Woodpeckers
I can’t tell you how many times I am asked about problem woodpeckers. At least a couple times a month, someone will call or e-mail me a question about a woodpecker that is damaging the siding on their home. So I am going to try to address the issue in this column. Up to a 6 species of woodpecker may find your home a good place to do what woodpeckers do—drill holes. Woodpeckers may choose your home for one of several reasons—drumming, nesting holes, roosting holes and foraging for food. In late winter and early spring, woodpeckers love tapping on aluminum siding, fascia boards, stucco exteriors, downspouts and chimneys for drumming. This particular behavior involves rapid tapping of its bill to create a loud noise. Drumming is used to announce territory and to attract a mate. Repeated drumming can lead to small holes or depressions in wood siding and stucco but beyond that it’s a relatively harmless activity and your house can take it. Another activity that takes place in spring is excavating nesting cavities. Woodpeckers often make several attempts at nesting holes. One of their choice nesting holes may be in your wood siding. When making a nesting cavity in your house, woodpeckers fist dig through the outer wood siding, and sheathing on the house (usually a fiberboard) before going directly into the insulation. It’s been speculated that woodpeckers excavate nesting cavities in homes to take advantage of the insulation the house provides and protection from predators such as raccoons that can’t scale the vertical walls of the house. Also, the wood siding is often a soft wood that is easily excavated. However a more plausible reason is, there may be no suitable dead trees in the area in which to excavate a cavity. Roosting holes are cavities that the bird may use during winter. These cavities are not the same as the nesting cavity. Roosting holes are usually excavated in late summer and fall. These large holes may be surrounded by several smaller unfinished holes, or a cluster of tiny holes at the corners of the house, on the eaves or corner boards. Again the reasons for this may be a lack of suitable dead trees or at least dead branches in which the woodpeckers would normally excavate a roosting hole. Foraging holes are created when a woodpecker is searching for food. All woodpeckers include insects as a large part of their diet. In particular many species of woodpeckers love the larva stage of most insects. The larva stage is the fat juicy worm like grub that spends its time buried within a tiny chamber in the wood. There are a few siding types that are more susceptible to insect infestation and thus attract the woodpeckers to your house. Grooved plywood siding, sometimes called Type 111 is one example. It is made of sheets of plywood into which vertical grooves are cut. These grooves expose horizontal gaps in the core of the plywood allowing insects to crawl inside the gaps and lay eggs. Wooden shakes and shingles also have a ton of nooks and crannies that allow insects to hide and lay eggs. Woodpeckers in search of insects hiding in your siding drill a line of shallow holes just enough to get its tongue inside and extract the hiding larva. The problem is, they usually drill dozens of holes to find the larva. Now all that remains is to address the few things a homeowner can do to prevent or stop any woodpecker activity on their house. First and foremost, leave some dead branches or dead trees standing on your property. As long as the dead tree poses no threat of falling on your house or your neighbor’s house, leave it stand. Provide an easy food source such as suet. There is now a suet cake that doesn’t melt so it can be offered all summer. Long strips of aluminum foil or reflective tape hung from areas where the damage occurs can scare away woodpeckers. Be sure the strips are long enough to blow in the wind. Windsocks can serve the same purpose. In fact, any moving object hung near the area can help. Lightweight nylon plastic netting can hang from the eaves. Be sure to leave at least 3 inches between the netting and the house. Aluminum flashing can be used to cover the damaged area deter future damage. A motion detector that sets off a loud noise or turns on a sprinkler can also work. This also works well for deer in your garden. Look for these products on the internet. Send me an e-mail for a link to many of these products. Until next time……
Flying Squirrel
It was as dark as a night can be when I first heard the faint bird-like calls. They were coming from the top of a near-by tree. At first I wasn’t sure what I was hearing. Songbirds are usually silent at night and this was not an owl making this sound. After a moment I realized I was listening to the calls of a Flying Squirrel. Indeed, this was a special night. There are two species of flying squirrel—Northern and Southern. The Northern variety (Glaucomys sabrinus) inhabits conifer forests across the northern portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The Southern variety (Glaucomys volans) lives in deciduous forests just south of the Northern’s range. Both of these squirrels are New World animals, which mean they are only found in the America’s. That’s not to say that Europe doesn’t have any Flying Squirrels, they do, just not the species that occurs here in North America. Flying squirrels are the only nocturnal member of the Squirrel family. And like many other animals their common name doesn’t describe them very accurately. They are not true flyers because they have no ability to maintain or increase altitude. However they are excellent at gliding and can maneuvering around objects during their decent. Technically they should be called Gliding Squirrels. Just for the record, bats are the only mammals that have the ability to fly. Northern Flying Squirrels are larger than the Southern, measuring only 5-6 