Life Behind Bars & A Case of Severe Winter Blues

It seems that everyone had something to say about the last winter. 
Too cold. 
Too much snow.. 
Too long ...

Wonderful....
Great skiing ...Expensive though....
Hard to drive .....
Gloomy.....

Whatever.

For me it was a cloudy, cheerless winter behind bars. 
All kinds of them. 
It must have been the same for the birds and other animals.
Nobody but a couple of brave flickers showed up. The yard, usually dotted by animal tracks slept soundly under a thick blanket of snow. So did the bird feeder; perched there, on the top of the patio like a white ghost, the seeds going to waste.

It seemed that the only fun could be doing some macro of the snow and frost.
This is the window of our camper - from the inside! If only I washed it in the Fall.

Frost on the patio railing - basically the top of the fluffy snow after a very cold night. I discovered that I am not brave enough for winter photography! Stacking old lenses in reverse to get an extreme macro is fun - in the warmth of a study, not on a frozen patio. Oh, crybaby!

But, finally, the sun cleared the low winter horizon. 

And icicles begun to melt, turning to a more acceptable state. To me at the least. 

No more bars, life is back the grass will spring and the birds too, will soon return.

And it won't take long for us to complain about the weather being ...

... well ... too hot ... too mucky....too ...you know.

Two COYOTES and One MEADOW VOLE

"Three Is Company!" 

Really? Let's see.

It is the end of January.
Most of British Columbia is covered by snow and the temperatures are well below zero Celsius.

Pacing the hard crust of the snow-covered meadow there is a lonely coyote. Its empty stomach is growling the hunger song.

That's ONE.






But the seemingly lonely coyote is not alone!


Underneath the white blanket of hard snow grow grasses and many other plants. And hidden among the roots are grubs, bugs and all kinds of other edibles - perhaps not yummy to us but definitely tasty to an army of mice and voles. Their tunnels and travel trails, well covered and insulated by the snow, have transformed the meadow into a secret maze.




Much is going on underneath that cold, shimmering cover.

And the coyote knows it.

Its super sensitive ears, its nose and the sharp eyes allow it to sense what and where is going on under there. It has spied a sign of life, warm-blooded life, a busy mouse or a distracted meadow vole. That could appease its empty stomach!

The coyote knows exactly what to do! Listen, pounce, dig, grab, toss! Be fast!



Now there are TWO. Coyote and a Meadow Vole.

The vole knows that it is in trouble. It bites and it tries to dig under the snow and it nearly succeeds. But the crust is just too hard and the coyote too hungry and too powerful. The vole finds itself being grabbed by the tail and, over and over again, tossed up into the air. 

Did they not tell us all NOT TO PLAY WITH FOOD?!?
But this is not a game.

It is an effort not to get hurt by the sharp little teeth and the already bleeding vole is loosing its stamina to fight. But just as the coyote seems to be ready for lunch there is another, larger animal, charging onto the scene.

THREE is company!

The vole is allowed to fall and so is the first coyote's tail. That looks like a sign of submission, 

The second one rushes forward, grabs the rodent and ....the game is ending.

 The vole is on its journey to become a coyote!

Now there are only TWO.

They part their ways leaving us with ONE. After a while it too walks away.

The meadows are silent, the dusk is setting in and the temperature is crawling to minus ten.

One fed, one hungry, one dead. Three was a company. If only for a very short while.

It is end of January, the beginning of the coyote mating season (February - April). We could not tell if the two animals were of the same or opposite sex and/or if their behavior was somehow related to the season.Two days after our sighting we saw another pair in a different location. 

The Limping GOOSE and an Angry MUSKRAT

One late October evening, I sat at the edge of Kootenay River, observing geese and ducks preening their feathers for the last time of that day. One of the geese, I noticed, was badly limping.

"A coyote got you," I though, "luckily not quite... better be more careful next time!" With that I said good night and went home.

A couple days later I returned, hoping that this time I might get a glimpse of the coyote as well. But then I got distracted by something else. Next to the river's edge is a small pond. It is quite shallow, a swampy body of water, overgrown by aquatic plants and reeds. And in that pond (or swamp) lives a small and fearless creature who taught me a neat lesson that I will attempt to convey:

The master and a hero of the swampy pond is a furry muscrat (Ondatra zibethicus).

The name is hardly suitable for a brave creature like him. 
(I have no idea if it is he or she so I will say "him").
For he is not a rat! He is a ....well ... a rodent, related to mice but he is not as insignificantly tiny as a mouse or even a rat! He can weigh a kilo and a half!
AND, he is amphibious, OK? So give him a break with that "rat" thing!

The "musk" in the muskrat is justified though. He produces this amazingly wonderful perfume to let his female friends know that he is ready for a date AND to let his male competitors know that this is HIS territory.



They might not like his advertising and show up anyway - to pick up a vicious fight to see if they can drive him away.

Not so easy!

But the ladies like him and produce their own musky perfume to let him know that. So at the end all his patrolling and fighting might prove to be worth the while.

If all works well, the muskrat builds a lodge, a castle for the family! It piles reeds in the shallow water and then, diving underneath it gnaws and scratches away the debris and mud until there is a nice and safe underwater entry-way leading into a beautifully dry living room that is located just above the water level. 
And all that is safely covered by the reeds and mud. 

A lot of hard, hard work!



There, in safety and the warmth, the young muskrats are born.


Thinking of all that work and worry, it is no wonder that the muskrat patrols its territory with an utmost care.
Dare to come closer to see for yourself!
That smudge of a creature swimming by the feeding platform is our brave muskrat and as you can see he is on a mission!

A small group of Canada geese just decided to explore his pond.

The muskrat wastes no time in taking off! 

He must show them whose swamp that is! He is fast and furious and the geese seem to understand that. They all swim for the safety of the shore. But swimming is not fast enough; they must take to wing. That's how fast he can swim, his long flat tail serving as a propeller and a rudder at the same time.

The have reached the shore in time. Almost all of them, except for one. 
He furiously snaps at the bird's leg, just as the goose is lifting off, missing by only millimeters, his furry body half way out of the water as he is trying to snap madly at the unwelcome guest. 

I am at awe. 

A limping goose!

And a coyote?

Not so. 

By the time I am able to process my thoughts, the geese are flying away and the muskrat, all adrenaline, is celebrating in the middle of the pond. 
He just sits there, tail up in victory, watching, listening, smelling ..... looking at ME.

And I am just happy to watch him from the safety of a high, sturdy bank.