes that have lost their fear of humans have become a concern in some parts of Nova Scotia where they are getting too close for comfort.  Problems often occur in  neighborhoods that border wild areas where there is an overlap of territories occupied by people and wildlife.

Last week, a young female hiker was killed by two coyotes in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, heightening awareness of the problem.  Both coyotes were shot. One is still on the loose, but an autopsy on the other revealed that it was neither hungry nor diseased when it attacked.

Some blame the problem on people feeding the coyotes, either willingly or by keeping backyard compost piles. I once heard of a woman somewhere in the province who was regularly feeding a couple of  skinny, homeless dogs, until her husband noticed her actions and pointed out that she was unassumingly feeding wild coyotes!

Small pets often fall prey to coyotes looking for an easy meal. I’ve always kept my cat indoors after being warned of coyotes in the area years ago.  Toddlers playing by themselves outdoors might also be easy prey.

It’s been suggested that the coyotes that attacked the hiker may have been coydogs, the offspring of coyotes and dogs.  These hybrids may have less of a natural fear of humans written in their DNA.

As a solution, many folks would like a bounty placed on all coyotes in the province. It’s already legal to kill coyotes that are a nuisance on your property and there is a hunting season for coyotes as well. 

One comment at the local newspaper’s website boasted that eight coyotes had been trapped in the woods near Bissett Road a couple of years ago.

The first coyote I ever encountered, a strikingly beautiful animal, was seen while I was driving along that road years ago. I saw one near there this past spring along the salt marsh trail. It wanted nothing to do with me and quickly ran off.  More recently, a Cole Harbour man complained that a coyote had approached him on the trail and seemed to have no fear at all.  The Natural Resources Department told him the animal was probably just curious.

Coyote along Salt Marsh Trail

Like other animal lovers, I don’t want all coyotes to be hunted for the sake of a few bad ones.  However, I also don’t like the idea of having to look over my shoulder while I’m out in the woods.  A balanced response to the problem is needed.

Coyotes are not native to Nova Scotia.  These clever opportunists infiltrated the province just last century, coming up from the US.   As wolves were made extinct in the province well over a century ago due to over trapping, coyotes have no natural enemies to keep their population in check.  I’d like to see parks introduce wolves as part of the solution to the problem.  This would put the balance back into the ecosystem that was removed by man in the first place.

If you do venture out in the woods, it’s recommended that you don’t walk alone and keep children close.  The best advice seems to be to walk loudly and carry a big stick.

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Nature Through Glass

Sometimes, even when sunny skies beckon, we still have to stay indoors.  Sometimes it’s because there’s house or office work to be done.  Other times, it’s because we’re sick.  Such is the case with me this week with a diagnosis of pneumonia.

From behind glass, there’s still much to see of nature outside.  Trees continue to change colour and some of the vines on the house have turned red and pink.  They adorn the edges of the living room window.  There’s no time like the present to appreciate them as the wind will soon blow them all away.  In the summer months, they make drapes in the window unnecessary and bring nature’s colours up close.

Vines can also be seen from one of the second storey windows.  Although their colours are still bright through the screen, they’re even prettier seen from the outdoors, as in the photo taken on the weekend. 

Silhouettes of leaves can be seen trembling in the wind through the glass of the front door’s window as well.  By the time witches and goblins show up at the door in a couple of weeks, they’ll be all gone.

I’ve been so accustomed to stepping outdoors several times a day.  There is something about fresh air and sunshine that makes us feel better just by being outdoors. 

So why do we tend to stay in when we’re sick?  I wonder if perhaps we would recover more quickly outdoors.  The challenge would be to not engage in too much tiring activity. 

From the kitchen window I can see a large snowshoe hare that’s decided to come close.  Its ears are perked and it’s sitting just below the window, posed perfectly still for a photograph.   Sometimes, when you can’t go out into nature, nature knows, and comes to you.

 

Death Stars

Last summer I found two young snowshoe hares dead on the lawn one morning.  They were curled up in the fetal position and showed no outward sign of trauma.  They were the cutest little creatures and it was so sad to have to bury them.  I had seen them hopping around the rosebushes just the day before.  I couldn’t understand why they had died so suddenly.  A fox would have carried them back to its den.  If a cat or dog had attacked them, they would surely have wounds.

Hares have made nests in my wild rosebushes for years.  They didn’t this year.  In years past, young bunnies have often hopped out of the bushes as I’ve mowed the grass nearby.  Adult hares still graze on the lawn in the open, usually dining on dandelions and plantains.  In the winter they reach up to eat the green needles on the lower branches of balsam fir trees.

