Outside My Window

In 1902 Rudyard Kipling answered How the Leopard Got His Spots.

According to Kipling, the Ethiopian and the Leopard originally hunted on the High Veldt where they and their prey matched the plain, sandy landscape.  Their prey moved to the forest but when the Ethiopian and Leopard followed them there, the animals they hunted were camouflaged while they “show[ed] up in this dark place like a bar of soap in a coal-scuttle.”  They couldn’t catch a thing.

“The long and the little of it is that we don’t match our backgrounds” said the Ethiopian, so he changed the color of his skin and offered to help Leopard change too. ”The Ethiopian put his five fingers close together (there was plenty of black left on his new skin still) and pressed them all over the Leopard, and wherever the five fingers touched they left five little black marks, all close together.” 

So, says Kipling, that’s how the Leopard got his irregular spots.  And why?  He needed camouflage in the forest.

More than 100 years have passed.  Can science support this story?

Last week the BBC reported on a new study that confirmed Kipling’s “why,” but not his “how.” 

Using mathematical models, scientists analyzed the pattern complexities of wild cats’ coats and correlated the complexity levels to the cats’ lifestyles.

Do wild cats have spots and stripes for social reasons?  Do the patterns attract mates or repel rivals?  No.  The models showed that cats living in trees and at low light levels are the most likely to have complex and irregular coat patterns.  Notice how the tree-dwelling leopard’s spots are similar to the dappled leaves behind him.

Which brings me to a cat I know very well.  She is not wild, she does not live in trees, and she doesn’t have to operate at low light levels.  Nevertheless Emmalina has four colors on her coat (white, beige, taupe and black) in an irregular pattern of blotches and stripes. 

In our house we’ve learned this pattern makes her disappear when crouched on the kitchen counter, an amazing adaptation for modern life.

(leopard photo from Wikimedia Commons.  Emmalina’s photo by Kate St. John.)

Gray squirrels are, of course, gray — that’s how they got their name — but did you ever notice that in the summer they’re actually rather brown?

From March through June gray squirrels molt into a brown or tawny pelage that blends well with their summertime surroundings.  Then in September and October they molt again, this time into paler, grayer winter coats so they’re ready when the cold winds blow.  My backyard squirrels are making this change but their faces and ears are still brown. 

Lately I’ve seen the squirrels on frequent caching expeditions up and down the street because my neighbor has a prolific black walnut tree.  I’m sure the squirrels are burying walnuts but I only see evidence that they’re eating them.  They leave behind little piles of broken shells and a permanent black stain on the cement.

I wish they wouldn’t pick my front steps for their walnut feasts but I can understand their urgency. 

Winter’s coming.  It’s enough to turn a squirrel’s hair gray.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons.  Click the photo to see the original.)

Yesterday afternoon I took a walk in Schenley Park to see what I could find. 

There weren’t many birds – just a flock of robins, some grackles and blue jays, one brown creeper, and a single confusing fall warbler – but what was lacking in birds was made up by this very cute mammal. 

Chipmunks were everywhere, scrabbling through dead leaves, cramming nuts in their cheeks and shouting as they ran to escape my approach.  My goodness they were busy!

Despite their apparent playfulness chipmunks are actually very territorial.  Except when they’re babies they live alone, one per burrow, and defend that burrow against all chipmunks.  They threaten, they shout, they chase each other everywhere.  And they look so cute while they’re doing it.

By the end of my walk I was sorry I hadn’t counted chipmunks, just for fun. 

Was it an illusion or were there more chipmunks than birds?

(photo by Brian Herman)

There’s a place on the Park Loop Road at Acadia National Park where people often stop to look at Bear Brook Pond.  When a tour bus stops it attracts attention and many cars stop too.  People wonder, “What are they looking at?”  It isn’t a bear.

Bear Brook Pond, nestled against the flank of Champlain Mountain, is also called Beaver Dam Pond for good reason.  Near its far edge is a huge mound of sun-bleached sticks that’s an unusual sight for most of Acadia’s visitors.  It’s even unusual to me.

