Female, left, and male cardinals.

by Roland D. Hallee

My wife has been trying to attract cardinals to our feeders at home for quite some time. Last Sunday she got her wish when a pair of cardinals came in search of food. First, the female showed herself by clinging to a feeding station. A couple of minutes later, the male appeared. I had told my wife when she first saw the female that, for sure, the male was not far away. When you see one cardinal, the mate is always nearby.

It prompted a conversation about how over the last few decades, the northern cardinal, which was rarely ever seen in this part of the country, has become more abundant.

In John James Audubon’s day (1785-1851), the Northern Cardinal was considered a southern bird and was rarely seen as far north as Philadelphia. By 1895, its range reached the Great Lakes, and by 1910, the cardinal was in southern Ontario and along the southern portions of the Hudson River. Some authorities believe the cardinal’s push northward was due to more people feeding birds during the winter and their loss of habitat in its traditional southern grounds.

Today the Northern Cardinal is a year-round resident from the Dakotas, southern Ontario and Nova Scotia south to the Gulf Coast, and from southern Texas westward through Arizona and southward through Mexico as far as Guatemala and Honduras. The Northern Cardinal was introduced in Hawaii in 1929 and is now well-established there. It also occurs sparingly in southeastern California and in Bermuda as an introduced species.

Although nonmigratory, cardinals often gather in large flocks of up to 70 birds during winter months and can be found in bushy thickets in the more sheltered areas of their range.

Northern Cardinals feed by hopping around on the ground and securing food from low shrubbery and trees. Cardinals’ short, heavy, reddish beaks crack seeds with strong abductor muscles that enable them to handle larger and tougher seeds that birds with smaller bills cannot crack. The grooved upper mandible holds the sunflower seed while the sharp-edged lower mandible moves forward and crushes and husks the seed. The bird then swallows the inner nutmeat.

Most authorities believe Northern Cardinals mate for life, but during winter, the male does not allow his mate to feed with him. With the return of spring, however, he regards her in a new light. Then you see the practice of mate-feeding when the male brings shucked sunflower seeds and other choice tidbits to the female. She waits with her wings all aflutter like a baby bird begging for food, and he places the seed in her bill as tenderly as a first kiss between lovers.

Northern Cardinals will eat almost anything offered at feeding stations. Their favorite foods are black-oil sunflower seed, cracked corn, suet, suet mixes, nutmeats of all kinds, melon seeds and safflower seed. The birds’ diet consists of 30 percent insects, which makes cardinals highly valuable to farmers and gardeners. They consume some of the worst agricultural pests: codling moths, cotton cutworms, scale insects, cotton bollworms, grasshoppers, aphids, snails and slugs.

Although cardinals prefer to eat on the ground, they will come to bird tables, trays on posts and trees, window trays, and hanging feeders with perches.

Water for drinking and bathing is just as important for Northern Cardinals in winter as it is during hot months. Remember to keep the water in your birdbath fresh and unfrozen year-round. Because wet cardinals cannot fly quickly to safety, place your birdbath near cover so the birds can escape from cats and other predators. When birdbaths are not available, cardinals bathe in shallow edges of ponds and streams, in snowmelt or in a puddle after rain. Like children, cardinals enjoy bathing in the spray of lawn sprinklers.

Northern Cardinals prefer brushy woodlands, riparian thickets, garden shrubbery, residential areas and parks.

Cardinal nests are compact and well-lined with fine grass or hair, or they might be flimsy and scarcely lined. The birds often use grass, rootlets, weed stems, pliable twigs, vines and bark strips, interwoven with leaves and paper or plastic. Once, when a storm blew the nest out of a bush, a strip of plastic was found in it with the green recycle symbol printed on it. This pair of Northern Cardinals taught me that humans are not the only creatures to use recyclable materials in their homes.

The cardinals have been appearing daily, and it’s our hope they will continue through the summer months.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Name the only three MLB players to have accumulated at heast 500 home runs and 600 doubles during their career.

brook trout

by Roland D. Hallee

The weather has warmed, the snow is melting and the streams are bustling with activity as the spring runoff is in full swing.

On a recent trip to Vermont, my wife and I saw many streams along the route swelling their banks and looking primed for brook trout fishing.

I have been on many a brook trout fishing trip, mostly to Nesowadnehunk Lake in northern Maine where the lake is exclusively brook trout – fly fishing only.

The meat of the brook trout, in my humble opinion, is the best tasting and sweetest of all the fish species, including salmon, probably because they are of the same family of Salmonidae. We have consumed many a brook trout by simply cooking them straight over a wood fired, outside fireplace, with no seasoning whatsoever.

The Eastern Brook Trout, Salvelinus fontinalis, varies in size depending on water temperature, productivity and food sources. Brook trout sizes will range from 7-1/2 to 17-1/2 inches in different lakes and streams. The stream brook trout is slower growing and usually much smaller than their lake relatives.

