Signs of Spring - UPDATE April 4, 2022
Deer tense and alert
Deer - tense and alert
Snow is melting slowly with temperatures reaching the low 40’s by day but refreezing overnight. The fast melt comes with temperatures reaching the 50’s by day and remaining above-freezing overnight. I suspect we’ll see that in a week or so.
A couple days ago "Pooch Pal" caught a nice 8 minute and 20 seconds video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjA_SVmX6EE of Chucky out doing what you’d expect when melting snow reveals vegetation, even though it is not the delectable young sprouts that will burst up in a month or so.Redpoll - 3/31/22
Redpoll - on 3/31/22
Today, there is a sharp difference at the WRI. The air is no longer aflutter with hundreds of wings. The redpolls are gone. Not a single one all day. Will they be back like when they fooled me into thinking they had gone north earlier? Or is this the real move like I think it is. Time will tell. The picture is a remembrance from a couple days ago.
But deer made up in biomass what the redpolls took away—15 deer, which is more than I’ve seen for awhile. I don’t know what brought the surge. After most of them left, I saw this deer Woodchuck Chucky
Woodchuck "Chucky"
looking very alert and tense with its white rump and tail hairs all bristled and occasionally stomping a foot as it followed a sound with its ears. I looked and looked in the slowly changing direction the deer was listening. Apparently it was nothing dangerous because I couldn’t see a wolf or coyote or bobcat and the deer eventually flicked its tail back and forth saying that everything is okay and calmly turned and walked away with its white hairs relaxed and normal.
Thank you for all you do,
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
