How Long Do Wild Animals Live?

by | Jan 29, 2026 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Amphibians/Reptiles, Birds, Garden/Yard, Mammals, Nature

Meet Our Geriatric Downy

Red tufts of feathers on top distingush a male Downy from a female Downy woodpecker.

Red cap on male Downy.

We often see a geriatric Downy woodpecker at Winding Pathways. He’s at least five and a half years old. More likely six or seven.

How do we know? Well, back in the spring of 2021 Dr. Neil Bernstein brought a class of college students to our backyard, strung a nearly invisible mist net and soon started catching and banding birds. One was a male downy woodpecker. Neil gently attached a tiny aluminum band to the bird’s right leg and released him.

Spotting the Band

For several years we watched the bird eat suet from a feeder near our back deck.  When the light’s just right and the bird’s right leg is visible, we can see the band. Our last sighting was in late 2025. So, he’s been banded four and a half years, and was likely at least a year old when banded.

Could it be a younger woodpecker banded by Neil or someone else miles from our yard?  “Not likely. Downy woodpeckers are homebodies. He probably has lived right here in your yard continuously since he was banded,” Neil recently told us.

We haven’t been able to restretch a mist net and recapture the bird. If we could read the tiny numbers on the band we could confirm whether or not that it’s the same bird. It likely is.

Wildlife Longevity

Most wild animals live a shockingly short life. It wouldn’t be a good idea to sell a life insurance policy on nearly any wild animal. They die young. Wild turkeys live a few years. A cottontail rabbit is not likely to live to its first birthday. The same for most songbirds and mammals. A whitetail deer could live for eight or ten years but few reach their second or third birthday. Usually, wild animals succumb to a predator, die in a storm or are hit by a car. Many birds meet unfortunate deaths when they crash into windows or overhead wires.

Reproduction is Important

Since few animals survive long enough to reproduce, their species continues because those that do make it to reproductive age have many babies. That’s especially true with fish. A largemouth bass or bluegill, for example, could live for upwards of ten years.  They lay thousands or even tens of thousands of eggs, but nearly all die soon. Of the lucky few that emerge as young fish many are gobbled up by bigger ones. Only a few reach old age.

Longevity Champions

Shiny shell and red colorings of a painted turtle.

Turtles are longlived animals.

Reptiles may be the longevity champions, with turtles and tortoises sometimes living for decades, or even a century. A box turtle might live 35 years in the wild and much longer in captivity. But these long-lived animals lay few eggs and their babies mostly die when young. If they make it to young adulthood, they stand good odds to enjoy a long life.

Back To Our Downy Woodpecker

Our downy woodpecker has lived a charmed life. He’s not been snatched by a Cooper’s hawk, frozen in a blizzard, or died by an accident or sickness. The oldest known Downy lived for 11 years and 11 months. Most are lucky to live two years. Maybe ours will set a longevity record.

Helping Wildlife

His life may have been helped by having plenty of dead trees near our yard, the result of a massive windstorm five years ago. These old trees are filled with cavities that offer safe places to hide, escape storms, and raise a brood. Our Downy comes for regular helpings of suet at our feeder. That may help him.

We use the word “he” because male Downys have a blotch of red on the back of the head, making it easy to determine gender. Many Downy woodpeckers come to our feeder. We always look carefully to see if it’s our banded male.

 

Nests Appear Like Magic

by | Dec 18, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Mammals

When autumn’s spectacularly colored leaves drift by our windows they signal the end of a season. That’s also the beginning of a new season – when nests appear like magic.

A few years ago we sat on the front deck as leaves tumbled off a nearby maple. “What’s that big shape up there?” Marion asked. We looked closer through binoculars spotting a bald faced hornet nest.

Hidden From View

During the growing season we didn’t know the colony of these big hornets were nearby, because  their growing paper pulp-like nest was deeply tucked among leaves. By the time we spotted it the nest had been abandoned. We watched as the weather gradually shredded it overwinter.

Winding Pathways is filled with wildlife, big and small, and many species nest close to the house, sometimes unseen during the warm months.

Birches and Bird Nests

On a warm late November day we pruned a river birch tree near the labyrinth, looked up, and spotted an abandoned robin’s nest built on a horizontal branch. Crafted of sticks, it was lined with dried mud and likely was a perfect home for a brood of  babies.

Crafty Crows & Cozy Squirrels

Dropping leaves also reveal bulky, loosely formed crow’s nests up high on trees. After brooding and fledging crows abandon the nests which, typically, quickly fall apart. Crows to generally return to the same area year after year.