The brook trout is also known in other parts of its range as speckled trout, squaretail, mud trout and brook charr.

The brook trout has a dark green to brown color, with a distinctive marbled pattern of lighter shades across the flanks and back, and extending at least to the dorsal fin, and often to the tail. A distinctive sprinkling of red dots, surrounded by blue halos, occurs along the flanks. The belly and lower fins are reddish in color, the latter with white leading edges. Often the underparts, especially in the males, becomes very red or orange when the fish are spawning.

The brook trout’s range is varied but are increasingly becoming confined to higher elevations. Their southern range has been drastically reduced, with fish being restricted to higher-elevation, remote streams due to habitat loss and introductions of brown and rainbow trout.

They prefer clear water of high purity and a narrow pH range caused by environmental effects such as acid rain. Warm summer temperatures and low water flow rates are stressful on the brook trout populations, especially larger fish.

Brook trout have a diverse diet that includes larval, pupal, and adult forms of aquatic insects, and adult forms of terrestrial insects. The brook trout we catch at “The Hunk,” as the lake is known locally, had large amounts of crayfish in their stomachs.

Until the introduction of brown and rainbow trout, the brook trout attracted the most attention among anglers, especially fly-fishermen, from colonial times through the first 100 years of U.S. history. Following the decline in brook trout populations in the mid-19th century, anglers flocked to the Adirondacks in upstate New York and the Rangeley Lakes region in Maine to pursue the brook trout.

The world record brook trout was caught by Dr. W. J. Cook on the Ni­pi­gon River, in Ontario, in July 1915, at 31 inches. The weight couldn’t be confirmed because the badly decomposed fish weighed only 14.5 pounds after having been in the bush without refrigeration for 21 days.

Brook trout in North America became extirpated from many waterways due to land development, forest clear-cutting, and industrialization. Streams and creeks became polluted, dammed, or silted. The brown trout, not native to North America, has replaced the brook trout in many of its native waters.

Let’s just hope the many clean, pure waterways we still have in Maine remain that way to sustain the fate of the brook trout in a positive way. In some lakes where brook trout is supreme, we anglers always fear the possibility of other species being introduced illegally. We must remain vigilant.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

How many Super Bowls have the Denver Broncos won?

by Roland D. Hallee

Groundhog day was a little over two months ago. However, this is the time of year when they usually start to make their appearance, emerging from their dens following a long winter of hibernation.

Groundhogs, Marmota monax, also known as woodchucks, are a rodent, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. It was first scientifically described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758.

The groundhog is also referred to as a chuck, woodshock, groundpig, whistlepig, whistler, thickwood badger, Canada maramot, monx, moonack, weenusk, red monk, and, among French Canadians in eastern Canada, siffleux, which translates to whistler.

They are a lowland creature, found through much of the eastern United States across Canada and into Alaska. Adults are 16 – 20 inches long, including a six-inch tail, and weigh between 5 – 12 pounds. Extremely large individuals can weigh as much as 15 pounds.

The name woodchuck is unrelated to wood or chucking. It stems from the Native American Algonquian or possibly Narragansett word for the animal, wuchak. The similarities in the name led to the popular tongue-twister: “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could if a woodchuck could chuck wood.”

Groundhogs prefer open country and the edges of woodlands, and is rarely far from a burrow entrance. It is typically found in low-elevation forests, small woodlots, fields, pastures and hedgerows. It constructs dens in well-drained soil, and most have summer and winter dens.

In the wild, groundhogs can live up to six years, although three years is the average. In captivity, they can live up to 14 years. Humans, dogs, coyotes and foxes are about the only predators that can kill adult groundhogs, with the red fox being the major predator. Young may be taken by owls and hawks.

According to studies, despite their heavy body weight, they are accomplished swimmers and will occasionally climb trees to escape a predator. They prefer to retreat to their den when threatened, and will defend itself with its incisors and front claws. They are territorial among their species and will skirmish to establish dominance.

When alarmed, they will use a high-pitched whistle to warn the rest of the colony, hence the nickname whistlepig. They will also squeal when fighting, seriously injured, or caught by a predator. They will also produce a low bark and a sound produced by grinding their teeth.

They are excellent burrowers, using the burrow to sleep, rear their young, and hibernate. An excavated den can remove about six cubic feet of soil, on average, or almost five bushels per den. They are relatively large and include a sleeping berth and an excrement chamber.

The burrow can be a threat to agricultural and residential development by damaging farm machinery and even undermining building foundations. However, in a June 7, 2009, issue of the Humane Society of the United States, How to Humanely Chuck a Woodchuck Out of Your Yard, John Griffin, director of Human Wildlife Services wrote, “you would have to have a lot of woodchucks working over a lot of years to create tunnel systems that would pose any risk to structures.”

