Moments ago (at 7:25am EST) Punxsutawney Phil emerged from hibernation, looked for his shadow, saw it(!) and told us we’ll have six more weeks of winter.  Amazing… considering how warm it’s been.

Every year Phil’s predictions are preceded by a week of partying and fireworks, and accompanied by much fanfare and ceremony.  Thousands attend the celebrations in person and by webcam.  It’s a formal occasion for Phil’s Inner Circle who wear bowties, top hats, greatcoats and gloves.

The gloves are useful.  Yes, it can be cold — it was 8 degrees in 2004 — but there’s a second reason.

Sometimes Phil is grumpy when he wakes up and it’s better for all concerned that he nip a glove instead of a hand.

I’m with ya, Phil.  I’m grumpy, too, before my first cup of coffee.

(photo of Punxsutawney Phil from the Groundhog Day website.  Click on the image to visit Phil’s website and read all about him.)

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p.s. No one had to wear gloves today.  Phil was not grumpy, but some folks in the crowd were quite grumpy about his prediction!

An unpleasant smell is coming from the crawl space under our kitchen sunroom.

I first noticed a hint of it on Wednesday evening but I couldn’t find the source though it seemed strongest in the basement.  Day after day the smell has increased until this morning it is noticeably putrid.  I think something died in there.  But what?

The only access to the crawl space is from inside our basement … unless you’re a mouse …  and that was the last known location of the mouse I couldn’t catch last month.  I thought he was in the heating duct but no, he was probably walking on the heating duct while collecting that pile of pink insulation you see in center of the photo.  That pile is new and unreachable by humans. No wonder he never found the trap I set upstairs.

When my mouse adventures began I put two snap traps in the crawl space but they went untouched for days.  I worried that my cat, Emmalina, would explore the crawl space so I removed the traps when I became convinced the mouse was inside the ductwork.

Since Thanksgiving I haven’t heard the mouse at all so I thought he was gone.  Dang!  I feel like I flunked Nature Observation.  I made up for my mistake this morning by again installing snap traps in case the mouse has friends.

So now the house smells bad when the furnace runs and my imagination is working overtime.  How long will it take for the smell to go away?  What if that smell is poop and not death?  What if the critter is still alive?  What if it’s a rat?

I have a feeling I’m going to buy way too much anti-rodent gear today.

(photo by Kate St. John)

p.s. That brown spot in front of the insulation is a rock, not a mouse.

Jonathan Nadle is fascinated by porcelain berry.  He wondered if his cat would be too.

I think it’s safe to say the cat did not catch Jonathan’s enthusiasm. 

Click on the photo of Larry Cat to see the very mild reaction of one imported species (Felis catus) examining another (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata).

(photos by Jonathan Nadle)

I think this applies to mice.

After your advice last week I put a peanut-butter-laden snap trap inside the ductwork at the only spot that’s flat.  Though it was rather far from the mouse’s last known location, he should have smelled it.  It was upwind.  Two days passed.  No mouse.

Saturday morning I was contemplating a change to my bait strategy when Emmalina took a deep interest in the kitchen heat vent again.  I lifted the vent cover and the unseen mouse immediately scrabbled deeper into the ductwork.  Aha!   He was near the top.

I wanted to use a snap trap but there’s no way to keep a healthy cat out of the kitchen.  The entry has no door to close and there’s a window pass-through to the dining room. 

So I erected an elaborate contraption which wouldn’t have been necessary if I didn’t have a cat.  I took off the vent cover, put a snap trap near the opening and covered all of it with a cardboard box.  I taped the box to the floor, not because I feared the mouse would escape, but because I knew Emmalina would overturn the box if I didn’t nail it down. 

We waited.

Sunday morning Emmalina was sleeping on my lap when we heard the mouse climbing up the vent.  I froze to wait.  She jumped into action.

The mouse kept making noise until Emmy danced on top of the box and tried to dig everything away from the wall.  He scrabbled back into the vent and now, 24 hours later, we have not heard him since. 

This morning I again peeled the blue painter’s tape from the box seam and checked inside.  Nothing.

Am I too impatient or is it time for a new strategy that’s less prone to error?

I don’t know how to compensate for the observer effect.

(photos by Kate St. John)

Monday morning, 5:30am:  I am sitting in the kitchen “mainlining” a cup of coffee when a very small scratchy noise attracts my cat’s attention.  I don’t hear it but I can tell from her reaction that we have trouble. 

Emmalina is in hunting mode, completely alert, ears pointed forward, stalking the heat vent under the kitchen table.  I put my head under the table and now I hear it too.  Aaarrrggg!  There’s a mouse in the ductwork.

I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. 

Emmalina had been giving me hints about this critter for more than a week.  She spent extra time in the basement and came upstairs wreathed in cobwebs with that hunting glow in her eyes.  I suspected she was tracking a mouse so I laid traps (safely out of her reach) where I thought a mouse might be, but I never caught anything.  Neither did Emmalina.  Instead she stared at the ductwork crisscrossing the basement ceiling.  I was too dense to figure out why.

All of this transpired while the weather was warm and the furnace was barely running.  This morning the temperature is near freezing and the heat is on. 

Warm air wafts through the kitchen.  Emmalina pauses to sniff the air.  Scent of mouse?  Fortunately I can’t smell it… yet.

So now what?  Should I seal the outside of the house with the mouse indoors?  Is it wise to put peanut butter laiden traps inside the vents?  Can I lure the mouse out of the vents… and how?  Will it die in the ductwork and make the whole house stink?

