Black Bear Mating
Each spring I lead a bunch of wildlife photo tours. Dozens of photographers from around the world spend anywhere from a few hours up to a week with me pursuing a number of natural subjects. One of the favorite subjects are American Black Bears (Ursus americanus). The Black Bear is unique to North American and is not closely related to the other two bear species found in North America, the Brown Bear and Polar Bear. There are eight species of bear in the world, the American Black Bear, Brown Bear, Polar Bear, Asian Black Bear, Giant Panda, Sloth Bear, Sun Bear, and Spectacled Bear. The American Black Bear is the smallest of our three bears in North America, but they are the most widely distributed. They are found in good numbers from Florida up to New England. They are also found across the northern states and slipping down into parts of the Rocky Mountains. Small populations even extend down into Mexico. They are also found throughout most of Canada and Alaska. Black Bears in the southern states are much smaller than the bears in northern locations. This is the biological rule called Bergmann’s Rule. It is an ecogeographical rule that states that within a broadly distributed species, such as the American Black Bear, the largest ones are found in the northern latitudes and the smallest are located in the warmest latitudes. So, the bears in Florida range from 250 to 350 pounds while Black Bears in Minnesota are 250 to 650 pounds. The reason for this size difference is all based on keeping warm or staying cool. It is easier for larger animals to conserve warmth and stay warm in winter and for smaller animals to shed heat and stay cooler during summer. During my bear photo tour this year, we were lucky to see several mating encounters. This is not something you regularly see. The mating season spans several months, most of June and well into July. Male bears, called a bore, wonder the woods following their nose looking for receptive females. The females need to be at least three to five years of age before breeding. Females only mate every other year because their babies take 1.5 years to become large enough to be on their own. Black Bear females have 2-4 young on average, but occasionally they can have as many as 6 cubs at once. After mating the female, called a sow, doesn’t become pregnant right away. Bears have a unique reproductive system. Instead the fertilized eggs stay in a suspended state until autumn, usually in Oct or Nov. At this point the number of fertilized eggs that will implant into the mother’s uterine wall depend upon her overall health. If she has enough fat reserves and is in good overall heath, more eggs will implant and start to grow. If she doesn’t get enough to eat and is low on fat and is in poor health, she won’t have any young at all. Baby Black Bears are born in February while the mother is still in the winter den. At birth the baby bears eyes are closed, and they weigh only about 1 pound. They are only about 8 inches long and are covered in a fine black hair. They are completely dependent upon their mother. They don’t open their eyes until they are nearly 40 days old and will feed on their mother’s milk for up to 30 weeks. We were able to capture some PG rated images of the mating Black Bears. Witnessing these natural, intimate moments are so special. Not a lot of people are lucky enough to see a wild Black Bear and even fewer are lucky enough to witness mating Black Bears. Mating is a brief encounter. The female is only receptive for mating for a few short hours, so the male often follows the female for many days before the time is right. He gets closer and closer to her and when she accepts his advances, he has just a few moments to mate. The coupling lasts less than a minute and she often turns and becomes aggressive towards the male. More times than not, he just turns and walks off in search of another receptive female. Until next time… Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the U.S. to study and capture images of wildlife. He can be followed on www.facebook.com and twitter.com. He can be contacted via his web page at www.naturesmart.com.
