November 17, 2019: The Foxes found the Apple Tree

There were more beautiful pre-winter scenes on display this week, courtesy of an early cold snap.

A frozen Beaver Pond in the Hamlin Conservation Area

Thankfully there were also some nice fall days to finish off the pre-season yard work before the real stuff arrives.  The lakes and the hills of Meredith provide abundant opportunities to soak in the beauty.

Perhaps all this early cold weather is preserving the apples that have fallen on the ground because the foxes and coyotes have found them still good enough to eat.

Fresh scat filled with apple left as a calling card in the middle of the trail.

Hundreds of apple trees were abandoned in the Lakes Region when the settlers vacated their farms to move west and many of them still produce fruit.   And then there are local farms that maintain either reclaimed or newly-planted orchards.  I expect the foxes know them all.

A few weeks ago the fox's diet was more protein-based than fruit-based as indicated by the amount of fur in this scat from October.

This October scat is loaded with hair.

But soon enough most plant material will be gone and the canines - as well as weasels, felines, and raptors - will all be living off of small animals.  Winter is a tough time to be a rodent.

Duck season peaks in the Lakes Region in November with many migrating birds stopping on our lakes to fuel up during their travels south.  There have been rafts of over a dozen mallards.

17 mallards ply the waters of Lake Wicwas.

They like to dabble along the shorelines, finding things to eat on the bottom.  Under the category of "you learn something every day" I discovered that mallards - and other ducks - eat acorns.

For a late evening snack, a couple of male mallards partake of acorns from an oak that hangs over the lake.

Diving ducks such as Hooded Mergansers tend to travel in smaller groups, often only just a pair.  Mergansers take much shorter dives than loons, usually less than 15 seconds, though they are just as adept at catching fish, as this female proved.

Mrs. Merganser comes up with a fish.

She had to work on it for quite a while before she was willing to swallow it.

Playing with her food before she swallows it whole.

I never realized just how much control a male hooded merganser has over its hood.

From a highly elongated hood.

All

the way

down

to a low, rounded hood. 

Stokes & Stokes don't have mergansers in their three-volume book of bird behavior, but I expect the male merganser uses this ability to communicate a range of signals to other birds.


Back on land I was a bit surprised to see a fresh deer rut in the snow this week, but I guess the deer are still in mating season.

A fresh rut in the thin snow.

Be aware that hunting season is in full swing now through December 8th, so be sure to wear bright clothing when in the woods.

We were also treated to the full harvest moon (or beaver moon in some circles) this week.

"Because I'm still in love with you
on this Harvest Moon"
(Neil Young)

It was just another moment in the ongoing art show that nature provides us, free of charge, just for the looking.

Journal Note:  I have started uploading to the nature journal photographs of the flora and fauna living around Lake Wicwas.  I started with mammals and will work my way through birds, amphibians, etc. over the coming weeks.  My goal is to have a record of the plants and animals I've observed around the lake.  You can find them in the tabs underneath the main photo on the home page.