Recently I learned that most plants in the lily family of flowers are poisonous.  Plants in this family all have bulbs, flowers with parts in 3s and parallel leaf veins. Many of these bulbs are often planted in the fall in North American gardens for spring blooming:  narcissus, tulips, irises, hyacinths, crocuses and daffodils.

Although I”ve never planted any of these in my garden, a couple of years ago, a friend gave me a clump of Star of Bethlehem blooms to transplant.  I put them right next to the rosebushes.  At the time, I didn’t realize that their bulbs would be deadly if ingested by pet cats, dogs, rabbits or wild hares.  Could these have caused the death of the young bunnies last summer?  I’ll never know for sure, but I will be removing this beautiful plant and its numerous bulbs from my yard before next spring.

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Porcupines in Apple Trees

Although there are many apple trees growing along the Salt Marsh Trail, few people would give them a second glance.  Compared to the fruit available in grocery stores, they are far from perfect.  They’re not quite ripe either, yet many have already fallen on the ground.  How did they get there?  Strong winds might have blown them off the branches, but porcupines are also known to shake them off.

I’ve often seen porcupines sitting in apple trees, as many as three in a tree at once.  The apples rather than the  leaves, twigs and bark of the tree are consumed.  Apple seeds are not eaten due to their cyanide content.  Although porcupines prefer nuts and acorns, if these are not available, apples will constitute a large part of their diet during the late summer and autumn.

High in carbohydrates, apples help the porcupine gain the extra weight necessary to help them survive through the winter months.  Due to the higher potassium levels in apples, their consumption will prompt porcupines to seek extra sodium in their diet.  They’ll find the salt in water plants, insects, animal bones, the outer bark of trees and sometimes the soil of river banks and sand bars.

This porcupine was sitting in an apple tree close to the Salt Marsh Trail.  I don’t know how it managed to balance its large bulky form on such a narrow branch.  As you can see, its backside holds a formidable array of quills.  An adult porcupine can have up to 3o,000 of them.  If the branch broke and it fell to the ground, this rodent would be well equipped to defend itself against predators.

Porcupines are more concerned with the pH of an apple’s contents rather than its looks.  They tend to choose ones that are less acidic.  Given the choice of a store-bought apple and a wild one, I wonder which the porcupine would prefer.

Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to the eye.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Nutritional reference:  Porcupine Nutrition Standards (pdf)

For more information on our local porcupines, see Porcupines Along Salt Marsh Trail.

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Wild Rabbits and Carrots

Though tame rabbits might prefer carrots, the wild ones in my yard leave the wild carrots alone.  Instead, these snowshoe hares prefer eating dandelions and plantains throughout the spring and summer months.

Although there is a great diversity of plants for the hares to choose from, they repeatedly eat the same ‘weeds.’  During the winter months, I often see them sitting up on their back legs eating from the low branches of young balsam fir trees.

One of the plants that I’ve never seen the rabbits eat is the Queen Anne’s Lace, also known as wild carrot.  This plant is in the same Parsley family (Umbelliferae) as the carrots whose orange colored roots we eat.  The plants in this family have compound umbels, tiny umbrella-shaped clusters radiating from a central point.  Their flower stalks are usually hollow.

There is such variety among wild carrot plants that it’s very difficult to tell the difference between them.  The Daucus carota growing in my yard, shown above, has elongated green stalks covered with fine hairs, while the marsh growing species shown below, which I’ve yet been able to identify, has reddish stalks.  Their leaves are also different, but since the flowers are so similar, it might be easy to mistake one type for the other, especially if they’re not growing side by side.

Discerning one species from another becomes even more difficult when plants are found growing in the wild intermingled with other varieties, as shown below.  Water hemlock, which also has similar flowers, is the most poisonous plant in North America.  It’s so toxic that children have died just from drinking liquids through the plant’s hollow stalks.  Although some of the species in this family are edible, such as wild fennel, I don’t think I’d be brave enough to eat any of them. Dandelions and plantains seem like a safer choice and come highly recommended by the local rabbits.

For more information on snowshoe hares see The Hare Whisperer and The Advantages of Being Harebrained.

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Horses in Cow Bay

It seems like a long time since there have been horses in Cow Bay.  It’s nice to see that we have them in our midst again.    Almost twenty years ago, it wasn’t unusual to come across tracks made by horses’ hooves along the trails in the woods or see young women riding horses along the side of the road.   At the time, local resident Evelyn Ramey was the only female blacksmith shoeing horses in the Maritimes.  She taught horseback riding to 4H members in Eastern Passage.