Snow
I am often asked about how the harsh winter weather is affecting the local birds and mammals, and this winter is no exception. So here is the answer. Harsh winter weather is good for some animals and bad for others. For small animals like mice, voles and moles, a harsh winter means a good life—under the snow. Living under the snow is called subnivean. And it’s a surprisingly comfortable for these small critters. Consider this, the temperature under the snow rarely fluctuates more than a few degrees and the cold biting winds never blow. Some plants stay green all winter under the snow providing a source of food for plant eating mice. In addition there are many seeds and nuts left over from last autumn that are easily accessible under the snow. In addition to comfortable living conditions and a good food supply, living under the snow pack also offers protection from predators like hawks, foxes and owls who have a hard time diving through the deep snow to catch them. What’s good for one animal is usually bad for another. It’s the balance of nature. If you dig down through the snow to the ground you will see several different types or layers of snow. At the top will be the light and fluffy snow. Midway down the snow appears like small clusters of ice—kind of like crushed ice. At the bottom near the earth, the snow turns into larger ice clusters—appearing much like the ice cubes in your freezer. The animals have no troubles tunneling through the jumble of ice cubes. It’s certainly easier than tunneling through frozen soil. The different layers of ice form due to the accumulated weigh of the snow above. As the snow piles up the weight of the snow compacts the snow beneath. When snow compresses, the individual ice crystals push against each other and melt slightly. The ice crystals stick together to form clumps of ice. Now, if you could measure the temperature in a cross section through the snow pack you would find that the coldest temperature would be just above the snow. Due to a very complicated process, much to lengthily to describe here, the snow looses radiant energy creating the coldest temperatures just a few inches above the snow. Above this layer of extra cold air the temperature warms to the ambient air temperature. That is why we don’t measure the air temperature next to the snow. Going down from the top of the snow pack the story is very different. Depending upon the depth of the snow (the deeper the snow the better the insulation and the warmer the ground temperature) the temperature increases, sometimes dramatically if the air temperature is very cold. At ground level the temperature is usually right around 32 degrees F. On a very cold night there can be a 30 to 40 degree temperature gradient from ground level to the air temperature above the snow pack. (None of this holds true if there is no snow or only a few inches.) Are you starting to see that a subnivean life under the snow isn’t so bad? Here is another interesting snow phenomena. Have you ever noticed how the snow becomes hollowed-out around the base of a tree trunk? Many people mistakenly believe that this is caused by the wind. Actually the depression is cause by melting of the snow, but not the melting your probably envisioning right now. During the day the sun emits a strong short-wave, non-heat energy that is absorbed by the mass of the trees. After the sun goes down the trees radiate back a long-wave heat energy that melts the snow directly around the base of the tree. But again, not a typical melting. (Right about now your probably wishing you paid more attention in your physics class). Anyway, the reason you don’t see water puddles in the bottom of the depression is the snow “melts” directly into water vapor in a process called sublimation. During sublimation, the snow “melts” or changes from a solid directly into water vapor and is carried away on the air. The air temperature never gets warm enough to allow the snow to change into water. The next time you are out shoveling the driveway think about all the little critters that are running around under all that snow and look for the depressions around the bases of your trees. There is a lot more to winter than meets the frozen eye.
Short-tailed Weasels
For the past year and a half I have been working on a new field guide about mammals. It’s a long hard process of writing and photographing. But in the end it’s always worth it. Over the years, each book I have written has taken me on a whole new adventure, and the mammal book hasn’t been any different. For this book, I have photographed massive bull Moose in Canada and Wyoming. I have waited in a camouflaged blind or sat in a deer stand 20 feet in the air for days waiting for a chance to photograph a White-tailed Deer. Before this book is done, I will have driven thousands of miles and taken thousands of photographs. Recently I had a chance to photograph a very interesting animal—the Short-tailed Weasel (Mustela erminea). Also called Ermine, the Short-tailed Weasel is a tiny bundle of energy wrapped up in a fur coat. It is one of the most wide spread members of the weasel family. It ranges all across the northland inhabiting open woodlands, farms, prairies, and even wetlands. Short-tails are only 10-12” inches long, including their tail, which accounts for almost half their length. During summer they are a rich shade of brown with a black tipped tail and white feet. During winter they turn as white as the driven snow but they retain the black tipped tail. In my encounter with the Short-tailed Weasel, I was amazed how fast its short legs carried it over just about any obstacle. Its small size allowed it to fit into the tiniest of cracks or holes, which is an advantage the weasel presses into action when chasing after mice, moles, shrews and especially chipmunks. Like all members of the weasel family the short-tail is a ravenous carnivore. They spend most of their waking hours dashing about in search of its next meal. Their eyes are often bigger than its appetite. It’s not uncommon for a short-tail to chase down and kill a Cotton-tailed Rabbit, which is several times its own size and weight. One time I watched a Short-tailed Weasel chase a rabbit for 20 minutes before capturing it. After pouncing on its prey it delivers a lethal bite to the neck, just at the base of the skull, to sever the spinal cord. They often lick the blood from the wound before eating. Underground dens are used mainly for birthing and raising young. After mating, males and females separate and the female raises a liter of 5-7 youngsters on her own. However it will also use hollow logs and other natural and human made cavities for its den. Males are not sexually mature until they are two years old but females are sexually mature at 6 months old (usually during their first summer). Mating of the Short-tailed Weasels is not for the faint-of-heart. Males often drag the females around by the scruff of the neck for several hours before copulating. Males will breed with more than one female along with any of her female offspring that may be accompanying her. No matter how young the offspring may be. Short-tailed Weasels live 3-5 years. Larger predators such as fox, coyote, bobcat and wolves pray upon them. The name Ermine is often used to describe them in their winter white coat and they are called Stoat during summer when it’s brown. If you ever get a chance to see one of these wonderful critters it will be worth your time and effort.