The leafy nests of squirrels high in trees are called dreys. Although they prefer using tree cavities, when these are scarce they’ll make a drey.  Dreys are easy to spot after leaf fall. They’re usually at least 30 feet up and built in the fork of a branch. The ambitious animals  weave together sticks, leaves, and grass to make one and snuggle inside during cold windy winter nights.

While walking through our yard and area trails we often spot other wintery nests.  Here are a few of our favorites:

House Wren:  All summer we’re serenaded by singing wrens, and we love watching them bring delicious caterpillars into their nests to feed babies. They are cavity nesters and claim the wooden boxes we put out for them.  Each fall we open each wren house and remove the nest of woven sticks inside.

 

Baltimore Oriole: Orioles visit us in the spring but prefer nesting along nearby Indian Creek. Their nests often hang down from the branches of tall trees and are sometimes built way above trails, lawns or water.

Goldfinches: Goldfinches love tall grasslands, and build their nest in tall wildflower stems or dense shrubs surrounded by prairie plants. They nest in mid-to late summer andline their nest with soft plant down, like milkweed fluff.

Wild Turkeys: Unlike many birds turkeys don’t work hard to build their nest. They  just make a slight depression in the ground and line it with dry leaves.  A few years ago our neighbor was doing yard work when a female turkey rushed out from under a bush right next to the home’s foundation. He was startled!  Whether back in the forest or in suburbia female turkeys usually make their nest under a shrub and next to a log or foundation. Usually there will be a clearing nearby, and to a mother turkey a lawn is a good substitute for a natural grassy clearing.

Turkey vultures: While not exactly back yard birds, turkey vultures are denizens of summer thermals. We see them soaring in the country and over towns.  A basswood tree just east of our property has been the home of nesting turkey vultures since before we settled here in 2010. The Derecho of 2020 took out many trees and broke some off the basswood. But, mostly it survived partly because it is more holes than tree!

Foxes, coyotes, and woodchucks all have favored places to tuck in. Not nests but cozy homes. Deer bed down on warmer south slopes.  Various insects create nests. The photo gallery shows some examples.

Fall’s a great time to go on a nest hunt seeking a variety of structures built by birds, mammals and even insects. Sometimes they can be a challenge to identify, but a great source is nestwatch.org.  It will help discover what birds made nests tucked in trees, in tall grasses, on the ground, and even under house eaves.

 

Where Do Bucks Hide?

by | Nov 20, 2025 | Garden/Yard, Mammals, Pests

One early November day we watched an enormous whitetail buck saunter across our yard. Seeing big bucks during their short mating season is common, but where do they hide the rest of the year?

Does and Young Always Around

It’s perplexing. We see does and fawns in all seasons in our yard and crossing roads as we drive around. Sometimes we wish they’d stay away. Marion sprays flowers with stinky deer repellent to reduce their hungry browsing and Rich builds fences around our vegetable garden and young trees.

Beauty

Fawn

Fawns quickly grow to yearlings. Some are bucks and rub their antlers on trees.

Deer are beautiful animals. Despite the occasional damage they do we love seeing them and sharing some aspects of our yard with them. But where the bucks are is puzzling.  Except for early November and early December, we never see them. They are huge and some have massive antlers. How can they hide?

Our Guess

Here’s our guess. For most of the year bucks are more nocturnal than does. We often find droppings in the morning and during the fall we see their rubs on small trees from unseen overnight visitors.

Bucks also have an amazing ability to hide in small patches of thick cover surrounded by roads, houses, and even factories. These places are common and often are scraps of undevelopable land or the back areas of city parks. Usually, people avoid these areas because walking in them is wet, buggy, or blocked by fallen trees. They’re perfect hiding spots for bucks.

How the Rut Works

Deer in Yard

On Halloween day a buck was hot on the “tail” of this doe and yearling.

Like most animals, but unlike humans, deer have a specific short mating season that biologists and hunters call the rut. It’s stimulated by decreasing daylight hours. Across the United States the main rut starts around Halloween and runs for a couple of weeks into November. During this time nearly all mature does become impregnated.

Young does born in the spring of a year generally don’t breed during the main rut. About a month later, in early December, there’s a secondary rut when young females breed. By the end of the year nearly all female deer are pregnant and will bring fawns into the world next May or June.

Caution Advised!

Buck

Buck with antlers

For most of the year bucks are shy, cautious and stay out of sight. During the rut they’re so focused on breeding that they abandon caution. So, beware when driving. They can be spotted at any time of the day or night. It’s always fun to see them, except when they cross a road in front of us in hot pursuit of a female.

Of all months, November is when most deer are hit by cars.

