Raven Ranting...

Last week I had the chance to see one of my favorite authors give a talk about his behavioral ecology work with ravens.  Bernd Heinrich has written loads of books about the natural world and someday I will have read them all.  A fellow New Englander, he splits his time between Vermont and Maine so these states often provide the backdrop for his stories.  He's studied and written about everything from bees, to birds, to bugs.  He writes with passion, knowledge, and humility about his experiences with wildlife and the world out of doors, connecting the scientific world to the public.  He speaks the same way.  





A small-framed and rather fit man who must be approaching his 70's, Bernd Heinrich was humorous and insightful.  He used old-fashioned slides from a projector which I found charming.  It was a delight to see the man's passion as he spoke about the years he spent experimenting with the behavior of ravens.  He has trapped, tagged, followed and/or observed hundreds of ravens over the course of his studies.  He has documented roosts acting as information centers where ravens share information on where to find food.  He described his Maine ravens as being shy, wary, sensitive, curious, and intelligent.  My favorite was his repeated references to anecdotal evidence, which happens to be one of the best parts of being a wildlifer.  Sure, hardcore, statistically analyzed data are the juicy meat of any scientific study, but it's recalling the anecdotal evidence that lights up researchers faces and often sparks the initial questions that lead to good research.  He spoke of witnessing raven interactions and behavior that can only be described as play.  Of hearing vocalizations from mated pairs in captivity, sounds that could only be described as affectionate.  It's these stories and experiences that season the juicy data meat for me.  More of his enthralling raven tales can be read in these two great books...get them, read them, love them!

 
As a generally anti-social loner birder, I always learn something about humans when I venture out of my shell into the populous.  What surprised me that night was the number of gray haired, older yuppie-type folks in the audience.  I guess I was expecting a bunch of younger people or something.  I got a kick out of the audience's clearly disgusted response as he described collecting roadkill, and hauling cow, moose and deer carcasses out to raven study sites - and much to my delight, showed many pictures of ravens on carcasses as well.  The best were the photos of squirrel skins that his ravens had turned inside-out to get to the meat because their bills couldn't puncture the hide effectively.  I heard more than one 'ewww' from the back.  Maybe these people were expecting to hear about the spiritual, touchy-feely side of ravens, not the hardcore rigors of science and wildlife biology.  Ha!


After the talk there was a pretty long question-and-answer period where some good questions were asked.  Sadly, a few folks appeared to just want to sound intelligent in their questions.  I mean really people, we came here to hear about his experiences, not to grill him on the natural history facts about a species that you could easily find out yourself.  I mean, if you know what extra-pair copulation is, then you probably know of a source to look it up for ravens, right?!  I found his answers of "I'm not sure" to this type of question highly satisfying.  The really comical part - and here my raven rant begins in earnest - was the line of people that queued up to have him sign stacks and stacks of books afterward.  Geez Louise, this was not a book signing but I'm pretty sure some folks came with the sole purpose of getting their beat-up paperbacks signed by the author.  I'm sure he goes through it all the time but I felt a bit embarrassed by the whole scene.  But not too embarrassed to approach him quickly after the throng had cleared to give him some Burly Bird stickers and thank him for all the hours of endless reading entertainment.  Yes, I'm kicking myself for only having the artwork for the Common Raven Burly Bird and not the actual stickers...

 
Seeing his face light up and smile when he saw the bird stickers goes down on my tiny list of 'Encounters with Famous People'.  Right next to Willie Nelson touching my hand as he signed my ticket stub at Billy Bob's in Texas, which I should add is the largest Honky Tonk in the world.  I guess I should be embarrassed for myself, but a Willie Nelson concert seems more likely a place for that kind of fan behavior.  And besides, the lady ahead of me that night had Willie autograph her bra, so I didn't feel too bad.  Yes Bernd Heinrich, you are on my list with Willie Nelson and probably lucky that nobody wanted their undergarments autographed that night...

Now to design a behavioral ecology study on my resident Glaucomys, secure grant funding, and create/complete a Master's on winter roost behavior of flying squirrels in Maine... 


    

Early Birds and Cat-killed Glaucomys...

