Saturday, July 3, 2010

New resident? Groundhog





I think this is a new groundhog who has taken up residence in the holes on the east side of the berm. The holes had seemed disused for some time but this little guy was out there the other day making himself at home.

I saw some scat the other day that looked like it was perhaps from a coyote. It was black and full of fur and about the size of a dog's scat. I saw a coyote a couple of weeks ago not a mile west along Huntclub so they are certainly about. Hopefully they come by and take a few of the meadow voles. I have caught glimpses of the voles too often to not be sure that they are plentiful. I don't often get a good view of them though , I just see the little brown ball streaking across a bit of ground before it disappears into the grass. I learned though that the voles can be vocal. They make a high pitched squeek when they are disturbed by something. The other day I heard this high pitched squeek in the grass as I was walking through the square, when I came back to investigate I found a ball of grass about the size of my palm that turned out to be a nest of mice. There were 5 mostly hairless blind voles in the nest. Three of them came away in the covering when I removed the roof of the nest. I put them back and they seemed to be ok. 3 of them squiggled into the grass and the remaining 2 seemed to be asleep. When I came back a few hours later they were all gone. hopefully the mother had made a new nest for them.

No comments:

Post a Comment