Endangered Species
If the term “endangered” means good, then I just returned from photographing a very good bird–the California Condor (Gymnogyps califerianus). The word endangered when used in conjunction with wildlife has been a hot button issue for many years going back to the snail darter and spotted owl issues. But today endangered can mean a lot in tourism dollars. Take the condor for instance. Thousands of people travel great distances each year just to get a glimpse of this very rare bird. My American Heritage dictionary defines, endangered as; faced with the danger of extinction. And the California Condor came perilously close to extinction about 20 years ago. In 1982 there were only 22 individual condors alive. Only nine of these were in the wild. The rest were in zoos. After several of the wild birds had died suddenly of unexplained causes, it was decided to capture the remaining wild birds and start a captive breeding program with the intent to release them back to the wild. Fortunately the condors had no problems breeding in captivity and ten years later (1992) the first of captive bred condors were released back to the wild in the hopes of establishing a stable wild population. The California Condor is the largest bird in North America. In comparison to the more familiar Bald Eagle, the condor is approximately twice the size and weight. An adult condor stands about 4 to 4.5 feet tall and has a very impressive 9.5-foot wingspan. On average they weight between 16-23 pounds but can weight as much as 30 pounds. Historically they ranged in a narrow band from British Columbia to Mexico along the mountainous west coast with a few scattered and isolated populations in other southwestern states such as Arizona. It is felt that there was never a large populations of condors and their declined was in conjunction with the passing of the large animals that roamed the earth before humans. Officially the reason for their decline is listed as “unsustainable mortality rate combined with a naturally low reproduction rate.” In the recent past, most deaths were from shooting, poisoning, lead poisoning and collisions with power lines. Combine that with adults that reproduce only one offspring every other year and you have a bad combination. Like other large bird species such as the Bald Eagle the condors don’t become sexually mature until they are 6 or 7 years old. No one knows exactly how long a condor can live but it’s presumed they can live at least 40 years and maybe as long at 70. That means the most productive years of an adult condor would be in its twenties and thirties. Presently there are 199 total birds in the world. Eighty-one of these can be found in the wild (36 in Arizona and 45 in California). There are nine more waiting to be release. The California Condor was first placed on the equivalent of the federal endangered species list in 1967-six years before the official passage of the federal endangered species act in 1973. The goal of today’s efforts is to establish two separate populations with 150 birds each (total 300). Today you might see one of these wonderful birds by visiting the south rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona as I did. And with some luck they might even fly over your head giving you a view of their impressive size. Until next time…
White-tailed Jackrabbit
There are rabbits and then there are jackrabbits! And if you think there isn’t much of a difference, you need to take a second look. I am not talking about the fluffy Cotton-tailed Rabbit munching the tulips in your backyard. No, I’m talking about the monster of all rabbits, the White-tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus townsendii). Despite its name, the White-tailed Jackrabbit is not a rabbit at all-in fact it is actually a type of hare. Rabbits and hares are closely related and are members of the same family (Leporidae, Rabbits and Hares). Both rabbits and hares have long ears and large powerful hind legs. Both have excellent hearing, outstanding eyesight. Beyond these basic physical similarities, rabbits and hares are very different animals. The White-tailed Jackrabbit is significantly larger then the Cotton-tailed Rabbit. Jacks stand up to 2 feet tall including their enormous 8-inch long ears compared to 12-16 inches for the cotton-tail. The average jackrabbit weights about 7-10 pounds while the smaller cotton-tail comes in at 2-4 pounds. Now here is the major difference between hares and rabbits. After mating in Feb and March, mother jacks don’t build a cozy nest chamber like the cotton-tail. Instead they give birth to 3 or 4 young right on the ground. And unlike the cotton-tail, baby jacks are born fully furred, eyes and ears open and have the ability to run within hours of birth. Compare that to cotton-tail babies that are born blind, naked and helpless and don’t leave the nest for several weeks and you can start to see the big difference between these two species. The jackrabbits main line of defense is quick identification of danger and speed. Keen eyesight and outstanding hearing alert them to any danger. They can run up to 40 mph for short bursts and leap 10-17 feet in a single bound. Not many predators can catch a jackrabbit at full speed. Another major difference between the jackrabbit and the cotton-tail rabbit is its