Category: wildlife

Over the last few days we’ve noticed a very strong skunk smell in the house, so strong that Aimee thought we had a skunk living in the house – I hope not. Today Aimee got a text from our neighbour, Lisa, to inform us that a skunk had shuffled off ‘is mortal coil next to our house. I checked tonight and indeed a poor skunk had met her/his demise in a shallow trench next to our house.

Today in day light I took a better look and it looked like the poor thing had a broken rear leg so I suspect it had been hit by a car and either crawled or was picked up and thrown there. I moved him/her to a sunny spot, put them the right way up and will let nature take it’s course. Apart from the stink, they are pretty cute animals. Hope it didn’t suffer.

We saw one last night at our small socially distanced bbq. Never even heard of the Luna moth before and probably won’t ever see one again.

The life cycle of theses moths is:

Life stages are approximately two weeks as eggs, 6–7 weeks as larvae, nine months as pupae, finishing with one week as winged adults appearing in late May or early June

Seems a shame the moths only live a week and according to Wikipedia the adults don’t even eat. Anyway it was a treat to see this large and slow flying flamboyant moth.

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I was working on the back door and a bird feeder this evening and the light kept on fluttering. I thought it was just a big moth, and then I looked up to see this bat sailing back and forth across the room. It was silent and unlike a bird it didn’t crash into any windows or walls. It was quite big maybe the size of a starling. I tried to look it up when I got home, but I have no idea what it was. I opened up the doors and I presume it flew out as I didn’t see it again.

We like watching bats in the early evening and as they eat mosquitoes we want as many as possible to live nearby. When we have time we will build a bank of bat boxes for the side of the house or for trees.

I like the look of the bat boxes at the end of this ‘Bat info pack’ and these would fit nicely up in the roof eaves.

This wasn’t the bat I saw, but the one I saw was just as cool.

While we were planting bulbs last week I noticed a large pile of wood chips beneath one of our hemlock trees; looked as if someone had been chopping logs with an axe. I looked up and noticed the 10 or so holes in the tree which I suspect were made by a pileated woodpecker.

Apart from the damage to the tree, it was pretty impressive work from the woodpecker and you can see that some of the wood chips are easily 3-4″ in length. I hope one day we can see the woodpecker in action. It’s a pretty big bird (crow sized) so it won’t be hard to spot.

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Vultures aren’t native to the UK so it’s pretty cool to see them soaring over our house. We have cliffs a stone throw from us where they nest. Today I saw a vulture tucking into a dead squirrel on our block. It didn’t seem to mind me getting close or even cars passing feet from it. A lot of the locals were interested as well so may be not that common.

As we have a lot of turkey vultures I thought it might be an immature turkey vulture but it was in fact a black vulture. Turns out that turkey vultures can smell their prey up to a mile away, but black vultures aren’t so good at that so they fly above the turkey vultures and pinch some of their prey.

Incidentally black vultures are new to New York state, only starting to nest here in the 90’s (Nine things to know about the black vulture).

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From the fresh dirt trailing from this hole, we suspect the marmot is spring cleaning. Be cool if they have a litter. I’m hoping they don’t go messing with the foundations though as this new hole is under the rear deck that we recently pulled up (below the white plastic picket fence in the “Going, going, gone” post).

Here is a good wiki article about Marmots.

I also found some old picks, when I first spotted the hole as I was removing the deck and a hole under one of our foundation walls.

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Aimee spotted a lovely little snake in the garden. We think it was the common garter snake which is non-poisonous and docile. About two foot long and as wide as your thumb.

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We have identified our critter which lives in the borrows out back. I arrived this morning and spotted some movement. I stopped for a while and then I spotted what looked like a marmot. It was above ground for about thirty seconds before bolting underground. It may well be a groundhog but I’m going to call it a marmot as I like that name better. It did look very cute and we will endeavour to remain on best terms.

I don’t think this was the pooper though, I suspect that was cats of which I have viewed many on some of my time lapse.

For more info visit: marmots deserve to be heard.