inches. Northern’s are 7-9″ long. Both have a fluffy, flatten tail that is 3-6 inches long. The hairs on the tail extend out from only the sides giving it a flat shape and making it useful as a rudder or air break. Cute and fuzzy, they are covered with a very dense gray to brown fur that is incredibly soft. Like other squirrels they have a white belly. However the most notable aspect of this tiny glider is the loose fold of skin called the patagium, which stretches between the front and back legs to form a makeshift wing. To become airborne, they leap into the air and spread their legs and hold their tail straight out behind. The distance they can glide depends upon the height from which they jumped. The higher their departure the further they can glide. Most glides are between 20-50 feet long. Just before landing they use their tail as an air break and land facing up the tree trunk. They immediately scramble to the far side of the landing tree, presumably to escape any flying predators such as an owl that might be in hot pursuit. Flying Squirrels are strictly nocturnal which explains why we hardly see this gliding guru. They have large eyes to help them see in the dark. Unlike other squirrels, the Flying Squirrel rarely travels on the ground; so don’t look for their tracks in the snow. However, like other squirrels they do eat seeds and nuts but don’t burry them in the ground. Instead they cache the extra nuts in holes and crevices in trees. In addition they eat fruit, fungi, tree buds, bird eggs and even baby birds. They are the most carnivorous of the squirrels sometimes killing small birds or mice and sometimes eating dead flesh (carrion). They remain active all year long. Mothers have one to two litters of young per year. Each litter contains three to five young, which are borne blind, naked and helpless after only a 40-day gestation. It’s a gregarious animal with many individuals living together. Homes consist mainly of old woodpecker holes or abandoned Gray Squirrel nests. However they sometimes take up residents in birdhouses, Wood Duck boxes and occasionally in the attic of homes. They live only 3-5 years. Until next time……
Tundra Swans
November is a month of dramatic change. Beautifully colored autumn leaves are striped from the trees by raw winds and steady rains, leaving only the stark silhouettes of naked trees to define the landscape. It’s a time of change for the plants and for the animals as well. By November reptiles and amphibians have move into hibernation. Birds migrate while animals like squirrels and chipmunks store hoards of food for the long winter November is the month when we get our first snow fall and when the small ponds start to freeze up. Next to December, November has the least amount of sunshine. Only 41% of the days will have sunshine. Combine that with shorter daylight, long nights and throw in daylight savings time and you have one cold and dark month. It kind of makes you look forward to the clear but extremely cold days of January. November is also the time for the great tundra swan migration. We are very fortunate that each November thousands of tundra swans migrating from Alaska and the northern portions of Canada stop and rest in parts of North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. These very large, all white birds fly along a diagonal path from Alaska, cutting across North America, on their way to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Formerly called whistling swans, because of their high pitched whistle-like whoops, they stop in the backwaters along the Mississippi River to rest and eat. The swans rest for several days to few weeks while feeding on aquatic plants. Their long necks enabling them to reach plants that are deeper than the average goose or duck can reach. The swans will be coming and going for several weeks until the backwaters freezes. Once on their way they will finish the second half of their migration in just a couple of days and spend the winter in the estuaries of the Chesapeake Bay and along the Atlantic coast. Tundra swans are slightly smaller than the more familiar trumpeter swan. An adult tundra swan can weight up to 20 pounds and have a wingspan of nearly seven feet. Like the trumpeter swan, the tundra swan is all white with black legs and feet and a large black bill. Unlike the trumpeter, the tundra has a small yellow spot just in front of its eye and the tundra swan holds its long neck straight up, unlike the crooked neck of the trumpeter. The non-native Mute Swan is all white but has bright orange bill. Tundra swans breed in the shallow marches and ponds of the tundra of Alaska and Canada, hence their common name. Believed to mate for life, a tundra swan can live up to 20 years. The male swan is called a cob and the female is referred to as a pen. Mated pairs will produce only one clutch of young each year, called a cygnet. The yearlings are gray in color and won’t become pure white until they are nearly two years old. If you are interested in learning more about tundra swans and taking a day-trip to see and photograph them, join me for on Saturday Nov. 13th to the back waters of the Mississippi where we will see hundreds of these beautiful and graceful birds. Call the Outdoor Center at 949-8479 for more information. Until next time…
Northern Lights