pelage. Pelage is just a fancy word to describe its fur. Unlike the cottontail, jackrabbits change color in winter to a all white coat of fur. In summer jacks return to their brown or tan coat. This seasonal change is great camouflage and helps to avoid detection by predators. Female jackrabbits are slightly larger than the males. This is of special note because while it can be common in the bird world, it is very rare in mammals. Adult male jackrabbits are called bucks while the adult females are called does. Jackrabbits are strict herbivores eating green grass and other plants during the summer and eating dried grasses, twigs and berries during winter. Their digestive system is not very efficient and during the winter when their diet consists of margin nutritional food items such as twigs, the jacks will produce two different kinds of fecal pellets or droppings. The first type of fecal pellet is hard, dry and woody. These are passed normally. The second type of pellet is a soft, moist and green. These special fecal pellets are reingested (eaten again) in a behavior called coprophagy. This unusual behavior allows the food to pass through the digestive system a second time to extract every little bit of nutrition. Until next time…
Ruffed Grouse
Recently I had a wonderful opportunity to make an audio recording of the Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus). I had slowly and silently snuck up to within 30 feet of an actively drumming male grouse with my audio equipment. While I couldn’t see it very well, I could hear it and more importantly feel its unique drumming. That’s right, I said feel it. Before I could hear it, I could feel the first two or three beats resonating somewhere at the top of my neck near the base of my skull. I could actually feel the “thud, thud, thud” before my ears picked up the sound. It’s a feeling I won’t soon forget. Each spring, forest all across the northland echoes with the drumming of the male Ruffed Grouse. They will drum all year long, but is much more common in spring. Only male Ruffed Grouse perform this unique mating behavior which is use to attract females and to warn competing males to stay away. Males will drum from on top of a log, rock or any other perch that is 12-20 inches off the ground. The drumming sound is produced by the bird cupping its wings and using its strong breast muscles to propel its wings so incredibly fast they produce tiny sonic booms. The beating starts out slow and ascends quickly. Each series of drumming last only 5-7 seconds. Contrary to what was once thought, they don’t beat their wings against their chest or the log it’s standing on. The Ruffed Grouse is a large chicken-like, bird approximately 16-19 inches long. It has a group of black feathers on either side of the neck that extends outward like a fur collar when displaying. These feathers are called the ruff and hence its common name. The genus name Bonasa is from the Latin bonasum, meaning “bison” (supposedly the drumming sound resembled the pounding of many bison hoofs). Its species name umbellus comes from the Latin, meaning ” parasol”, presumably from the shape of the birds fanned tail or maybe from the raised ruff. Both sexes have a well-defined crest, which it can raise and lower at will. The crest is a tuft of feathers on top its head similar to a Northern Cardinal. Males have a small orange to red patch of skin just above the eyes, called a comb, which is more evident in spring. They also have long tails they can raise and fan like a turkey Ruffed Grouse are polygamous. Males will drum to attract as many females in his territory. After a brief sexual encounter the female will make a nest on the ground often at the base of a tree or under a shrub. Nests are usually within a mile of the male’s territory. She will lay one tan egg with brown spots each day until she has a full clutch of 10-12 eggs then she will start to incubate the eggs all at once. If she started incubating right after the first egg was laid the eggs wouldn’t hatch all at the same time. This is very important because the young need to hatch simultaneously. The reason for the simultaneous hatching is, all of the young need to leave the nest within hours after hatching. The young birds are able to fly short distances within two weeks. All grouse have large feet with four toes. The front three toes are connected by a small amount of webbing (semi-palmate foot). The hind toe is very short and high up on the leg. Feathers cover the legs down to the toes. Grouse also have small finger-like membranes called pectination along each toe. The pectination membranes act like snowshoes helping the grouse walk on top of deep snow. Until next time…
Whooping Cranes
