The abrupt end of one meadow vole.

More snow today. We have had quite a lot of snow this winter which makes a change from the last two winters. One unfortunate side effect of deep snow is that the white plastic spirals that protect the trees from the meadow voles aren't as effective. In the below photo you can see a meadow vole has almost completely girdled a maple tree just above where the plastic spiral stopped. A warm spell in January had given a hard crust to the snow, then a later snowfall gave the voles something to tunnel through at this new surface. This photograph was taken at the end of January when another warm spell revealed their pathways. Some of them were only market out by the dirt from their feces. In the photo below the dark specks of dirt on the snow around the trunk are feces from the meadow vole.

Not too far from this tree I spotted tracks that told a very clear story in my mind. In the first photo below you can see the tracks of a meadow vole as it was hopping over a fresh sprinkling of snow past a few grass stalks poking out of the snow. Suddenly its tracks stop at a place where there are a whole mess of confusing tracks. Looking more carefully in the second photo below there are a few specks of bright red. Somebody caught the poor guy and whoever caught it must have flown there. You can see what are clearly the mark of the bird's broad tail and the marks of its feet. About 10 feet from this spot in the third photograph are the marks of a large bird's tail as it brushed the snow. The story that comes to me is of a meadow vole scampering along in the dark over the fresh fallen snow when an owl perched 50m away in the bushes spots it. It launches itself and glides in low over the snow. It caught the vole before the little guy even knew it was there and dispatched him on the spot before taking off to feed at a more secure location. I would bet the bird was an owl as a vole is quite unlikely to be out in the open like that except at night, the most likely candidate being a Barred Owl as I know they are about because I saw one this winter in the Stoney Swamp.

As a bonus, here is a Youtube video of a meadow vole behaving quite strangely in broad daylight. This isn't my video but I saw a meadow vole behave like this several years ago on the berm. It just rested in broad daylight on top of the snow as I passed quite close by on my skis. I didn't have my camera with me that day or else I would have had plenty of opportunity to get a good closeup of the fellow.

Turkey Tracks in Snow

There is no mistaking the evidence that wild turkeys visited the berm area in the past couple of days. In the image below you can compare the turkey track with the smaller tracks of a crow. Their tracks in the snow are at least twice as wide as a crow's and it is easy to see the individual toe marks.

I have very rarely seen a turkey fly as they mostly get around by walking. I followed the tracks of the one that landed below as he walked with his friend along the berm from the 2009 planting to the 2010 planting. I wonder if they continued on and visited Ben Franklin Wood.

This is the first time I've seen wild turkey tracks in Manordale. Wild turkeys were only introduced to eastern Ontario about 20 years ago and Ottawa about 12 years ago. This area is north of their historic range but they have been very successful so far.

Winter Rabbit tracks

The temperatures plunged this week from above freezing on the weekend down to around -30C. This with a dusting of new snow made it an excellent time to go looking for tracks on the berm. There were a whole load of fresh crow tracks in among the 95 trees. It must have been a whole flock of them giving the forest a good picking over. There were also a few rabbit tracks.

The picture above shows heavy browsing on an apple tree by a rabbit. This apple tree is rather bushy because it is just the regrowth from the root stock after a crabapple tree fell down a couple of years ago. I find it incredible the number of pellets he produced. The snow fell a couple of days ago so this pile is just from the past two days. I followed the tracks of another rabbit through the woods and he also was passing a huge number of pellets. Every few feet along his track there would be another pellet. And it was clear this was just one rabbit; the track was wandering around so much it couldn't be the pellets on a rabbit run poking out of the snow. It is purely my speculation, but I believe the rabbit I was following wasn't actually feeding but was just out in the cold -20C degree weather to pass scat and would have quickly returned to his burrow afterwards. I located his burrow to be an old groundhog hole (in center of picture below) under a glossy buckthorn bush by the eastern path over the berm. Cottontails don't make their own holes but they aren't above using one if there is one available.