The burrow is used for safety, retreat in bad weather, hibernating, sleeping, love nest, and nursery.

Groundhogs are one of the few species that enter into true hibernation. In most areas they hibernate from October to March or April. They drop their body temperature, the heart rate falls to 4 – 10 beats per minute and breathing falls to one breath every six minutes. Researching the hibernation patterns of groundhogs may lead to benefits for humans, including lowering the heart rate in complicated surgical procedures.

Groundhogs are already used in medical research on hepatitis B-induced cancer. Humans can’t receive hepatitis from woodchucks but the virus and its effects on the liver make the woodchuck the best available animal for the study of viral hepatitis in humans. The only other animal model for hepatitis B virus studies is the chimpanzee, which is an endangered species.

Always thought to be a nuisance species, groundhog dens often provide homes for skunks, red foxes and cottontail rabbits. The fox and skunk feed upon field mice, grasshoppers, beetles and other creatures that destroy farm crops. In aiding these animals, groundhogs indirectly help the farmers.

I had a groundhog living near my garden a few years ago, and he unceremoniously cleaned out all my string beans. Well, I unceremoniously captured him in a Hav-a-Hart trap, and relocated him to the wild, and wished him the best of luck.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Which Red Sox player made an infamous error in the 1986 World Series?

Answer can be found here.

Common raccoon dog

by Roland D. Hallee

Over the past weekend, I read a news release about materials collected at a Chinese market near where the first human cases of Covid-19 were identified showing raccoon dog DNA comingled with the virus, suggesting the pandemic may have originated from animals, not a lab. The World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus criticized China for not sharing the genetic information earlier. It appears samples collected from a stall known to be involved in the wildlife trade also contained raccoon dog genes, indicating the animals may have been infected by the virus.

In China, raccoon dogs are often bred for their fur and sold for meat in animal markets. So, that brings the question, what is a raccoon dog?

The common raccoon dog, also called the Chinese or Asian raccoon dog to distinguish it from the Japanese raccoon dog, is a small, heavy-set, fox-like canid native to East Asia. Named for its raccoon-like face markings, it is most closely related to foxes.

Common raccoon dogs feed on many animals and plant matter, and are unusual among canids (dogs and foxes) for climbing trees and for hibernating in cold winters. They are widespread in their native range, and are invasive in Europe where they were introduced for the fur trade. The similar Japanese raccoon dog, native to Japan, is the only other living member of the genus. Other names for the common raccoon dog include mangut (its Evenki name), and neoguri (its Korean name).

The common raccoon dog is named for the resemblance of its masked face to that of the North American common raccoon. The closest relatives of the common raccoon dogs are the true foxes, not the raccoon, and not closely related.

Due to the fur trade, the common raccoon dog has been widely introduced in Europe, where it has been treated as a potentially hazardous invasive species. In Europe, since 2019, the common raccoon dog has been included on the list of Invasive Alien Species of Union concern. This implies that this species cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union.

Common raccoon dogs are omnivores that feed on insects, rodents, amphibians, birds, fish, reptiles, mollusks, crabs, sea urchins, human garbage, carrion, eggs, and insectivores, as well as fruits, nuts, and berries. Among the rodents targeted by common raccoon dogs, voles seem to predominate in swampy areas, but are replaced with gerbils in flatland areas.

Common raccoon dogs eat beached fish and fish trapped in small water bodies. They rarely catch fish during the spawning season, but eat many during the spring thaw. In their southern range, they eat young tortoises and their eggs. Insectivorous mammals hunted by common raccoon dogs include shrews, hedgehogs, and, on rare occasions, moles and desmans. In the Ussuri territory, large moles are their primary source of food. Plant food is highly variable, and includes bulbs, rhizomes, oats, millets, maize, nuts, fruits, berries, grapes, melons, watermelons, pumpkins, and tomatoes.

Common raccoon dogs adapt their diets to the season; in late autumn and winter they feed mostly on rodents, carrion, and feces, while fruit, insects, and amphibians predominate in spring. In summer they eat fewer rodents, and mainly target nesting birds, fruits, grains, and vegetables.

After all this, it sounds like the common raccoon dog is a canine garbage disposal.

Wolves are the main predators of common raccoon dogs, killing large numbers of them in spring and summer, though attacks have been reported in autumn, too.

Both foxes and European badgers compete with common raccoon dogs for food, and have been known to kill them if common raccoon dogs enter their burrows. Common raccoon dogs are the only canids known to hibernate.

Like foxes, they do not bark, uttering instead a growl, followed by a long-drawn, melancholy whine.

The common raccoon dog is now abundant throughout Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and has been reported as far away as Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Moldova.