Most people are familiar with the stately Sandhill Crane. However, are you aware that we have a second crane species in North America-the Whooping Crane. Of the 15 species of cranes in the world, the Whooping Crane (Grus americana) is the rarest of all cranes. Cranes exist on five of the seven continents of the world. (Only Antarctica and South America don’t have any crane species). And the crane family is one of the most threatened families of birds in the world. Compared to the Sandhill Crane, the Whooping Crane is easy to identify. It is an all white bird with jet-black wing tips. It also has a striking bright red crown and face with a large, dull yellow bill and very long black legs. The Whooping Crane is the tallest bird in North America. They stand five feet tall and have a seven to eight foot wingspan. Their wingspan is equal to or slightly longer than the more familiar Bald Eagle. Despite their large size, they only weight about 10 to 15 pounds. With their extremely long wings, the whooper can fly up to 50 m.p.h.. To take off, they typically run into the wind with their wings outstretched. Whooping Cranes fly with their necks outstretched straight in front. Compared to the Great Blue Heron and Great Egret, which hold their necks in an “S” pattern while in flight. In addition the crane has a distinctive wing beat. Their down stoke is slow followed by a quick “flicking” up stroke. Cranes often fly in a V formation but they also soar on thermals (updrafts of warm air) that can lift them to altitudes as high as 3,000 and 5,000 feet. Once they reach this altitude they glide forward, slowly losing altitude, looking for the next thermal to repeat the ride over again. Whooping Cranes become sexually mature at 4-6 years of age. They can live 25 or more years and it’s believed that they will mate for life. A mated pair will hold and defend a territory of 30-50 acres. Once established the pair will construct a shallow nest on the ground where the female will lay only two eggs. Both parents will take turns incubate the eggs for approximately 30 days. Usually both eggs hatch but rarely do both chicks survive. Hatching coincides with the emergence of insects. Like many bird species, insects make up a large part of the diet for the growing and developing young cranes. Chicks are cinnamon brown at birth, which helps to camouflage. They start to get their white feathers in the second and third year. They need to grow quickly in the first summer to be strong enough to make their first autumn migration. Young cranes learn the migration route by following their parents. After returning with their parents the following spring they join bachelor flocks of non-breeding birds until they are old enough to breed. During the mid 1800’s the Whooping Crane population was estimated to be 700-1500. Their numbers dropped dramatically in the late 1800’s due to loss of nesting habitat and unregulated hunting. By 1938 only two small flocks remained and by 1949 only 15 birds remained in one flock. Ambitious recovery efforts were started in 1954 when the breeding grounds of the remaining few wild cranes was discovered in Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Many years and much effort later, in the fall of 2001, the first flock of reintroduced Whooping Cranes departed Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin and began a 48 day, 1,218 mile migration to Florida. The flock spent the winter on the Gulf coast and this spring the small flock safely made the return flight to Wisconsin giving hope that someday the Whooping Crane will no longer be an endangered species. Until next time…
Spiders and their Webs
Thanks to some well publicized Hollywood movies, just about everyone knows that spiders are not insects. They are (now say it with me) an arachnid. This may seem like a technicality to some but upon a closer look there a many difference between spiders and insects. Insects have three body parts; a head, thorax and the abdomen. Spiders have only two body parts; a cephalothorax (head and thorax combined into one part) and the abdomen. Insects have three pairs of legs and two pairs of wings compared to spiders which don’t have any wings and four pairs of legs. Insects have antennae while spiders do not. Insects have large compound eyes (many small lens combined to make one large eye) while spiders have eight small simple eyes. Even their mouth parts are different. Insects have mouths that bit or pierce, but they don’t have fangs like spiders. Nor do insects have poison glands like spiders that they inject into their prey. The rear end of insects is also very different from spiders. Insects tend to have stingers and or ovipositors, a long hollow tube-like structure, for laying eggs and lack the spinnerets and silk glands that most spiders have. And it’s the spinnerets and the spider’s ability to spin a web that really sets them apart from the insect. In fact the name spider came from the word “spinder” and it may be the single feature that spiders are known for. Nearly all spiders have six spinnerets arranged in pairs at the end of its abdomen. Usually they are not visible. Each spinneret is connected to an internal silk gland. Inside the gland the silk is liquid, but upon being forced out and exposed to the air, it quickly solidifies into silk. A spider can produce seven kinds of silk, each used for different jobs; web creation, wrapping up prey, egg sac formation, sperm web construction, pulling leaves together to construct a shelter, dragline formation and traveling on the wind. Spider silk is a remarkable substance that is unmatched in human-made chemicals. A spiders silk has a tensile strength greater than bone per weight. Yet it is so elastic that wet threads can stretch more then 300 percent of their length before breaking. Nearly every species of spider uses silk in one way or another. The stereotypical spider web is known as the orb web (see