If you didn’t see it yourself, by now you have heard about the amazing display of northern lights that occurred on evening of Nov 7th. Nearly everyone in the United States and Canada that had clear skies on that evening was treated to a display that was more than just a few green streaks in the northern sky. No, this display covered nearly two-thirds of the sky and consisted of moving curtains of white, green and red. The northern lights are also called the aurora. This name comes from the Roman Goddess of the dawn. In the northern hemisphere, they are called aurora borealis or northern lights. In the southern hemisphere they are called aurora australis or the southern lights. The auroras are caused by the sun. Frequently the surface of the sun has violent storms that spew out streams of charged particles (plasma) in an event called a coronal mass ejection. The results of the storms are solar winds traveling at speeds of 1 to 2 million miles per hour which are filled with tiny highly charged particles. It takes two or three days but eventually the solar wind reaches the earth. When the particles do arrive, they are deflected towards the earth’s North and South poles by the earth’s magnetic field. When the particles hit and interact with molecules in our atmosphere the particles become excited and begin to glow. The delicate colors of the auroras depend on the height at which the energy particles collide with our atmosphere. Street lamps and neon signs emit different colors of light depending upon the types of gas trapped within the fixture. The same applies for the auroras. If the predominant gas is oxygen and nitrogen the auroras will be red. This is rare and only occurs at times of maximum solar activity. The most common color is green, and yellow again caused by oxygen, but at lower levels. The auroras occur on 27 day intervals and usually last for several nights in a row. Northern lights that occur just after dark are not very showy. The best displays occur around midnight or shortly after. The auroras are never absent from the earth. Every hour of the day, every day of the year, the auroras are blazing somewhere on the earth. However, most people can go many years between seeing the northern display. The reason is the aurora spends most of its time around the ends of the earth, where there are plenty of penguins and polar bears but few humans. The best place to view the aurora lights lay within an auroral zone that encompasses the northern polar regions. From Alaska through the Northwest Territories of Canada, around to Norway, Russia and back to Alaska. Along this band, the lights can be seen on virtually every cloudless night from autumn to spring. Small expansions of the auroral zone are common and aurora often spills out to neighboring regions such as our or in the case of the display last week the entire US. Until next time…
The Missing Autumn
This year was almost a year with out an autumn. In fact it may go down in the record books as a year that went from summer to late summer then late, late summer then right into winter, skipping right over fall. It all started with warmer than usual temperatures in October and basically no early winter storms blowing out of Canada. The effect of this autumn weather pattern meant that the flocks of migrating waterfowl stayed up north in Canada longer than usual. Instead of the usual flocks of migrating ducks, what was left were resident flocks of Canada Geese and a few scattered Mallards moving from around lake to lake. Now that the cold weather is upon us the ducks are on the move and it appears they will not be stopping, leaving us with an autumn without any ducks. From points further north, the Tundra Swans are also running late or are non existent. A swan that nests on the tundra of northern Alaska and Canada the Tundra Swan migrates diagonally across North America and makes frequent stops in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin. This year in stead of flocks of thousands of white swans resembling a snow storm blown in on the wind, we have only seen a light dusting of these huge white birds. They too will blow on through on their way to the east coast forsaking us for this autumn. However, arriving much earlier than usual, some parts of the upper Midwest are seeing an invasion of northern owls. These include the Great Gray Owl and the Northern Hawk Owl. These predators of the north woods are moving in large numbers not seen in many years. These owls don’t migrate in a predictable pattern each autumn like the ducks and swans, but rather irrupt out of their natural range and move south only in years of short food supply. Apparently there has been a crash in the vole population in Manitoba leading to this early visitation. This situation is being monitored closely to document the extent of this owl invasion. The nonexistent autumn affected more than just the avian world. Mammals were also influenced by the lack of autumn. The White-tailed deer rut (breeding season) seems to be extended a few weeks longer than usual. While a few individuals may still be in rut in late Nov and early Dec in normal years, this year many field observations seem to indicate more breeding activity is taking place later in the season. Why this is can only be speculative at this point. So now that winter is upon us what can we expect? Well, knowing nature, the only thing we can expect is the unexpected. When will we learn that Mother Nature is dynamic and ever-changing. Nothing in nature is regular and predictable, despite how much we think we know and understand about nature. However, that is what I find so interesting about being a wildlife photographer and naturalist. Everyday I go to work is different and unpredictable. Ain’t nature grand? Until next time…
Christmas Trees