In June 2021, a study commissioned by the United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs identified the common raccoon dog as one of 20 invasive species likely to spread to the British Isles.

From what I have been able to find, it looks like the common raccoon dog is not a welcomed species. In its defense, evidence has also been gathered that indicates the raccoon dogs cages may have been stored in that same stall with those of bats, and that the bats are the source, and the raccoon dogs may have become an unsuspecting carrier of the virus.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Who was the last Boston Celtics player to be named the NBA Most Valuable Player?

Answer can be found here.

by Roland D. Hallee

Porcupines. Nuisance, or ecological necessity?

It all depends with whom you talk. I know some people who are overrun by the animals to the point where they are raiding the gardens, and having to deal with their dogs being injured by porcupine quills due mostly to their own curiosity. While others find a use for them.

Simply put, porcupines are rodents. That puts them in the same class, and are actually related, with raccoons, rats and beavers. They are indigenous to the Americas, Southern Asia, Europe and Africa. They are the third largest of the rodents, behind the capybara and beaver.
They can grow in size to be 25 – 36 inches long with an 8 to 10-inch tail, and weigh from 12 – 35 pounds.

The common porcupine, Erethizon dorsatum, is an herbivore, so look out gardens. It eats leaves, herbs, twigs and green plants. They may eat bark in the winter, evidence of which I have seen in many places. The North American porcupine often climbs trees to find food. Like the raccoon, they are mostly nocturnal, but will sometimes forage for food in the day.

Because of the scarcity of predators, porcupines are plentiful and are not endangered.

The name porcupine comes from Middle French porc espin (spined pig). A regional American name for the animal is quill pig.

The porcupines’ quills, or spines, take on various forms, depending on the species, but all are modified hairs coated with thick plates of keratin, and they are embedded in the skin musculature.

Quills are released by contact with them, or they may drop out when the porcupine shakes its body. The porcupine does not throw quills, but the flailing muscular tail and powerful body may help impel quills deeply into attackers. The quills’ barbed ends expand with moisture and continue to work deeper into flesh. Porcupine quills have mildly antibiotic properties and thus are not infectious. Quills, however, may cause death in animals if they puncture a vital organ or if a muzzle full of quills leads to starvation.

Once embedded, the hollow quills swell, burn and work their way into the flesh every time a victim’s muscles contract, digging a millimeter deeper each hour. Eventually, they emerge through the skin again, some distance from the entry point though sometimes they spear right through the body.

I have had first hand knowledge of how painful a porcupine quill can be. Many years ago, my children had chores to do after they came home from school. One of them was to make sure they picked up after themselves following their after-school snack. Upon returning home from work, I found a folded paper towel on the counter. I grabbed it to crush it into a ball to throw away when this sharp pain shot through my hand. When I unwrapped the towel, I found a porcupine quill inside, but now imbedded in my hand. It turned out my daughter had brought it home from school to show it to me. She obtained the quill from a “show and tell” session at school.

Because they have few effective predators, porcupines are relatively long-lived. The average life span of the porcupine is 7 – 8 years, however, they have lived up to 15 years in the wild, and 18 years in captivity. A predator needs to learn only once to leave a porcupine alone. Bobcats, great-horned owls, mountain lions, coyotes and wolves, when extremely hungry and unable to catch anything else, may give it a try anyway. The fisher, however, is a skilled porcupine killer. It uses its speed and agility to snake around a porcupine’s rear guard defense and viciously bite its face until it dies.

The remains of the porcupine that died while lodged between the wheels of a camper trailer sometimes this late winter or spring. (photo by Roland D. Hallee)

At one time, however, especially when game was scarce, the porcupine was hunted for its meat and considered a delicacy. A practice that continues in Kenya today. Because they are slow, and can remain in the same tree for days at a time, they are about the only animal that can be killed simply with a large rock. Native people of the North Woods also wove elaborate dyed quillwork decorations into clothing, moccasins, belts, mats, necklaces, bracelets and bags. Because the work was so time-consuming and highly valued, quill embroideries were used as a medium of exchange before the coming of Europeans.

When not in trees or feeding, porcupines prefer the protection of a den, which can be found in rock crevices, caves, hollow logs, abandoned mines and even under houses and barns.

Porcupines are highly attracted to salt. They may chew on any tool handle that has salt left from human sweat. They have even been known to chew on outhouse toilet seats. Road rock salt is very tempting to them, and puddles of water from the snow-melt in the spring are especially luring and could account for their high road-kill mortality rate. They have even been seen gnawing on automobile tires that have been exposed to rock salt.

In Maine, porcupines join a short list of other animals that are open to hunting all year, including coyotes, woodchucks and red squirrels.

So, are porcupines a nuisance, or do they have a role in the grand scheme of things, ecologically?

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Name the five NFL teams to win only one Super Bowl.

Answer can be found here.