Bobcat Family In Neighborhood

by | Sep 25, 2025 | Mammals

“There’s a bobcat in our yard!” Rich exclaimed in a text. One July evening he’d been working on his computer when the cat sauntered in front of his window. It was the first bobcat we’d seen in our yard. Soon we started getting texts and calls from neighbors also spotting the impressive and beautiful predator.

A bobcat walks down a trail in the Hoh Rainforest.

Hoh Rainforest bobcat

We once watched a bobcat trying to catch a fish in Olympic National Park and, years ago, Rich had a fleetingly glimpse of one in New Jersey. Sightings are rare but increasing as bobcats expand their range.

Apex Predators

They are apex predators that love catching and snacking on squirrels, cottontails, mice, birds, and whatever else they can catch. They’re big. A male can weigh upwards of 40 pounds while a female can reach 34 pounds. They can run at 30 miles an hour and jump ten feet. It all helps them catch dinner. They are no danger to people.

We live between Cedar Rapids and Marion. Aside from a 110 acre natural area north of our yard, houses and roads fill the area. How can a large predator live here?

Habitat

A bobcat sits in the woods.

Bobcat in woods. Photo credit, Mark Yilmaz

According to many wildlife biologists bobcats do well in suburbia. They den in rock outcroppings, under big dead trees and other places where they enjoy some privacy.  Many city and county parks have those places where a cat can raise its kittens and forage in nearby suburbs while rarely being seen.

“We know bobcats are doing well near Des Moines. Bobcats and coyotes don’t really like each other but they seem to coexist. Coyotes eat berries and other fruit,” (as well as small mammals) said Vince Evelsizer, the Iowa DNR furbearer biologist.

Food Sources and Habits

Think about a suburban neighborhood. Cottontail rabbits scamper about  most lawns, mice are everywhere, and even stray house cats wander about. All could make a nearby bobcat a meal.

Bobcats mostly hunt when the light’s low in the early morning and late afternoon and often find good hunting near houses and roads. Our neighbors are seeing them in broad daylight.

Expanding Range

They were once nearly extirpated from Iowa but a few hung on in the rough pastureland of the state’s southernmost counties. They began spreading north in the 1970s and 1980s and we first started hearing about them in the Cedar Rapids area in the early 1990s. Now they seem well established in our metro area.

Are there bobcats in other towns and cities? You bet. They are an amazingly adaptable animal that range from Florida’s everglades up to chilly Rocky Mountain Peaks. They’re at home in Arizona’s deserts and Minnesota’s farm country. No doubt they live in and near even large cities across much of the continent.

How to Tell a Bobcat From a House Cat

Bobcats resemble house cats but  have a few bobcat in woods.

  • Bobcats are much bigger than house cats, but it’s sometimes tough to tell how big an animal is during dim light and at a distance. There’s a trick to learn the size. Watch the cat as it passes a fencepost, tree, or building and note where the animal’s back is in relation to a tree branch, knothole, or strip of siding. Later take a  ruler there and measure how tall the animal is. A bobcat will stand 18-24 inches at the shoulder while a house cat measures  nine to 10 inches tall.
  • Bobcats are really “bob tailed cats”. Look for a short stumpy tail.
  • A bobcat’s legs are longer in proportion to its torso than a house cat’s. They can walk quickly.

Photo Op

Worried about being attacked by a wildcat? Not to worry. They keep their distance from people. Instead, be happy if one is spotted, and try to snap a photo.

 

Woodchuck or Groundhog?

by | Jun 26, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Garden/Yard, Mammals, Pests

What’s In A Name?

A woodchuck looks up while eating grasses

Nibbling on grasses

A big furry animal has made a tunnel under the deck and clear cut down the garden. Is the culprit a woodchuck or groundhog? The answer is simple. They’re two names for the same animal.

 

 

The window by Marion’s computer desk overlooks our deck. On a spring morning, she was startled to look out and be face to face with a big woodchuck just outside the glass.

He soon ambled off. A few days later, we were enjoying basking in the sun in our outdoor nook. It’s next to a front lawn that we seeded with white clover last year. Out of the corner of our eye, we caught movement. It was the woodchuck, likely on his way to enjoy a clover lunch. When he spotted us, he quickly exited.

What is a Woodchuck?

Several species of marmots live across the northern hemisphere. Visitors to western national parks often see the Yellow-Bellied Marmot in higher elevations, but the one most Americans spot is the amazingly abundant woodchuck.

Woodchucks live in both suburban and rural areas from the Atlantic Ocean westward to Nebraska and Kansas and north to Hudson’s Bay and even Alaska.