Last year there were hardly any rabbits overwintering on the berm. This year there seems to be at least two: one on the east side living in the old groundhog hole and another living along the fence behind Kelvin that occasionally visits the crabapple trees.

Squirrel tracks in snow

It is really starting to look like spring out there, at least on the south side of the berm. I even saw some small spiders crawling over the grass yesterday. I've been meaning to make a post on squirrel tracks in snow similar to the rabbit tracks post but I held off in hopes of getting a picture of a squirrel actually visiting the berm area. Frustratingly the squirrels haven't obliged. So before spring gets much further here is a picture I took earlier this winter of a squirrel's track he left as he hopped through a fresh dusting of snow.



Here is a photo I took last week of the north side of the berm. It is still winter on the north side and you can see the tracks of a dog, a squirrel and a rabbit running up and down the berm. You can clearly see the tracks the rabbit made as it ran up the hill (on the right). It puts its front paws one after another. The middle tracks are from the squirrel as it hopped through the fresh snow. The squirrel planted its front feet beside each other as it bounded over the snow. The tracks of the back feet are almost on top of the front feet prints leaving a much more compact set of tracks.

There haven't been that many squirrel tracks on the berm behind Kelvin this winter. There isn't much to eat except a few crabapples and I suspect the squirrels are mostly hanging out in backyards getting a free lunch at a bird feeder. I've been on the lookout for a squirrel or squirrel tracks along the berm for over a month, ever since I found squirrel remains where some predator caught himself a meal. There haven't been any squirrel sightings and few tracks. I've concluded that squirrels have been only infrequent visitors to the berm area. Rabbits have visited even less frequently, the above tracks being the first I've noticed heading towards the top of the berm in a long while.

Where are the winter rabbits?

I went for a walk today to see if I could find some rabbit tracks along the Hunt Club berm. I was quite surprised to find that except for close to the cedar hedge by Kimdale street there aren't any rabbit tracks visible along the berm east of Newhaven. There are some squirrel tracks but no rabbit trails. Rabbits often follow specific paths and it is interesting that no rabbits have chosen to live this winter along the berm. There are rabbit trails in the bushy area to the east of Kimdale.



Above is a picture of a rabbit trail among the cedars to the east of Kimdale. In the first picture the rabbit trail goes up and to the right in the picture. You can see some discoloration in the snow due to rabbit pee and a few rabbit pellets along the trail. You can't make out any particular rabbit tracks as the trail is so heavily used.



In the second picture above is a single rabbit track. Squirrel and rabbit tracks are very similar when viewed in isolation. The context of it being on a clear rabbit trail in association with rabbit pellets makes it very likely to be a rabbit track. In addition, rabbits tend to put their front paws one in front of the other parallel to the direction of travel while squirrels tend to put their front paws beside each other. In the above picture the rabbit was traveling away from the camera. When a rabbit is moving it puts its back feet down in front of where it planted its front feet.

One interesting thing about the second picture is the blue rabbit pee in the left paw print. According to the following link the blue pee is due to the rabbits eating buckthorn bushes.

coyote tracks in snow

Here is the track of a coyote that visited the berm area a few days ago. It walked along a ski trail heading towards the north-east corner of the triangle. I consulted the internet (link) to make sure it wasn't a dog track. The track is 2.375" long and 1.875" inches wide. You can see the X pattern that forms between the pads of the coyote track. For comparison below is the track of the dog (Irish Setter ?) of the person who commonly skis along the ski track. His or her track is 3.5" long and 2.875" wide. You can see that the dog's toes are more splayed out and the X pattern is less pronounced.



In addition to the shape and size another factor that helps confirm it is a coyote track is that the animal didn't wander around too much. The animal proceeded in a straight line heading directly towards the raspberry bushes in the corner even when the ski track turned away from the bushes. According to the internet, dogs tend to zig-zag and wander around more than coyotes.