March 3, 2024: While the Cat's Away

The squirrels will play. 

Our bobcat should have come by this week when the squirrels were here in abundance.  Focused on food and chasing each other away from their claimed food source, they might have been preoccupied enough to not notice a feline creeping up on them through the undergrowth.  

There seems to be a pecking order amongst gray squirrels.  The baddest dude gets to own the squirrel house where it can feast to its heart's content, protected from the elements.  

The king of the castle chases away anyone who attempts to breach the parapet.  

Meanwhile, the next biggest bully commandeers the hanging corn cob.

This number two in the chain of command thwarts all other lower-rung interlopers as well.

"Off you rascal!"

Lesser-ranked squirrels are left to scavenge from the dropped seeds under the feeders, which the white-breasted nuthatches ensure are plentiful, so no one actually goes hungry.

Even here, if one gets too close to the drop zone it gets chased away.

One new and interesting bird came briefly to the feeder this week:  a crossbill.  I didn't get a good look at it before it flew off to perch on a nearby tree, and from the backlit photos I can't tell which crossbill it is, but most likely it's a Red Crossbill.  

An expert ornithologist friend (thank you RB!) weighed in with some excellent guidance, but without a side view of its wings, it can't be positively identifed.  According the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, crossbills have evolved that peculiarly shaped bill to facilitate opening tightly closed cones: 

 "The Red Crossbill places the tips of its slightly open bill under a cone scale and bites down. The crossed tips of the bill push the scale up, exposing the seed inside." 

 Because of the crossed tips, biting down widens the gap between the tips.

Driving to the Page Pond Town Forest on Barnard Ridge Road, I saw that the pileated woodpeckers have been busy.

This woodpecker appears to be eating well.

You can't miss this tree if you approach the parking lot from the south.

The signs of frost season are everywhere now, including posted roads, tapped sugar maples, and frost-heaved ground such as on this trail at Page Pond.

Frost has heaved the ground up around this stone.

We are only three days into meteorological spring, but with so little cold this winter I expect the frost to come out early, as well as perhaps the ice in the lake.  Warm weather and rain this week may have done in the skiing, but it did create some great ice for skating.  I was able to make a complete circuit of the lake except for where the current flows down to the outlet.  There are still 11 inches of ice on the lake but there are many openings near shorelines with southern exposure or where water flows in, so be careful.  

On my skate I found Dean Cascadden on the lake sailing with his kitewing skate sail.

Dean with his Kitewing

He let me try it, and it's pretty neat.  It looks like a new toy will be on my wish list for next winter!

If we really get the warm stretch forecast for next week, those squirrels may be forced to find their own food as the feeders might need to come in for the season to avoid attracting bears.  It used to be the bears slept until April, but spring is coming early these days.  

Open water in February.