by Winding Pathways | Feb 13, 2025 | Mammals, Nature
Beavers moved into town. Even a large city like Cedar Rapids.
Surprise
An amazing sight greeted us In December 2024, as we walked a circular trail around a tiny unnamed stream in the heart of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A beaver dam spanned the narrow waterway. Beaver-felled trees lined the bank while bark-peeled branches floated in the still water.
Nearby were two busy roads, houses, and apartment buildings. Tall downtown buildings were just a mile away. So were factories. These beavers are urban.
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Cedar Lake, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
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A beaver chew next to urban stream.
Urban Beavers
Beavers in a city of 140,000 people! 100 years ago, no one would have imagined that beavers moved into town. But today North America’s largest rodent has moved into cities across the continent. They thrive despite noise and human activity.
Watching City Beavers
Chewiing
Lots of people enjoy urban birding, and beaver-watching is just as fun. Their territory is easy to find. Fetch a lawn chair, dress warmly, bring binoculars, and perch within sight of beaver activity in the early morning or late afternoon when they’re likely most active.
What to Look For
No animal leaves such visible and durable calling cards as does a beaver family. We walk trails along rivers and often spot trees felled by the sharp teeth and powerful jaw muscles of ambitious beavers. They relish eating the thin nutritious bark covering branches. Beavers leave so much debris around it’s hard to miss finding an active colony.
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chips
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Beavers slide
While waiting for beavers to appear keep your eyes peeled. Beavers are a keystone species that alters its environment by cutting trees, digging den holes in the bank, and backing up streams. Their activity attracts many other species, including muskrats, mink, and a host of songbirds that frequent the water’s edge.
An Amazing Resurgence Follows Sad Exploitation
When early Europeans crossed the Atlantic, they found a beaver-filled continent. Experts guess there were somewhere between 60 million and 400 million of the furry animals from coast to coast. That soon changed. European beavers had been hunted and trapped for ages and weren’t common, so newly arrived Americans almost immediately began trapping the huge rodents.
Legendary mountain men combed the Rockies to find plentiful beavers and hundreds of thousands of pelts were shipped eastward in canoes by Canadian voyageurs. Many were shipped to Europe. In the days before synthetic insulation fur kept people warm, and fashionable beaver hats were made from their hair.
Decline and Ethics
The fur trade lasted about 250 years until the late 1800s when the animals had been extirpated from vast parts of their original range. Then came happier news. The value of beaver pelts sank as hats went out of fashion, trees rebounded along streams, and new conservation laws and ethics arose. That started a slow comeback, and now beavers seem to be everywhere.
Two Species
There are two beaver species – the North American and Eurasian. Both are similar but the Old-World species is slightly larger. Each species has made a dramatic comeback. American beavers were released in Finland and Patagonia, where they now thrive as invasive species.
Where Are the Beaver Dams?
Children love reading books about beavers and know that they build dams. Well, not always. These ambitious animals are smart. If their pond, lake, or river is deep enough there’s no need to build a dam. They simply tunnel into the bank to create a home or, sometimes, build a dome-shaped house of sticks and mud that’s usually easy to spot.
Crossing a small stream.
However, if their stream is narrow and shallow beavers spend nights changing it. They’ll build an amazingly sturdy and often long dam spanning the stream, creating water deep enough for good swimming and hiding a bank tunnel entrance below the surface. Beavers are engineers.
Easy to Watch Urban Beavers
Years ago, beavers were hard to find, even in rural areas. Not anymore. They’re so common in urban areas that people can enjoy them without making a long drive.
by Marion Patterson | Feb 6, 2025 | Nature
On a cold December afternoon Rich bundled up, drove to a friend’s farm, and lugged a lawn chair and hunting gear into the woods. He settled into the chair and sat motionless for nearly two hours. His reward of stillness and dark discoveries was quiet interactions with nature.
Wildlife Carried On
No deer came by but he was thrilled to watch two brown creepers climb up the rough bark of a hickory tree only six feet away. “They didn’t know I was there and I could clearly see them use their tweezer-like bills to dig tiny insects from deep in the bark’s furrows, ” he said.
Minutes later a bluebird perched on a branch around 20 feet away and a gray squirrel scampered within inches of his boots. Chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers went about their business as Rich sat motionless.
He came home without a deer but declared it an outstanding afternoon and a successful “hunt.”
What Stillness Does
Still
Sitting quietly is one of the best ways to enjoy nature. We do it often, but usually, it’s not in the woods. We sit very still on our back deck, especially during pleasant weather. More often our sitting is at our kitchen table, where we watch our resident wild turkeys and deer prance around the yard, and songbirds snatch seeds from our feeders. Once we watched a squirrel approach with a walnut in its mouth. Just outside our window, it buried the nut.