image). Although everyone knows how these webs look they are not the most common web that spiders can make. In general there are four types of webs—cobwebs, sheet webs, funnel webs and orb webs. In the north country only three families of spiders use the orb web type. The rest use the other variety of webs. Construction of the orb web is fascinating stuff. First of all, the spiders need to take down and remake their webs each night, or at least every other day. All the proteins used in making the silk are recovered by eating the old web. Radioactive tagging has shown that 80-90 percent of the initial web material shows up in the new web, even though it may be only a half hour between eating the old web and spinning the new one. It takes the average orb web weaver about one hour to eat the old web and spin the new web. Most are constructed a couple feet off the ground and are designed for one reason—to capture insects (of which they are not) for food. All orb webs are constructed basically the same way. The main threads are called spokes and anchor the web in place. The spokes of the web are not sticky. That is how the resident spider travels around the web without getting stuck themselves. The web that connects the spokes and spirals around the web are sticky and hold the insects in place until the spider can get there. Once constructed the spider will either position himself in the center of the web or off to the side. It uses is legs to feel any vibration. Even though a spider may have eight eyes, their eyesight is poor. Once they feel a struggling insect caught in its web it rushes out and delivers a single poisonous bite to immobilize the prey before either devouring or wraping it up in silk to feed upon later. Some spiders produce a zigzag formation in the center of their web called a stabilimentum. This is most common in the genus Argiope. It’s not well known what this structure is used for, but some believe that these special silk threads stand out in ultraviolet light (insects see in ultraviolet light) and may attract insects like a lure. It may also help to conceal the spider who waits in the middle of the stabilimentum. Until next time…
Common Milkweed
Early summer is the best time of year for wildflowers all across the northland. There are many spectacular varieties of wildflowers dotting the landscape such as the amazing orchids, lovely lilies, and bright and cheerful daisies. But there is one wildflower that really catches my attention. Not for its stunning beauty, but rather for its amazing and highly unique flowers. This wonderful wildflower is the Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). The Common Milkweed is a native plant that grows in a wide variety of habitats including open fields, along roads, prairies, and open woodlands. Chances are it’s growing in your garden or the part of your yard that you don’t mow and have left to go ‘wild’. It is not a very impressive wildflower, as far as wildflowers go. It’s a single stemmed plant, standing 2-3 feet tall with pairs of large oval leaves oppositely attached. The leaves bleed a white milky sap when broken as does the rest of the plant. This plant has several large round clusters of cream to pink colored flowers. Now here is the unique part that I mentioned earlier. The flowers are highly fragrant and attract a lot of insects. When an insect arrives it is greeted with a flower with five petals that have folded back to form individual cups which contain the sweet nectar. Each nectar cup has a little horn coming out of the center and curves in toward the center of the flower. The effect of these horns is to limit where a visiting insect can place its feet. In addition all the surfaces on the flower are smooth and slippery making it very difficult for insects to hold on long enough to get a sip of nectar. The only way an insect can keep from slipping is to place its feet into highly specialized and strategically placed slits between the nectar cups. There are five such slits on each flower. As the insect tries to take hold, it moves its feet from one end of the slit to the other. Waiting inside each slit is a tiny sticky black pad. Attached to the sticky pad is a sac of pollen. When the insect pulls its legs free to leave the flower, the sticky pad adheres to the insect’s leg like a saddle bag. Sometimes the insects that visit the milkweed flower are not strong enough to pull its leg out of the slit and they are trapped indefinitely. The pollen of the milkweed is not powdery like ordinary pollen. Instead it’s waxy and sticks together in a tiny pear-shaped package. When the pollen packets are carried to the next milkweed flower, the insect’s leg needs to slip up and down the slit again so the pollen packet can break off and remain in the slit, completing the next step in the pollination process. Getting the pollen packets into the receptive flower is not very easy and that is way this plant produces large clusters of flowers because only one or two become successfully pollinated. Once the pollen packets are inside the slit, the pollen grains still need to reach the ovules at the bottom of the pistils. At the back of the slit there is a sugary liquid in which pollen grains can grow. The pollen grains grow tubes that reach down into the stalk of the pistil and reach for the ovule. Once