This week in the woods, a paw print, claw marks, and scat all come from black bears, which enter a period of increased feeding activity called hyperphagia in the fall. We are most likely to see them in the coming months, when they travel miles in a single day to forage and store fat in preparation for the winter; if they fail to gain sufficient weight, they will delay hibernation and continue feeding as late as mid-January. Front footprints like this one, found in Corinth, Vermont, are broader than they are long, and in soft earth like this streambed, claw indentations show up just in front of the five toe marks. Black bear scat varies significantly by season and food source and can be a near-liquid pile or coil or solid and cylindrical but is usually dark brown and shows evidence of an omnivorous diet – hair, insect husks, fruit seeds, grasses, and/or nut fragments. With twice as much protein and fat as white oak acorns, beechnuts are an essential food, and their production in the fall closely correlates with bears’ reproductive success in the spring. The spread of beech bark disease in the last century – and more recently of beech leaf disease – means fewer big, weight-bearing, nut-producing American beech trees in the region. Productive trees, with bear scratches showing repeated climbing, are important resources for wildlife and worth maintaining in your woodlot.
Black bears predate newborn fawns and small mammals and eat carrion but get most of their animal protein from insects, including grasshoppers, which are now at their most sizable and abundant. The red-legged grasshopper, one of the most common species in New England, belongs to the “short-horned” group, also known as locusts. Unlike the mostly nocturnal long-horned group (which includes crickets and katydids), short-horned grasshoppers sing, feed, and move about during the day. As Meghan McCarthy McPhaul describes in this Outside Story article, males “sing” to attract females by rubbing a portion of their hind leg against their outer wing. After mating takes place in fall, females lay their eggs underground or under bark, and the eggs overwinter and hatch in spring.
In West Fairlee, Vermont, this common snapping turtle hatchling (photographed by Ann Little) ambled across a road on its way to a pond; its determined eyes shone wetly through the sandy soil from its nest that still clung to its skin. In May or June, its mother would have traveled ashore to lay 20 to 30 round, white eggs. Two thirds of the way through the 9 to 12 weeks of incubation, nest temperature determined the embryos’ sex: 84 degrees Fahrenheit or above for females, 80 and below for males, or either way when between these levels. If the mother lays the eggs late or the summer runs cool, the young may spend the winter in the nest, either unhatched or hatched. Otherwise, hatchlings crawl from the nest and head for the nearest body of water, sometimes as far as a quarter mile away. Nesting mothers never return to their nests, and the young turtles navigate without parental guidance, seeking water by instinct and a general inclination to move downhill. Being so small (under two inches long), slow (even by turtle standards), and with soft shells, vulnerable hatchlings face danger from predators (crows, herons, raptors, foxes, coyotes, mink, and even bullfrogs and adult snapping turtles). As indicated by this turtle’s siblings that didn’t make it across the pavement (not pictured), new turtles also have a high risk of road mortality. It might seem miraculous that this species is so common considering that predators destroy more than three-quarters of nests before eggs even hatch and the additional factors of habitat loss, pollution, and illegal harvesting; indeed, according to one study, the probability of a snapping turtle embryo surviving to sexual maturity is less than one tenth of a percent. Yet, these “living fossils” from the Cretaceous Period have outlasted the dinosaurs and remain a common sight. They will see out the coming cold either insulated by snow in their nest or burrowed into the muck beneath ice, absorbing oxygen through their throat and cloaca linings.
Kalm’s lobelia, also called brook lobelia, blooms through September in moist, calcareous soils along waterways, bogs, seepages, and other wet areas. The petite purple or pale blue blossom has a white central area on the throat, as if a target for pollinators, and the broad, three-lobed lower lip sticks out in pouty fashion below the narrow, double-lobed, bunny-ear-like upper lip.
What have you noticed in the woods this week? Submit a recent photo for possible inclusion in our monthly online Reader Photo Gallery.