Site Discussions

One of my co-workers, whose home is downtown, told me he saw a coyote up in an apple tree picking frozen apples off branches.  Until then I had not realized what an omnivore coyotes are.

Amen!

The cold is invigorating.  I much prefer the deep cold, especially if it’s bright and sunny over hot humid weather.  One of my friends, who is Norwegian descent, agrees with this wholeheartedly.  He says, ‘survived another summer’, rather than survived the winter!

Gary, no that will not necessarily solve the deer problem. I understand they can jump up to 15 feet, and often I see them effortlessly sailing over a 4’ fence. What will deter them is fear of what they will land on. You can google what types of things you can use, on either side of your fence, to discourage them. There are are also certain smells/scents that repel them, that you could put closer to your garden. You can also research this.

After the recent thaw accompanied by rain, I took two grandsons for a woodland hike. There were many tunnels in remaining snow with the tops gone.  Nice to show them where the voles and mice had been secreted away.

Years ago, at our house in central NH, we buried our 60-lb. dog in the front meadow. I put her 2 feet deep - the wet soil prevented going deeper - and covered her over.  A week later, there were three turkey vultures sitting in the big red oak at the edge of the meadow. In 10 years, I had never seen turkey vultures anywhere near us. I assumed that the smell of the decomposing dog drew them in.

Upon cleaning out my freezer I found a small tangerine sized bit of suet. I put it in a small mesh bag and hung it on a tree outside the kitchen window. Within 4 hours it was visited (and pretty well demolished) by a male and female Hairy Woodpecker and a Nuthatch. It had to be olfactory detection. With clumps of snow everywhere the little white mesh bag was pretty well camouflaged.

I have them in the walls above the garage and it’s obvious how they got in. I don’t want to kill them with snap traps but if I am able to relocate them with live traps wouldn’t they succumb to the elements? We are having the worst winter in 25 years.

Tania, thank you for writing about this lichen. I am just becoming an Interpretive Ranger on Mt. Bachelor, OR and found this story very interesting and easy to read. We have them on Mt. Bachelor too.

I live in a densely forested area, with a large family of crows.  I have started mimicking their “crow talk” while going on walks through the forest.  They get quite excited & curious & will circle around me & land in the tree tops.  They seem to be trying to see me and will keep chattering away.  I would love to know what we are conversing about :)

I have lived across the state of NY for my whole life, 60 now; hunted, fished, hiked, cut firewood, camped, etc., the American Beech has always been one of my favorites for many reasons. The damage and loss of this species or any for that matter is difficult to experience.

I have had this question come up for me and I would like you guys to answer this:

Many animals designed for night vision have only rod cells in their retinas, and lack cone cells entirely. Why would this arrangement improve the animal’s ability to see in near darkness? What disadvantages would such an arrangement have for seeing in daylight?

Hi
Nice article, however MD’s did not get to northern NE until the mid 1900’s.  Did our feeding them tend to keep the males here all winter? What other food could they get?

It seems this disease comes in waves.  When I started as a forester in 1971 there was in increasing wave of the disease, and then things seemed to quiet down for awhile.

When doing a salvage harvest of diseased beech trees it was very difficult to accurately estimate the amount of damage to a tree.  My solution was to just tally the tree volume and let the loggers estimate the usable volume.

I must mention “The Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv, 2006. The idea of “nature-deficit disorder”- and its obvious cure - is steadily gaining credibility among professionals of all stripes.  One of my daughters said she and her siblings “were raised like little wolves.” I don’t know if that referred more to venison in their diet or playing outdoors until their boots were filled with snow. They grew into admirable adults with strong environmental ethics.

Thanks for a fun read that made me smile. I needed that. No longer do I feel alone.

I love it. You are so right. Thank you.

I think this is the crux of the matter:

(Dave wrote) “In the same way that most chainsaw accidents happen when you lose your fear of it, not when you first pick up the saw, many of the elements in the story – from the bad shooting to the not bringing a good compass – happen after you’ve had enough success to think you’re too good for any of this.”

Yes, yes, and yes.

One of the most alarming moments I had in my life was when living in metro Connecticut and working as an office temp in a mega insurance company. In snowy weather, I bundled up in my parka and boots, trudged out to the car (which wore 4 snow tires), dug it out, warmed it up, slipped and slewed 20 backroad miles to work, and parked in an underground garage, then hiked into the building protected. Woo-hoo! Luxury! My boss, meanwhile, walked directly from her home into her garage, hit the automatic opener for her garage door and backed out (on 4 “all season” tires), had a slippy, slushy ride to work on the highway, parked in the same underground garage, and entered the building in her sidewalk flats, whining about the weather and dissing me for arriving a few minutes late. The gulf between our realities was so profound I couldn’t speak. Now, 30+ years later, I live on a dirt road in backcountry Vermont, and this gulf between realities is even wider.

Wholly agree with the author’s sentiment. The ‘news’ is big business, and some will use fear to sell it. As consumers, we should challenge the self-proclaimed experts. Alternately, one might find entertainment in watching the reporter get swept off the sea wall just after they instruct their audience to ‘shelter in place’.