the tubes reach the ovules, fertilization is complete and seeds start to develop. In autumn the large seed pod opens to release hundreds of seeds which are carried away each seed on the wind by tufts of silky hairs that are attached to the seeds and act like parachutes. The Common Milkweed plant has been very useful in the past also. People have used the silky seed hairs to stuff pillows, dolls or pin cushions. During World War II milkweed seed pods were collected and the silky hairs were used in life preservers. The waxy hollow silk floats. Three and a half pounds of silky hairs could kept a man afloat for three days. In addition, the milky sap that oozes from the damaged plant tissue was used like rubber cement when dried. The milky sap contains cardiac glycoside (a digitalis-like compound) that has powerful effects on the cardiovascular system. It has been used in folk medicine for hundreds of years. All of this makes the Common Milkweed one of my favorite northland wildflowers. Until next time…
Red Fox
The Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) is one of those animals that is common, yet not commonly seen. As you know I spend more than the average time in the outdoors all year long capturing images of wildlife and the Red Fox is one of those animals that I hope to see all the time but for some reason don’t. So recently while guiding a photo tour in Yellowstone National Park in the depths of winter, I was fortunate enough to spend a couple days with a number of foxes. In fact, one day there was more than just one fox, there was five. The Red Fox is the largest of the foxes and is found throughout the northern hemisphere including North America, Europe, Asia and parts of North Africa. It has also been introduced by people to Australia. It has an amazing ability to adapt to just about any environment and tolerates being around people very well. In fact, it does so well that it is often found in big cities as well as rural areas. They seem to do very well in suburban areas as well. Some would argue that the Red Fox has followed people in the expansion across the planet. Despite their common name they come in a wide variety of colors, from nearly black, to blond and many shades between. Some have red bodies but black legs and other combinations. The different coloring often gives rise to different names such as Cross Fox or Silver Fox. These names are often used for animals with dark or gray or silver tipped dark fur. But no matter what color coat of the fox, one thing remains consistent, the tip of the tail. The Red Fox has a white tip of the tail, while its close cousin the Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) has a black tip of the tail. All of these color variations have led to biologists identifying many sub-species. Some recognize upwards of 45 different sub-species for the Red Fox. Don’t get me started on the sub-species topic. The Red Fox is a master at finding food. They eat mostly small mammals such as mice, voles and shrews along with larger mammals such as rabbits and squirrels. They also eat a wide variety of small birds, reptiles, and amphibians. They are opportunistic feeders, which means they will take advantage of any food source they find in addition to hunting for themselves. It is not uncommon for a fox to stash food for later use. Some recent studies show foxes have the ability to remember where they hid most of what they had hidden weeks before. Male foxes are called dogs and females are called vixens. The young foxes are called kits. The name fox comes from the old English which derived from the Germanic fuhsaz and refers to the thickly furred tail. Many people mistakenly believe that Red Foxes were introduced to North America. Recent gene mapping shows that Red Foxes came to North America about 400,000 years ago. Our foxes have been isolated from their European (Old World) counterparts for so long that they are starting to look different and perhaps become a separate species. Yes, some Red Foxes have been introduced to North America in the 1900’s, but it seems that the genes from these introduced foxes didn’t survive. While foxes have excellent sense of smell, their true super power is their hearing. They have the ability to hear a mouse at 300 feet and can pinpoint with deadly accuracy a mouse under several feet of snow. While photographing several Red Foxes we watched as they cock their head from side to side, with their ears pointed forward in total concentration. They push back against their hind legs like winding up a spring. When they have pin pointed the mouse under the snow they launch themselves into the air and plunge through the snow pinning the prey down to the ground with the front paws before grabbing it with their mouth. I have been taking trips to Yellowstone in the winter for over 20 years and this winter was the best I have ever seen for Red Foxes. Normally I would see one or two over a couple weeks. This year I was fortunate enough to have many foxes over several days making it one of the best trips for Red Foxes in a very long time. Until next time… Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the world to study and capture images of wildlife. He can be followed at www.instagram.com, and www.facebook.com. He can be contacted via his web page at www.naturesmart.com.