Woodchuck ready to enter den.

Woodchucks are great tunnelers.

They are an amazing adaptable vegetarian. Among North American rodents only beavers are bigger. A huge male “chuck” can weigh up to 15 pounds. As rodents they have impressive incisor teeth and powerful legs perfect for digging burrows under decks or inside or near old sheds and brush piles.

True hibernators, male woodchucks emerge from their burrows in March here in Iowa. Females wait a few weeks and usually end their winter slumber in April. They’ll soon have three to five pups.  As soon as the babies’ eyes open, mom will bring them outside where they learn to dine on a wide range of vegetation. They love garden vegetables. Perhaps nothing is as tasty as beans, lettuce, or Swiss chard.

Tree Climbers?

Most people realize woodchucks are excellent diggers, but few recognize they are squirrels adept at climbing trees.  On hot summer afternoons, they love resting on a shady and breezy tree branch.

Reducing Woodchuck Damage

Although they’re big and active during the day, woodchucks are wary and usually vanish when they spot a person. They can’t hide the huge mound of dirt by their burrow, and a clear-cut bean patch also may mark their presence.

How do you reduce woodchuck damage? Since they can burrow, run, and climb, it’s challenging keeping them out of a yard or garden.

These Actions Can Help

Man fixes wire on porch sides to prevent woodchucks from living underneath the porch.

Rich placing wires to prevent woodchucks from digging under the porch.

Fencing:   A stout fence around a garden or deck can make access challenging. The fence needs to be dug into the ground. Placing a mesh of stout fencing on the ground under a deck will reduce the odds that a chuck will burrow there, but it has to be done before the animal starts making its home.

Dog:  An alert dog will chase chucks away.

Altering the yard: Removing brush piles where chucks like to burrow will encourage them to create a home elsewhere.

Trapping: Woodchucks are usually easy to catch in a box-type live trap. Set the trap near the burrow and bait it with bits of apple or other fruit. It helps to cover the trap with a tarp or some brush, as they feel more secure underneath something.

There’s a problem

What do you do with a healthy but very unhappy chuck caught in a box trap? Keep fingers out of the trap! Call the town animal control officer(s) and ask for their suggestions on what to do with it. We don’t advocate taking it on a long drive and releasing it in the country. It seems unethical to “give” the animal to someone who lives near the release area. Preventing damage is always best, but sometimes euthanizing a problem chuck is the best solution.

Woodchucks are amazing animals. We enjoy seeing them as long as they stay out of the garden!

 

Odd Shed Deer Antler

by | Apr 3, 2025 | Mammals

An odd shed deer antler caught our eyes during a woodsy March walk. We’ve enjoyed shed hunting for years and have found plenty, but this one was unusual.

What is a Shed?

Deer, elk, moose, and caribou all shed their antlers a couple of months after the breeding season. Usually in January and February the antlers loosen from the bucks’ heads and fall off. We’ve learned to seek sheds in places where a deer jumps over a fence or crosses a stream in a deep valley. The jar caused by the jump or climb sometimes dislodges the antlers. Sometimes just one drops and the other at some other place.  Other times, one can find a matching pair of sheds. Gold!

Oddity

Deer shed antler partially chewed through.

Odd find.

The antler we found recently wasn’t especially large, but its location was weird. It was four feet off the ground in the branches of a tall shrub. We guess that the buck was walking through thick shrubbery when his nearly ready to fall off antler caught in the branches and came off. That’s unusual but there was one other strange thing about it.

Location and Condition

We walk that trail often but never noticed the antler on earlier walks. It was well-weathered and bleached white. A squirrel had chewed a big notch out of the antler, almost cutting it in two. So, it must have come off the deer about a year before we found it. Why we hadn’t spotted it sooner is a mystery.

Why Shed Hunt?

Antler hunting is a fun outdoor activity. They can be found any month, but the best season for searching is in late winter, just after the deer have shed them, the show has melted, and before spring vegetation grows to hide them.

Matter of Luck

We’ve noticed another odd thing about shed hunting. At least for us. When we go out deliberately seeking them, we sometimes, but rarely, find one.  At other times when we’re absent-mindedly rambling through the woods we’ll step on one!

In An Improbable Place

Matching pair with cell phone and a hand for scale.

Golden! A pair.

The deer that caught his antler in the shrub likely lived to shed a new set of antlers this year. Maybe our neighbor found it. She was astonished to find two shed antlers on the lawn behind her house, only about 500 yards from where we found the seasoned and chewed one. The new finds were much bigger, but bucks generally grow a larger antler every year.

Keep your eyes open for these fun finds.