Some birds have been showing up in Maine lately that we don't usually see during winter.  It's only mid-February and we've had Turkey Vultures cropping up all over the state, Northern Harriers making appearances, and warblers and woodpeckers (think Red-bellied and Red-headed) that just don't seem normal for these parts this time of year.  This isn't too surprising given the mild winter and continued reports of summer birds being spotted all over Maine (think orioles and warblers), but I'm grateful for the infusion of birds anyway...

I've spent a lot of time looking at the usual suspects this winter.  Loads of ducks, juncos, American Tree Sparrows, and sometimes just empty, birdless landscapes...

This week I was visited by some early birdies at my feeders - a Hermit Thrush showed up...providing what COULD have been a sweet berry-in-the-bill shot...if I had myself a better camera...

  

And then as if the Hermit wasn't enough, it was joined by this adorable little Pine Warbler...that I almost peripherally wrote off as an AMGO (American Goldfinch)...

These photos may be the final straw on needing a new camera.  They could have been great shots, but they're clearly sub par.  Yikes, a new camera is not really in the budget now...perhaps I can convince my sister to loan me her old one (the Florida AVICATION part I and II photos were taken with that one)...


And on a depressing note, there has been a cat lurking around my property lately.  I'm not sure if it belongs to someone or not, but if it does have an owner I really wish they'd keep it inside.  There has been a pissing incident in the garage already, and nobody likes the smell of cat urine - especially if you don't even have a cat.  Needless to say, Scoobs was not impressed.  There have been cat tracks in the snow and now the resident Glaucomys are starting to fall victim to the wanton killing of this potentially feral cat.  This little guy was found in the garage, barely consumed.  Wasted wildlife really chaps me.  I hope it leaves the birds alone, but I doubt it... 

 

But what course of action do I really have?  I could try and attach a note to the cat (if it even has a collar) to inform the owners (if it even has owners) that their cat is destructive?  Somehow I don't think that would work, I'd have to live-trap the thing and that seems like going a bit too far.  And the cat is only around at night, do people really leave their pets out all night?  If it were a strange dog pooping in a person's yard and killing their chickens I bet something would (or could) be done.  Civil suits would ensue and neighbors would become enemies!  Why are cats any different?  

And to leave you on a positive note, I'm really looking forward to seeing one of my favorite authors, Bernd Heinrich, give a talk on ravens tonight at Bowdoin.  I can savor the feel of being on a college campus again for a couple of hours - cradled by the intelligent arms of academia, all while listening to one of the most entertaining writers of the natural and biological world.  Oh, and it's FREE!  While I realize that most people get this excited only over rock concerts, nerds like myself clearly get much more fired up over informational lectures on corvid behaviors!  I'll keep you posted...

Lefty White...

In 2010 a special Gray Catbird took up residency in the backyard and began displaying and behaving unmistakeably male.  There are plenty of catbirds out there every year, but this guy had some white feathers on his left wing.  He was quite friendly and spent the entire summer seemingly within a 50 meter radius around the hammock.  We all get used to seeing our backyard birds, but when one becomes so easily recognizable as an individual, it multiplies the fun exponentially.  Could he really be called anything but Lefty White?

I'm not sure if he was a case of partial leucism or if maybe an old wing injury could have caused it.  I didn't see him again in 2011, though I admit to paying close attention to each and every catbird that was around, hoping to catch that glimpse of white again on one of the mewers.  I wonder what became of Lefty White - did he survive that fall's migration?  Did he get picked off by a predator because of his flashy patch?  I'll never know his fate, but it was fun to have him around while he was here.


Of all the hours I seemed to have spent in the close proximity to Lefty White that summer, this is somehow the only photographic documentation I got of him - I know, this is inexcusable.  At least he spread his wings and tail a little and made sure his dark cap was visible...

Just so you don't feel ripped off by the lack of decent bird photos in this post, here is a cool video I found online that may satisfy your need for more Whitey a la Dumetella...

Vermont Trappings and Trackings...

I clearly stray from birdy posts now and again, but this is just too fun a tale not to tell...it was the year that Mustelids, yes weasels, helped steer the course of my destiny...

I met my friend Mark in Mammalogy class at the University of Montana working in a group project on the fisher (Martes pennanti: fate weasel #1).  Upon graduating he had accepted a Master's position at UMASS and needed a superstar field grunt for the season to collect data for various wildlife passageways that had been installed under a new highway in Vermont.  He must have been really blown away by my work ethic on the fisher project because he offered me the position.    