In southwestern Pennsylvania we have beavers but we don’t have many ponds.  Our beavers tend to make their homes in creek and river banks, usually around the roots of overhanging trees.   One such place is at the big bend in Raccoon Creek at the Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve.  Over the years the beavers have felled the trees on the floodplain and dragged them into a pile in the creek below an overhanging tree.  It’s not a lodge in the classic sense but it serves their purpose. 

Every time I visit the Wildflower Reserve I’m amazed at the changes to the beavers’ home.  During floods the creek piles more debris against their construction or it sweeps part of their home away.  This undoubtedly keeps them busy all the time but I never see them.  They work at night.

Which brings me back to Acadia.  Though beavers are nocturnal, there are always a few cars stopped at the pond and people standing by the road hoping to see them.  I have never seen a beaver there — I always show up at the wrong time — but I stop too.  Maybe some day I’ll see one as close as in this photo. 

(photo from Wikimedia Commons of a beaver in Canada.  Click the photo to see the original)

Let me start by saying that in 17 years of hiking alone I have only once seen a bear in the wild. 

Granted, I have not been looking for them, but now it seems that I stand a better chance of seeing a black bear in my own city neighborhood than out in the woods.

Bears have been big news in Pittsburgh for the past two weeks.  At this time of year teenage bears leave home for the first time (mama bear pushes them out so she can start her next family).  They’re on the move, have no idea where to go, and are looking for a place to call home. 

What’s unusual is that two or more of them are roaming the city and suburbs of Pittsburgh.  Bears have been seen in Tarentum, Natrona Heights, Brentwood, Baldwin, Overbrook and Frick Park.  They’ve been seen so frequently that the Game Commission has set traps for them and my friend, Wildlife Conservation Officer Beth Fife, showed how the traps work on KDKA.  (Beth is also the one who bands the peregrine falcon chicks.  She’s a busy lady!)

But the big news for me occurred in the early hours of Wednesday morning — 3:30am — when my neighbors called the cops on a bear at Magee Field.

I know what that bear was up to. 

I’m a neighborhood cleanup volunteer for Magee Field and I can tell you it’s a black bear’s dream.  There’s a lot of garbage in open barrels and no one gets in your way.  Don’t show up early, though.  There are ball games at the Field until 10:00pm and some nights the drinkers — who happen to be garbage generators – hang out on the bleachers, drinking and eating and leaving a lot of food behind. 

The best way to catch a bear, as Beth will tell you, is with jelly donuts.  During my garbage roundups I’ve found pizza, sandwiches, chips and, yes, donuts.  No wonder the bear stopped by.

So I’m taking Beth’s advice.  I’ve pulled in my bird feeders and will keep my garbage bag indoors until the morning of Garbage Pickup Day. 

City or country the message is the same:  Don’t feed the bears!

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Early Sunday morning as I left the house I saw a mammal trot across the street and head up the hillside at the end of the block. 

What was that?  It looked like a small pig with a long tail. 

A prehensile tail, to be exact. It was a Virginia opossum and it appeared to be pregnant, “Virginia” and “pregnant” being two inaccurate words to describe it.

Virginia opossums were named by Europeans arriving on the East Coast.  In reality, opossums range east of the Rockies from Central America to Canada.  People also introduced opossums on the West Coast (what were they thinking!?!).   So “Virginia” is a misnomer, though not as bad as the “Tennessee” warbler who spends about six days a year in Tennessee.

Opossums are Pennsylvania’s only marsupial so “looking pregnant” is also inaccurate.  Possum babies are the size of honeybees when, at 13 days gestation, they crawl on their own from their mother’s womb to her pouch.  There they latch onto her 13 nipples (what is it with the number 13?) and grow for two months before they emerge again.  So a possum is not pregnant when she looks pregnant.  That bulge is her pouch. 

Why are ‘possums in the city?  Because they eat anything and we have lots of it.  In the country they often eat roadkill, become roadkill themselves, and thus food for vultures.

Vultures and opossums!  The city’s gone wild.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Put on your detective hat.  It’s time to solve a minor mystery.

First the clues, then the quiz.

The clues:  I took this picture during the last four weeks in southwestern Pennsylvania. 