With Christmas just around the corner, many of us are still confused as to what kind of Christmas tree you have standing in your living room. If you have a live tree that is. A new study reported last week on the national TV news shows that the tide has shifted and more than 50 percent of US citizens now have artificial Christmas trees. Christmas tree lots are overflowing with a wide assortment of trees—pine, spruce, and fir. But how do you know which one is which? Here are a few tips to help you identify your green beauty. First, look at the leaves. That’s right the leaves! Pine needles are a type of leaf. Like all trees, the leaves (needles) of evergreens are different on each species of tree. First, count how many needles are growing in each group, called a bundle. The base of each bundle is wrapped in a brown papery sheath. A bundle can have one to five needles growing together. If your tree has two or more needles growing from a single bundle than you have one of the true “pine” trees. One of the more popular “pine” Christmas trees is the Scotch Pine. It has two long needles bundled together. Each needle is slightly twisted along its length which gives the tree a fuller look. Also very popular is the White Pine. It has bundles of five needles. Each needle is several inches long and very straight. When you run your hands over the needles of a White Pine, it feels very soft. If your tree has only one needle per bundle you have one of the fir or spruce trees. It is easy to distinguish between these two types of evergreens. Try shaking hands with your tree. If the needles are very sharp you probably have a spruce tree. Another way to check is to pull off a single needle and roll it between your fingers. Spruce trees have square, or four sided needles. If you are having troubles feeling the edges than cut the needle in half so you can see it in cross section. A handy way to remember how to identify a spruce tree is; Spruce and Square both start with “S”. If your needles are flat, you have a fir tree. Shaking hands with a fir tree doesn’t result in a trip to the emergency room like the spruce tree. Fir trees have soft, flat, pliable needles. Pull one of these needles off and take a closer look. The needles are flat. A handy way to remember how to identify this tree is; Fir and Flat both start with “F”. So to recap, if you have a tree with two or more needles from a bundle you have one of the pines. Square needles are spruce and flat needles are fir. Happy Holidays. Until next time…..
Purple Martins Return
For those of you who follow this column closely and have contacted me to expressed their condolences about the story of the early demise of all 25 of my Purple Martin babies last summer, I have good news. I am happy to announce that one year after the disaster, the martins are back, and they are having babies again. My Purple Martin colony started about seven years ago when I put up an old beat up metal martin house, apartment style, at my lake cabin. I was thrilled when two pair of martins took up residency in the very first spring the house was up. All that spring and summer I watched very closely the daily comings and goings of this largest member of the swallow family. I was thrilled to have my very own Purple Martin colony. Over the ensuing years my martin colony grew. No a lot, just a little bit each year. From two pair in the beginning to about eight pair last summer. Each morning I would be greeted by the martin’s cheerful calls as they swooped into the old metal house. Everything was going great and it appeared that my martins were here to stay. Last summer everything was going great. I had a record number of adult birds and they seemed to be all breeding. Doing my regular checks I counted 25 healthy and happy babies. They parents were bringing in large amounts of insects, particularly dragonflies, to feed the young which provided many hours of visual enjoyment for me. I was having thoughts of adding another complex of houses and expanding my colony to accommodate all these new family members. However disaster was about to strike in the form of a raccoon. Or at least I think it was a raccoon. I never really saw the perpetrator. Over three consecutive evenings last summer, one by one the baby martins were pulled from their nests and eaten. In the morning all I would find was bits and pieces such as wings and tails at the base of the martin house. All the adults seemed to be accounted for and doing well. But now the adults had no reason to stick around. I watched as the adults tried to figure out what was going on. They wanted to feed their babies, as they had been doing for nearly two weeks already, but when they showed up with a beak full of insects there were no tiny mouths to feed. Slowly over a 10-15 day period the adult martins stopped coming back to the colony. One of the nice things about having a Purple Martin colony is they spend much of the summer at the colony. Unlike other birds who once the babies leave the nest they never come back. Martins are home-bodies and they are very loyal to the colony and they return to the colony for much of the summer. Last year I wrote about my martin predation and many readers responded with their own stories of disaster and suggestions of solutions to stop this from happening in the future. I had also heard and read similar accounts of predation to martin colonies and it was suggested that once a predator has hit, the colony often doesn’t come back the following year. They simply abandon the colony. As you can image I was holding my breath all winter and spring wondering if my martins would return. Heck, I even broke down and purchased a new 8 gourd colony kit and installed it late last winter. I really wanted to make my martins feel at home when they arrived in the spring. More importantly I installed raccoon guards on the poles. These are designed to stop a raccoon from climbing the pole and getting to the nestlings. I was delighted when this spring the martins showed up and immediately accepted the new housing options along with the old housing and got down to having babies. Now I have at least 15 pair of martins and nesting is well underway. I think I may have dodged a natural bullet and I am looking forward to a summer filled with the calls of the Purple Martin. Until next time… Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the US to study and photograph wildlife. He can be followed on Facebook and Twitter and at his web page at www.naturesmart.com.
