Beavers, No Bears, Bright Birds, Give to the Max Day tomorrow - UPDATE November 16, 2022
Blue jay
Give To The Max Day - November 17 - click to donate!
The big day is almost here. Scott will start off the final Give to the Max day with a broadcast tonight (Nov. 16) at 11:30 PM. Tomorrow (Nov. 17) will be fun broadcasts throughout the day. Donna and I get to be part of it at 8 AM and 8 PM at the Bear Center.
Beaver and Lodge
Beaver and Lodge
I haven’t heard of a bear sighting in the Ely area for a week and a half or so. The last sighting in Eagles Nest Community that I know of was right here at the WRI on camera at 3:01 AM on November 4. We couldn’t see it well enough to know who it was.
Beaver action today was a beaver half standing, eating something on the ice near the lodge this evening. The path up the front of the lodge suggests they are still busy bringing mud to seal it for winter.
With the lake covered with ice and snow, no ducks are trudging up the hill for food.
Blue jays are still here, but only half as many as earlier. They are a bit erratic about migrating. Some do and some don’t, with no explanation as to what makes the difference for individuals from year to year. So I don’t know if these will stay or not. This jay sat in good light and glowed bright blue even though the pigment in their blue feathers is melanin, which is brown. From what I’ve read, tiny cells on the surface of the feather barbs contain air and keratin that somehow absorb all the colors of the wavelength except blue. Red-breasted nuthatch
Red-breasted nuthatch
The extensive gray on the underside is darker here near the northern edge of their range, lighter in the southern United States. The black necklace varies with individuals, which some say might help them identify each other.
Both red-breasted nuthatches and white-breasted nuthatches are coming. Red-breasted ones often become trusting enough to sit on your hand, but I’ve never had a white-breasted one do that. Willingness to trust is much more common among birds from the boreal forest north of here than it is of birds of the temperate forests to the south.
Thank you for all you do. See you tomorrow at 8 AM
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center