Things that ain't plants

Posted by: Nic

I spend most of my time thinking about plants so I tend to neglect things that move and lack cell walls. So it is about time we describe our local fauna. The following critters are species we have seen about the place. Now, before I get in trouble I should point out that I didn't take any of these pictures myself and instead got them from wikipedia, and I also got a lot of my information from there too.

Lets start with the least cute one. Down at my site on the coast last I ran into one of these little guys. This is a cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus), a pitviper species found in the United States. They are found along the eastern coast of the United States from Virginia to Alabama. Their favoured habitat is swamps and around water bodies. The one I saw was next to a large open drain.



Since the weather has warmed up the birds have become more active. This is a Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) which is found throughout the south eastern US. This picture doesn't really capture how striking the red-colour of their plumage is. We get a lot of these in our back yard.

Deer fill a similar ecological niche to kangaroos, and this species is the Grey Kangaroo of deer. The White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is a medium-sized deer found throughout most of the continental United States, southern Canada, Mexico, Central America and northern portions of South America as far south as Peru. I saw three of these near my canola field, not too far from where I saw the cottonmouth. Sal saw a male one, complete with antlers, on a busy road near Duke when she was riding home one night. Okay, the next dude is interesting. On Wednesday I was working at our field station and needed to relieve myself. Annoyingly the office was locked so I decided that going behind a shed would suffice. Walking behind the shed I disturbed two large fury animals that shot into a burrow before I could get a good look at them. At first I thought they were rabbits but then one emerged and I got within three paces of it. It turned out to be a groundhog (Marmota monax), also known as the woodchuck or whistlepig. These are in the rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. Most marmots, such as yellow-bellied and hoary marmots, live in rocky and mountainous areas, but the woodchuck is a lowland creature. It is widely distributed in North America and common in the northeastern and central United States. In the west it is found only in Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia and northern Washington.

Finally, onto another common rodent of these parts, the squirrel, or Eastern Gray Squirrel to be precise (Sciurus carolinensis). These are a tree squirrel that is native to the eastern and midwestern United States and the eastern provinces of Canada. The species name carolinensis refers to the Carolinas, where they were first recorded by zoologists and are still extremely common. We have a "few" in our yard. I have attempted to take pictures of them but without a telescopic lens it has been tricky. I find these little guys highly amusing as they jump, scurry and dig their way around the place. Our neighbour has elaborate bird feeders with contraptions designed to keep the squirrels away. We have spent a bit of time watching the squirrels figure out how to get around these supposed anti-squirrel defenses.