These large mammals are both expensive and time consuming to raise and maintain.  Their disappearance from the landscape has been fairly quick.  I wonder how many horses lived in Cow Bay just before motor cars were introduced.  Back then,  farmers in the area probably depended on them for farming practices and for transporting their produce to Halifax markets.

Years ago I heard about a cemetery off Autumn Drive, where horses were once buried.  Every community must have had such a place to lay to rest creatures that lived their lives serving people side by side.  Cow Bay would have been no different.  Now, most of the lots on that street have been developed.   Only the odd lot, such as the one pictured above, doesn’t have a house sitting on it yet.  Whether the cemetery was near the present road or a distance from it, is unknown.  Much of the nearby area is boggy.

These days it’s nice to once again see people riding or walking next to horses along the road and see horses grazing in the fields.

There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.

~ Winston Churchill

Photo Credits:  Jeremiah Bell

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Deer Along the Salt Marsh Trail

For one moment, the deer was on the trail and then it was gone, bounding down the side of the path into the woods.  It followed the side of the trail from below back towards me, and for just an instant, was close again.  Supposedly deer will try to make their way back to their original spot after they’ve been startled.

Another deer was already on the other side of the trail in the same spot where I’d seen a coyote not that long ago.  I’d never seen deer along the trail so seeing two at once was quite the treat.

Eventually the deer that was right next to the side of the trail made its way into the water and swam across to a nearby island. Out of the water, it quickly galloped off and made its way behind some large rocks.  The other gradually made its way into the woods too, in the opposite direction.

Both these creatures were White Tailed Deer, which are not uncommon along Bissett Road and in Cow Bay.  They are among the shyest and most nervous of deer.  If startled, they’ll often raise their tails, showing the white fur beneath, as a warning flag to other deer nearby.  Before the salt marsh area was made into a park, they were probably hunted here for centuries.  They have a life expectancy of about ten years in the wild.

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A Wild Canada Day

How will the local wildlife be celebrating Canada Day 2009?   

Wild creatures make the most of each day that dawns.  Their families have lived in Canada generations longer than any of ours and could probably teach us a thing or two about how to celebrate the land.  They don’t care who owns the territory they live on or how it’s administered politically.  We humans care so much more about ownership and nationalities, often to the point of being as ridiculous as fleas arguing over which one of them owns the dog. 

Around the world, our country is known for its vast wilderness and beauty.  If we really wanted to celebrate Canada, we’d take this day to savour and enjoy the  brightest blooms of summer, its greenest leaves and its tallest trees.  We’d get up early to watch the sun rise over the vast landscape and take time at the end of the day to watch it set.  We’d spend as much time as possible outdoors, feeling the coolness of the grass beneath our feet and the sunshine or rain on our faces.  We’d splash around in lakes and sink our toes into the sand on the beaches along our coasts.  Only then would we realize that it is not us who have a hold on the land, but rather that it is the land that has a hold on us.

Remember, you belong to Nature, not it to you.

~ Grey Owl

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The Cow Bay Moose

A lonely moose is all that remains of several sculptures of large animals that once stood overlooking Silver Sands beach.  He’s fairly well known in this neck of the woods and beyond.  I first heard of him when I was still living in British Columbia, on the other side of the continent.

Many people wonder why we have a bull moose instead of a cow in Cow Bay.  The ‘Cow’ in Cow Bay actually comes from the name of Robert Cowie, who once owned much of the land in the area.

I’ve never seen a moose in Nova Scotia, though I have seen one standing in a bog on the side of a road in Quebec.  They are amazingly large creatures.  Vehicle collisions with moose are often deadly for both the animal and driver.  Caution must be exercised while driving at dusk and dawn through wooded areas where they are known to roam.

Moose hunting licenses in Nova Scotia are awarded through lotteries.  This past year, only 336 tags were awarded out of 10,000 tickets purchased.  Many non-hunters purchase tickets in order to tie up tags, which has lead to quite a kerffufle in the hunting community.

Swedes are the most enthusiastic hunters of moose in the world.  The moose population in Sweden reaches over 300,000 during the summer months.  Each fall, both men and women legally hunt and kill a third of that number of moose.  That is a lot of moose meat. 

Years ago, when one of my nephews visited from Ontario, I took him out towards Silver Sands beach early one foggy evening.  Since his side of the family are keen deer and moose hunters, I knew he’d be more than a little excited when I told him there was a moose that was sometimes spotted in the area.  His sharp eyes were the first to spot it in the mist…

Photo credits:  Jeremiah Bell

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