Summer
I love this time of year. Midsummer is a great time for a wide variety of reason. The pressures of spring-time mating is over for the birds and mammals. It is a time of abundance and relaxation for nature. But for me, this time of year is particularly interesting because of the insects at night. No I am not talking about mosquitoes, I am talking about crickets and katydids. Summer nights are thick with mid-night music. The male common field cricket is the responsible for most of the songs. Field crickets are members in the family of “true” crickets. They have large broad bodies up to 1-inch long and have large strong hind legs for jumping great distances. They have very long antennae that are nearly as long as the body. Females have a long needle-like appendage extending from back of their abdomen called an ovipositor, for laying eggs into the soil. Males have large obvious wings that carry them around at night. Crickets are closely related to grasshoppers. There are over 23,000 species of crickets and grasshoppers in the world. There are nearly 1,000 different kinds of grasshoppers and crickets in North America. Male crickets don’t sing with their voice, they sing with their wings. They have two pair of wings (total of four). The front or upper wings are the cricket’s instrument. They play their wings like a violin. The larger hind wings are for flying. A row of tiny ridges, much like a woodworker’s file, located on the underside of the front wings are rubbed against a thickened region, called a scrapper, along the edge of the opposing front wing. While both wings can either file or scrape, most male field crickets are what researchers call “right winged”–the right wing passes over the left, with the right file and left scraper producing the song. Left-hand male crickets are just the opposite. Unlike most birds and mammals, the field cricket waits until late summer to mate. Male crickets sing to attract a mate. While the female is the silent partner, she has excellent hearing. After all, it is her hearing that will guide her to a prospective mate. She doesn’t have ears like you and I. Her ears are located on the knees of both front legs and are sensitive only to different sounds made by the males. Not all male crickets serenade their mates. Some will silently hide within the territory of another singing male cricket waiting for a female that is attracted by the signing male. The silent male than intercepts the incoming female. The silent male is called a satellite male because he orbits around the singing male waiting to intercept a prospective mate. After mating the female uses her long needle-like ovipositor to individually inject several hundred eggs into the soil. The eggs will over-winter and hatch next spring. Only adult crickets in the warmth of your basement will make it over winter. The young hatch into miniature looking crickets and will slowly grow into adults. Crickets grow by shedding their hard shell-like skin in a process called molting. They go through eight to twelve molts to become adults. That’s why you never hear crickets in spring. They are just too small and haven’t matured into singing adults yet. The snowy tree cricket, a relative of the field cricket, is sometimes called the temperature cricket because it’s temperature sensitive. This small green cricket chirps more times per minute when it is warm than when it is cold. Snowy tree crickets sound like jingling sleigh bells. If you count the number of chirps in 15 seconds, and add 40, you will have a good approximation of the air temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. Tonight take a minute to step outside after dark and tune into the magical nighttime music. Until next time Stan Tekiela is a author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the US to study and photograph wildlife. He can be followed on Facebook.com and Twitter.com.