Animal Senses
The senses of wild animals vary. For example, the turkeys who visit our yard have superb eyesight and hearing but a poor sense of smell and taste. In contrast, deer have relatively poor eyesight but outstanding senses of smell and hearing.
Even animals with poor eyesight notice and react to movement. A deer might stare at an immobile person for some time trying to catch a scent, but at the slightest movement, the animal will bolt.
Stillness
To see the most wildlife, rule out fidgeting. Sit still. To observe the widest range of species, sit very still downwind so any scent wafts from the animal toward the person rather than vice versa.
Rich can sit nearly entirely motionless for long periods. Here are his tricks for being still:
Tips for Stillness and Dark Discoveries
- Have a comfortable seat. He finds sling chairs easy to carry into the woods and comfortable to sit in. Sometimes he just brings a foam rubber pad that’s even easier to carry and insulates his posterior from cold and wet ground.
- Dress extra warmly. Movement causes muscles to work and generate heat. Sitting requires warmer clothing than walking on an equally cold day. In the winter Rich wears these items:
- Layers starting with a base layer. We once called them Long Johns. Over them goes a pair of pants and over them goes insulated bib overalls. For his upper body, Rich wears a t-shirt, base layer long-sleeve shirt, light fleece jacket, and, finally, a winter coat.
- Warm footwear. Feet get cold quickly but winter footwear helps keep them toasty. Rich wears a pair of wicking socks under wool socks that fit loosely within his “Pac boots”. These high-top boots have removable felt liners.
- A thick wool stocking cap keeps the noggin warm and a pair of thick mittens does the same for the fingers. When it’s super cold Rich sometimes wears light wool gloves and then slips his hands into mittens, creating a double layer.
Other Comforts for Stillness and
Dark Discoveries
Another useful comfort help is the many types of hand warmers on the market. Some are rechargeable electric devices while others are pouches of material inside a plastic container. Rip open and shake the container. Oxygen reaches chemicals in the pouch, creating heat. Some are made to slip in boots. Others fit inside gloves and some large ones are perfect to stick under clothing to keep a sitting person’s back warm.
Sitting inside and watching wildlife out the window eliminates the need for warm clothes but usually lacks the intimacy that sitting within a prairie or woods provides.
Other Aids
waiting
A pair of binoculars helps view wildlife, but the movement to raise them to the eyes sometimes scares away animals. Rich often wears his hearing aids to accentuate sounds that add to the experience.
Remember the Wonders of Darkness
At Winding Pathways, we sometimes sit outside after dark. As soon as our eyes adjust to low light, we occasionally spot deer, opossums, and raccoons prowling in the yard. The best wildlife viewing is when the moon casts some light. However, the best star viewing is during the moon’s dark phase. That comes with a bonus. Since the stars aren’t spooked by our movement we can make all the noise and motion we want and they stay majestically above us.
So, here’s our suggestion: Go outside and embrace the stillness and dark.
by Winding Pathways | Jan 23, 2025 | Nature
In late autumn 2024, we had only light snow. The thin coverings of snow each revealed a procession of night visitors the next morning in tracks. We got especially excited by one set of tracks. Our possum’s presence! It is our favorite opossum. We hadn’t seen him (or her) for several months and feared that the animal may have been hit by a car or suffered some other death.
The sparse snow cover made excellent tracking conditions. We were delighted to follow our possum’s tracks as they wandered past our bird feeder to our compost bin.
Opossum tracks are distinctive. The animal’s toes are almost semicircular with widely spaced toes. Raccoon toes, in contrast, are more like human toes and are arranged almost in parallel.
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note splayed fingers
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Raccoon paws are more like hands.
The possum wasn’t alone. We also discovered that a coyote had passed through our yard, deer had lingered a while and checked out the bird feeder, and a house cat visited, probably seeking a tasty mouse for dinner. We found mouse tracks but no evidence that one of these tiny rodents became the cat’s dinner. Sometimes a fox trots by.
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Hunting
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Distinctive tracks
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Fox usually trot with one paw in front of the other.
Although we have written about tracking before, we find that tracking is fascinating and a good way to enjoy winter outdoors. A light snow creates perfect conditions. The Old Farmer’s Almanac posts a useful guide on how to identify animal tracks. We are happy to re-discover our possum’s presence.
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Three-pronged turkey tracks.
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Easy to spot
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Distinctive
by Winding Pathways | Dec 19, 2024 | Geology/Weather, Nature
Frosted glass!
The world around Winding Pathways changed overnight. On December 14, 2024, we awoke to an ice-glazed world. We know that hurricanes, tornadoes, and derechos cause widespread havoc. Ice storms present their own perils to trees, people, and wild and domestic animals.
After lighting our woodstove, we pulled traction devices on our boots, grabbed trekking poles, and ventured outside just long enough to check for damage, gather eggs, and fill bird feeders.