This is an opportunity for crowdsourcing.  Dear readers, your advice?

(photo by Kate St. John)

While walking home in the rain last night I saw a brown lump on an oak tree in Schenley Park.

Only a foot off the ground and smaller than the palm of my hand I thought it was a mushroom — until I got close.

It was a little brown bat and he was sleeping.

Without any experience in identifying bats my guess is that he was the most common bat in Pennsylvania, quite literally a “little brown bat,” Myotis lucifugus, whose scientific name means “mouse-ear light-fleeing.”

I didn’t want to wake him so I held my umbrella over my cell phone and took his picture from three feet away.

Even in this distant photo you can see his folded wing on the right and his tiny brown ears pointing down.  Remember, he’s upside down so his ears are at the bottom.  Click here to see what this species looks like up close.

Since bats eat flying insects their food supply disappears during Pennsylvania winters so they must hibernate or migrate to survive.  This little guy has spent the last few months fattening up and mating in preparation for hibernation.  Soon he will adjourn to a damp cave or abandoned mine shaft to hibernate with his fellows in a place that stays above freezing.

Interestingly, if this one is female she will store the male’s sperm in her uterus all winter, fertilize one egg in the spring and give birth to a single baby in late May or early June.

But that’s a long way down the road.  Halloween is over.  It’s time to find a cave.

I don’t expect to see this bat on the oak tree today.  But I will check.

(photo by Kate St. John)

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UPDATE Nov 1:  Alas! The bat was there this morning.  He’s dead, though I didn’t touch him to make sure.  Theory: He’s perched right next to a busy road.  Perhaps he was hit by a car and still mobile enough to roost but too injured to live.  Alas!

UPDATE Nov 2:  I saw a bat flying in Schenley Park this evening.  Maybe my bat still lives!

UPDATE Nov 4: I saw a bat flying in Greenfield tonight at dusk. I never noticed them this late before.

Lynne Wohleber’s feeder is exactly the right size to hold this one.

Sooooo cute!

(“Bird of Fur” photo by Lynne Wohleber)

Welcome to October.

What a difference a day makes!  Yesterday’s high in Pittsburgh was nearly 60^oF with a strong wind from the southwest but today it will be in the 40′s, the low in the upper 30′s, winds from the north and rain.  The next good flying weather for migrating birds won’t be until Tuesday.

Meanwhile, if you watch your bird feeders you’re sure to see hungry squirrels.  This weather reminds them they don’t have much time left to store food for the winter.

Look closely at your squirrels and you’ll see their fur is changing from brown to gray so they’ll be camouflaged in the snow.  Their tails change first, as you can see on this squirrel posing near Marcy Cunkelman’s feeder.

Posing? Hah! He’s waiting for her to stop looking at him so he can pounce on the peanuts.

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)

When European settlers came to North America, elk (also called wapiti) ranged in the eastern U.S. from northern New York to central Georgia but we cleared the forest and hunted the elk, reducing their habitat and numbers until Pennsylvania’s last native herd died out by 1877. 

In 1913 the Game Commission reintroduced elk from the Rocky Mountains to their last known location in north central Pennsylvania.  The herd, now centered in Benezette, Elk County, remained small until the late 20th century.  Since then they’ve expanded in Cameron, Clearfield, Clinton and Centre counties as well. 

Elk prefer forest edges and open meadows.  In summer they eat grass and flowering plants; in winter, leaves, bark and twigs. 

These animals are huge.  The males are 25% larger than the females and can weigh up to 1,100 pounds.  They stand 50-60 inches tall at the shoulder and their antlers can span five feet.  This headgear is heavy, up to 25 pounds. 

Bulls grow new antlers every year.  They shed them in February and March and begin to regrow them immediately up to an inch per day.  To give you a sense of this rapid growth, these antlers are only four to five months old.  Wow!

Right now the elk herd is dispersed.  The cows went off alone in June to give birth to their single calves.  The males, meanwhile, are wandering and grazing.  The herd will meet up in the fall for the breeding season, called the rut.

If you want to see Pennsylvania’s elk herd, plan a trip to Benezette in September or October when the bulls will be bellowing and jousting to see who can claim the most and best cows.

Will you see this particular bull when you go?  If you do, don’t get this close!   He’s going to be in a fractious mood.

His photographer, Paul Staniszewski, saw him only two days ago in Benezette.  Paul has years of experience photographing elk and even he was surprised by this close approach.  As he says, “I have been trying to photograph an elusive bull elk known locally as “Attitude” and I finally got an opportunity yesterday [July 6].  I was about 20 feet away when I snapped this photo and he continued to walk toward me to about 5 feet away.  I could have touched him… Scary stuff… ”

As Paul said, “You can see in his face why they call him “Attitude.”

For a slideshow and information on Pennsylvania elk, see Paul Staniszewski’s website and the links on his web page. 

(photo by Paul Staniszewski)

Not very often, and there’s a reason. 

Chipmunks are very territorial.  They really don’t like each other except as babies or juveniles who just left the nest.

I’ve seen chipmunks chase each other and tussle but they’re so fast that I can’t tell what they’re doing.  

Last weekend Shawn Collins had his camera ready when two chipmunks went after each other.  And, yes, they were so fast it was hard to get a clear shot. 

Look at this flash of fur!  Ow!

Soon it was over and the loser ran away.

The victor remained for a parting portrait, the tumble of battle visible on his fur.

Cute? 

Not to another chipmunk!

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(photos by Shawn Collins)