Bird Migration
By the time you read this, the annual spring bird migration will be well underway. Like water gathering behind a dam, each spring the dam (winter) breaks, and a flood of migratory birds wash over the frozen northland. Each bird in a race to return to the best breeding grounds. The avian (bird) world is much like the mammalian (animal) world. There are two main objectives in life. Find food and reproduce. Migration is the answer (for many species) to both of these objectives. Finding food is a constant in a bird’s life. Every day-all day-birds are in a constant search for food. When the food supply runs low or worst yet runs out, such as insects in winter, the birds are forced to migrate. Many species of birds are considered neotropical migrants. All of the swallows, including the Purple Martin are neotropical migrants. As I already mentioned, most species of warblers are, but some such as the Yellow-rumped Warbler are not. A species of hawk-the Broad-winged Hawk makes an annual trip to South America each year. One might think that our beloved American Robin is a true neotropical migrant. Even its scientific name Turdus migratoris indicates it’s a migratory species. However, it moves only far enough south to find food and never sees the tropical forests of Central or South America. It is still considered a migratory bird but it’s not a neotropicals migrants. Even the jewel of the prairie, the Eastern Bluebird only goes far enough south to get by for another winter. In fact, they don’t leave the northland until mid November and often return in the first couple weeks of March. The denizen of the grassland, the Horned Lark (North Americas only lark species) follows a similar pattern as the bluebird. It migrates back in mid February. None of these birds are neotropical migrants. Ducks such as the Wood Duck and Hooded Mergansers are like the robin and bluebirds. Each spring they migrate north just as the small ponds and lakes thaw. Sometimes they fly north searching for open water, and finding none will return back south only to try again in a couple days. My Wood Ducks usually show up the day after the ice clears from the pond outside my window. Most Bald Eagles are the same way. It’s not uncommon to see them standing around on the icy surface of a frozen lake in spring. Early migration usually results in securing the best habitat with plenty of food. Females seek out the males with the best territories thus the best food supply. A plentiful food supply means the baby birds will grow up quick and strong. Just by having the best habitat a bird insures a good food source and a chance at reproducing. You see, its all about food and reproduction. This spring get out to witness the flood of migrants because it won’t be long before they will be heading south again for another winter. Until next time…
Short-tailed Shrew
This winter I seem to be seeing more Short-tailed Shrew (Blarina brevicauda) scurrying across the snow then I usually see. Even my daughter reported seeing one of these hyperactive shrews while out sledding the other day. The Short-tailed Shrew is an aggressive predator constantly on the move looking for its next meal. They are a thick and stocky animals with short legs and dark gray fur. They have a long narrow snout filled with needle-sharp teeth and tiny eyes. Their ears are hidden in their fur. They have an excellent sense of smell but poor eyesight. Their common name comes from the animal’s short tail. Most shrews have short tails but this species has a tail that is shorter than most. In fact their species name brevicauda is Latin and means brevis meaning short and cauda meaning tail. The Short-tailed Shrew is probably our most common and abundant mammal in the many parts of the country. It’s found in nearly every habitat. Population densities vary from year to year with populations soaring in some years and crashing in others. They have home ranges of only an acre or more. Territories will overlap and fighting between neighbors is usually short and non-lethal but fairly common. This tiny creature has an enormous appetite. It can eat half its body weight in meat each day. That would be like you and me eating 60 to 80 pounds of food a day. An adult short-tail weights in at .5-1 oz. As a predator the shrew is constantly on the hunt in order to eat. They usually are not scavengers but they will eat what they find. So a dead mouse could be fair game. They also eat insects which are in very short supply during winter so the shrew concentrates most of its time finding mice, voles and other small mammals. Since mice reproduce all year long, baby mice are a favorite food item for the shrew. All species of shrew are solitary but will seek out a mate for breeding and than return to a solitary lifestyle. Interestingly the shrew will fight with other shrew, sometimes to the death, to defend territories, food sources and to protect their young. Fights are loud affairs with a lot of scuffling. You can hear these fights from 10-15 feet away. They don’t last long, less than a minute, and usually don’t result in death but injuries are not uncommon. The shrew has very thick fur that ripples when the animal moves. This thick fur is key to winter survival keeping them warm and dry. Their fur also has a nap that runs both ways allowing them to move effortlessly forward and backwards in narrow tunnels without turning around. Most amazingly the shrew uses ultrasonic sound for echolocation, just like bats. The echolocation detect objects, openings or if something is blocking their tunnels in the blackness of their underground world. The Short-tailed Shrew is also the only mammal with toxic saliva. The toxic bite helps to immobilize and kill its prey. The saliva is both a neurotoxin and hemotoxin, much like snake venom but the shrew cannot inject the toxin into its prey like a snake. It must chew the saliva into a wound in order for it to take effect so some believe it’s not much help to the shrew. It is also not powerful enough to have any affect on humans. The shrew has musk glands that exude an odor thought to repel some predators of shrews such as fox, coyote, and cats which often kill them but rarely eat them. The glands are probably used more for marking territories and sexual recognition than anything else. This winter keep your watchful nature eye to the ground for a fast moving dark object with a short tail. It just might be the Short-tailed Shrew. Until next time…