Checking for Damage
Ice crystals sparkled and ice sheets reflected morning’s light in unusual ways as we carefully picked our way around the yard. Fortunately, we found no downed tree limbs and our chickens were tucked safely inside their coop. Wild birds had no choice. We filled all our feeders, sprinkled seeds on the ground, and scattered sand. Some we tossed on walkways to provide traction for us and a few scoops went amid the birdseed under our feeder. Birds need grit for digestion and it’s hard to find when the world is icy.
Helping the Birds
Many winter birds feed on frozen insects and spiders tucked into the crevices of tree bark. Others scratch through leaves to find seeds and bugs. With trees and the ground sheeted in ice, pickings were slim for animals that must eat an enormous amount of food daily to maintain a body heat of around 106 degrees.
It’s no wonder that cardinals, juncos, nuthatches, blue jays, chickadees, and the five species of woodpeckers in Iowa crowded our feeder and the ground underneath it on that icy morning. Starlings and house (English) sparrows soon showed up.
The overnight ice storm was not so thick that the tiny birds got trapped under the flap of bark where they often rest in storms. They were able to break out and get to the feeder before other birds arrived.
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Ice was so thick Rich hit with a pole to loosen it.
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Birds came early.
Turkeys Arrive
Wind ruffling back feathers.
We wondered when the gang of turkeys would show up and whether they weathered the night in the tops of the swaying and ice-encrusted trees. Late morning “Louie the Lonely Turkey” carefully picked his way across the frozen grass. What a surprise when he hopped up on the top of the sheet of ice on the platform feeder! He shot off the other end and, doing a pirouette like Sam Gribley in My Side of the Mountain, thumped down quite flummoxed when he stepped onto the ice after an ice storm. Louie gingerly climbed back up onto the platform feeder. And, we had our answer as to where he had slept. One side of his feathers and beard were crusted with ice. He had endured a cold night swaying in the tops of the tree as usual. The others haven’t shown up yet, so Louie feasted on the corn and sunflower seeds.
Deer Stayed Put
One backyard animal was initially absent. Often deer visit at night or early each morning but the icy glaze covers their food and makes walking treacherous. Unlike birds, deer put in a thick layer of fat each fall. During storms, they find a sheltered spot and “hole up”. They can sit still for several days without feeding to ride out a storm. A few did finally show up, realized the table goodies were again covered with ice from the day’s rain turned to ice, and left discouraged.
Squirrels Tried to Forage
Squirrels didn’t fare too well foraging and seemed to hole up in their tree holes or nests made of clumps of leaves in the tree tops. The previous night must have been quite the ride for them as well as the turkeys with the trees swaying and ice cracking on limbs.
Prairie Grasses Haven for Small Animals In Ice Storms
The prairie grasses on the knoll bent over with ice formed small enclosures where our resident cottontail took refuge. Deer tracks crossed the Harmony Phoenix Labyrinth as they wandered in the night.
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Contrast in color and texture.
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Birches bending under the weight. of the ice storms
Robert Frost had it right in his poem, Birches, “When I see birches bend to left and right, Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay. As ice storms do.”
The ice will melt as temperatures rise. Until it does, we’ll walk cautiously to reduce the odds of falling and keep our feeders well-stocked with seeds and grit.
by Winding Pathways | Nov 21, 2024 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Mammals, Nature
Flying squirrels are phantoms of the darkness. Are they nearly invisible waifs, ghosts, or fascinating and beautiful mammals? Fortunately, they are real, moderately common in good habitats, but hardly ever seen by people.
Marion recalls her Uncle Bill taking her outside one evening in Florida. Quietly they waited at dusk and suddenly, a petit squirrel launched from a tree and glided past. A thrilling sighting for a seven-year-old and a fond memory all these years later.
For many years a colony of southern flying squirrels lived in a massive hollow elm at the Indian Creek Nature Center. Although their tree was next to a busy trail, daytime hikers never saw the animals. Many times, I’d lead people to the tree as darkness gathered. We’d sit quietly. Just as it became almost, but not quite, so dark that vision was impossible squirrels would appear from a hole in the tree. We couldn’t really see them glide but could hear a rustle of leaves as one landed nearby. Flying squirrels are delightful.
Two Species
Many people live close to them and don’t realize it because they are so nocturnal. Two species live in North America. The northern flying squirrel lives mostly in Canada, and the southern one lives from about the Canadian line south to the Gulf of Mexico, so most people live in their range.
Can They Really Fly?
Flying squirrels are tiny but can’t fly. They are gliders and probably should be called gliding squirrels. A special adaptation, called a patagium, allows them to extend loose skin along their sides to form a sort of wing. This allows them to glide from up in a tall tree to the ground or the lower section of a tree trunk.