It is well known that roads impact wild creatures - they create barriers to animal movements, fragment habitats, and they're EVERYWHERE.  The craziest part is the sheer volume of roadkill from vehicles.  I've read estimates that over 1 million critters are killed on U. S. roads EVERY DAY.  Insane.  But we all need and use roads and highways, so why not try and make them a little more wildlife friendly? 

Needless to say I was all fired up to study these passageways that had been put in for wildlife to use for safe crossing.  I couldn't wait for the extensive small mammal trapping, trackbed monitoring, remote camera maintenance, and yes, even the roadkill surveys...

Of course I left a big chunk of my heart in dear old 'Montucky', but I packed up Scoobs and headed east to 'Vermontana'...

It was a lot of hard work - I religiously put out, set, checked, packed up, rotated, reset, and re-checked over 400 Sherman live-traps in four areas at two sites.  Hundreds of mice were ear-tagged and their movements tracked using mark-recapture methods.  We lugged 50 pound bags of tracking substrate (local marble dust) up and down embankments and over fences.

Fabricating new and improved tools for keeping the track beds in shape was fun.  I'm talking about hi-tech instruments of wildlife biology here - such as this paint roller attached to a broom handle used in conjunction with a weighted heavy-duty shower curtain...all custom made and highly technical...

Here you can see the road overhead, the track beds, and funnel fencing on one of the passageways.  Compared to other wildlife crossings, these were quite spacious... 

We used motion-activated cameras to cover critters that were crossing through the stream corridor where track beds were impossible to install...

Oh, and of course I got some help from Mark every once in a while...

Animals indeed used the passageways.  Mark created tremendous amounts of thesis matter filled with juicy statistics.  We documented woodchucks, weasels, turkeys, house cats, bobcats, coyote, deer, mice, mink, skunks, opossum, fisher, river otters, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, muskrats, turtles, frogs, and snakes...

We even had track plates at either end of this long culvert.  Unlike the weasels and raccoons that loved this dark, creepy tunnel - only once did I make my nearly six-foot frame go all the way through.  It was rough.  My skin crawls just recalling the experience.  After that one-time shortcut, I never again thought twice about scrambling back up the embankment, across the road, and back down the other embankment to check the track plate on the other side...

One day on the trap line, I came across a long-tailed weasel (Mustela frenata: fate weasel #2) who had it's tail caught in the door of a trap.  However, it's entire body was on the outside of the trap.  If it had been as big as a grizzly, I might not be here today.  This was a total anomaly - it had never happened before, and it never happened again.  We caught relatively few weasels overall and usually only when they were munching our tagged mice.  As I struggled to free this incredibly angry creature from it's current situation, I felt awful that he had spent time stuck like that - able to see the world around him, but unable to run around in it.  

After freeing the unharmed but seriously chagrined weasel, I received a phone call from a wildlife laboratory job I had interviewed for the year before.  They had a vacancy and wanted to hire me.  I had to sit down.  I thought about it quickly, I was still reeling from the weasel encounter...then suddenly it was all very clear to me - if I accepted this position, I would be just like that weasel, with my rear trapped inside and the rest of me wanting to be out and about in the world, traipsing hillsides and clambering through forests.  I told the lady thank you, but I had decided to move back east.  I declined the job and ended up making the full move eastward - all thanks to fate weasel #2. 


(This is not the actual fate weasel, but the only photo I have of a long-tailed...)

Later on that fall I saw a mink (Mustela vison: fate weasel #3) skulking along the river in the backyard.  Upon checking the mail later that day, I had a job offer from a company in Maine for some more rugged, outdoor fieldwork.  This was a no brainer - fate weasel #3 had already paid me a visit that morning - and I accepted the position.

The trilogy of fate weasels began with the fisher inadvertently bringing me an opportunity to work back east for a while.  The second fate weasel, the long-tailed, helped me decide to move back east for good.  The third fate weasel, the mink, was a good sign to start migrating back to Maine.

Would I have ended up where I am today if not for the timing and presence of these weasels?  As they say here in Maine "it's hard tellin', not knowin'", but I find it difficult to believe that the universe wasn't giving me some sort of spirit-critter guidance through these life choices.  For that I am grateful and will always pay close attention to any weasels I see in the future...