The quiz: 

• What happened to this tree and who did it?
• What land feature is this tree near?
• How long do you think it took to get the tree into this condition?
• What kind of tree is it?
• Will the tree fall?
• If the tree falls will anyone get hurt?
• Approximately when in the last four weeks did I take this picture?
• Can you guess where this is?

Click the photo for the answers or, rather, my best guesses at them.

(photo by Kate St. John)

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If you’ve got nothing to do at dawn tomorrow, jump in your car right now and head for Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.  You’re going to have to leave early because the festivities are already underway and the really big show starts long before dawn on Tuesday.

Yes, tomorrow is Groundhog Day and people across North America will pull their groundhogs out of hibernation and ask them what they think of the weather.  If the groundhogs see their shadows they’ll scurry back to their burrows and we’ll have six more weeks of winter.  If dawn is overcast the groundhogs will be happy and predict an early spring.

If you presented me with a sunny or cloudy day and asked me the same question my prediction would be the opposite but I am not Punxsutawney Phil, the Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators and Weather Prophet Extraordinary.

You may be wondering… Why does this festivity happen on February 2nd?  Groundhog Day, which is also Candlemas, is an old celebration of the date that falls exactly halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.  For winter-weary humans it’s just about the only thing we can celebrate at this time of year and it happens to be six weeks away from spring.  Funny how that works into Phil’s prediction.

So don’t delay!  It’s a huge celebration.  The trek to Gobblers Knob begins at 3:00am.  The fireworks start before 7:00am and Phil makes his prediction at daybreak (approximately 7:25am).

If you can’t make it to Punxsy, watch it live online on the VisitPA website.

(photo of Groundhog Day 2005 by Aaron Silvers, from Wikipedia via Creative Commons license)

Sometimes I complain about the squirrels at my feeder and sometimes I marvel at them, but I never thought about how many there are until I heard this story last weekend.

Recently the woman who lives three doors down was on her front porch when a man drove up in a pickup truck and parked across from her house.  He then unloaded cage after cage of squirrels and proceeded to let them go at the edge of the city ballpark across our street.  In the midst of this activity he noticed her, quickly gathered his empty cages, jumped into his truck and drove away.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard of rodent relocation.

A co-worker who lives in the city once discovered a large family of groundhogs eating her garden.  She couldn’t bear to kill them so she captured them, one after the other, in a Have-a-Heart trap.  Each time she caught a groundhog her husband put the cage in the back of his truck and drove away.  At first she didn’t want to know where he took them but after the second or third trip she asked him what happened to the groundhog.  Her husband answered, “He’s living in the suburbs now.”

Like balls on the roulette wheel the unwanted rodents go for a spin.
“Round and round the roulette goes
Where it stops, nobody knows.”

Maybe “nobody knows,” but I’m pretty sure I have someone else’s squirrels at my feeder.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Ever thought about mentoring a wild squirrel?

If you enjoy these bushy-tailed creatures, have good forest habitat at your home and like to feed squirrels you’re a candidate for the “soft release” squirrel program.

The ARL Wildlife Center in Verona, PA has more than 50 orphaned squirrel pups who were rescued in September and October, very late in the breeding season.  At the time, they weren’t even weaned yet and are so young they won’t be ready for release into the wild until December.  By then their food supply will be buried under snow and ice.  How will they survive?  They need an “angel.” 

Here’s how it works.  As the squirrel pups grow up, they progress from bottle-fed babyhood to bouncing adolescence.  When they’re ready to become acclimated to the weather they’re placed in the outdoor pre-release enclosure with a specially designed wooden box that will be their permanent home.  When they’re full grown it’s time to release them, so the Wildlife Center closes the box with the squirrels inside, the box is transported to their patron’s home and mounted on a tree.  Open the door and voilà!   The squirrels have a new home with a safe, familiar nest.  And you help them survive by putting out food for them until they no longer need it.  They might leave the area but some squirrels have been known to stay and raise families in their favorite box for years to come.

The Wildlife Center is collecting a list of people who want to participate in this program.  If you’re interested in being an “angel” to a couple of squirrels, call the Wildlife Center at 412-793-6900. 

To learn more about the ARL Wildlife Center, visit their website.

(photo by Maria Pyrdek at ARL Wildlife Center)