They live in woodsy areas with big nut trees, especially oaks and hickories with plenty of fallen trees on the ground. They live in hollow trees. Come late evening they scurry about seeking seeds, mushrooms, bird eggs, and insects to eat. They are omnivores. Their greatest enemy is the Great Horned Owl, also nocturnal.
Conflicting Schedules
It’s ironic that just as people head indoors as darkness descends, flying squirrels emerge so they are rarely seen. Here’s a trick to help people spot the elusive animals.
Flying squirrels love birdseed. They’ll visit a feeder after dark. So will raccoons, opossums, deer, bears, and mice. A feeder can be as busy at midnight as noon.
How You Can Enjoy Sightings of Flying Squirrels
To enjoy flying squirrels and other nocturnal visitors shine a flashlight on the feeder every once in a while, after sunset. With luck, there will be flying squirrels snacking on seeds.
Although many people let bird feeders be empty overnight, we do the opposite and scatter seed on a platform feeder and the ground. It’s a surefire way to attract the night shift.
Photos Are Hard To Come By
We don’t have a photo of flying squirrels because we’re never near the feeder ready to take pictures in the darkness when the squirrels visit. The National Wildlife Federation offers excellent information about flying squirrels. And YouTube has some fun videos to watch on them.
We also enjoy diurnal squirrels that frequent Iowa yards and forests.
by Winding Pathways | Nov 14, 2024 | Birds, Nature
Turkeys sweep up all available seeds.
While feasting on a recent turkey dinner we glanced outside to see enthusiastic hungry wild turkeys trotting towards us. Hunters consider the gigantic birds wary and elusive. Ours aren’t. Whenever we scatter birdseed, they dash from the woods and sometimes even follow us when they see us carrying the can that holds seed.
Turkeys are fun to watch and delicious to eat. Beef, pork, lamb, and chicken all originated in the Old World and were brought to North America during early settlement days. The turkey is the only major American native food animal that’s today eaten around the glove. It took a double route to the dinner table.
Turkeys Crossing the Ocean…
Early European explorers discovered wild turkeys in the vast forests of eastern North America and watched their domesticated cousins scratching around Native American villages, especially in Mexico and Central America. By the 1500s sailing ships bearing live domestic turkeys were heading for Europe, where they soon became an esteemed food. Today, European farmers produce about 13 million tons of the tasty birds.
…and Back Again
A century or so after being introduced to Europe, the Pilgrims brought domestic turkeys with them when they crossed the Atlantic westward. For the turkey species, it was their second ocean crossing. During the next 250 years, Americans ate both wild and domesticated turkeys.
Too Much of a Good Thing
They overdid it. Overhunting, combined with massive habitat destruction, reduced wild turkey numbers to around 30,000 by the early Twentieth Century. Although millions of domestic turkeys lived on farms, wild ones survived only in remote forests and swamps. They seemed on the verge of extinction.
Help for Endangered Turkeys
That quickly changed. Thanks to the efforts of the National Wild Turkey Federation and state wildlife agencies, turkeys made a remarkable comeback. Flocks were captured, moved to places that seemed suitable for them, and released. They quickly multiplied and began expanding.
When we moved to Iowa in 1978 biologists believed the husky birds could only survive in large forests. Iowa only has a few big woods where wild turkeys were released. Soon the birds proved the experts wrong. They began expanding and even moved into cities and towns. Wild turkeys are so common today that efforts to catch and move them to new habitats aren’t needed.
Turkey Sub-Species
The National Wild Turkey Federation’s website includes much about the history and habits of this remarkable bird. According to them, turkeys live almost coast to coast from Canada to Mexico in five subspecies.
The Eastern wild turkey lives across about half of the eastern portion of the United States. It has chestnut brown tips on its tail feathers. Gobblers can reach 30 pounds and sport a long beard. Hens are much smaller and sleeker.
The Osceola wild turkey makes its home in Florida. Its tail feathers are tipped in brown on a bird that’s smaller than the Eastern.
The Rio Grande’s tail feathers are tipped in tan. It’s also a smallish subspecies with only a medium length beard.
The Miriam’s sports white-tipped tail feathers. It lives in the mountain west. Although it has a short beard it can be as large as the eastern subspecies.
Finally, there’s the Gould’s wild turkey that only lives in Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Mexico. It is the rarest subspecies.
There is also a totally separate wild turkey species. It’s the Ocellated. This gorgeous beardless bird lives only in southern Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala.
Turkey Behavior Entertains
Showing off.
We never tire of hearing wild turkeys’ springtime gobbling, watching them strut, and sometimes spotting them fly up into tall trees in the late evening. How they keep warm enough to sleep in their treetop perches during blizzards astounds us. Turkeys are also fun to watch at our feeder, although they gobble up so many seeds there’s little left for smaller songbirds.
