Reason for a Change-Mitch’s Blog

The Cooper’s Hawks are long gone from Dunn Woods, I’ve neither seen nor heard them for over a week. The fledglings, at least 3 of them, maybe more, were there, loud and hungry, during the last week of July, but have been gone since the first of August. They would fly back and forth through the trees yelling for food and waiting for the a parents to show up with the latest catch. The juveniles were easy to spot, not only did they call as they flew, but the distinctive white band of feathers at the end of the tail was easy to see as they flew and when sitting on a branch. I think the parents could not keep up at the end, there was quite a ruckus when they showed up with food, and I think they either led the kids out into the wider world, or just stopped showing up with food, but as they all disappeared at once, I get the feeling they could have left together.

A couple of weeks ago I saw one of the parents fly in to the squalling crew and land on a high branch with something in its claws. As the fledglings flew closer, the parent released the prey, but none of the kids flew to catch it as it dropped. I assumed this was their way of teaching the kids how to hunt on the fly, which is what they do best.

During that last week they were especially noisy, and I could hear 3, maybe 4 fledglings calling at once, and my guess is that the parent were coming less frequently, till eventually all the kids got the message and headed out on their own, or followed their parents out of the Dunn’s Woods nursery into the wider world spurred by hunger.

Earlier this spring I was walking on the east side of Dunns’s Woods, when I heard some rustling in the woods. I looked around for a squirrel, or maybe a bird in the leaves, but I saw nothing. I then heard the rustling again, and saw the leaves moving, making line of popped up leaves as the creature beneath was moving.

I’d seen a mouse on the other side of the woods by Bryan Hall last year, it was eating a discarded sandwich, but was running under the vines instead of leaves. I kept watching and in a moment, two rodents appeared out of the rather large pile of leaves a few feet from the brick path. I was taken aback as they could not be mice, they were not quite the right shape and their noses were not pointed, but rather squared off like a mole. But they were not moles, I’ve seen them. These animals were scampering after each other, perhaps mating.

I tried to remember their look and first googled mouse and vole, but found the shrew family. I looked at the DNR website and found a listing of mammals in Indiana, and the Northern Short-tailed Shrew, Blarina brevicauda, the largest and most common of North American shrews was surely what I saw. Not only were the pictures I found a match, but even more convincing was that their habitat and behavior were exactly right. I can now see their leaf tunnels and even a larger “house” that I previously assumed was a pile accidentally left by the grounds crew. The shrews were larger than a mouse, and gray all over, with a nose that was squared off at the end. I did not see that they had four toes rather than the five of rodents, but that must have been the case.

I found out that the shrew is not a rodent, but actually a part of the soricidae family, which contains both mole and shrews. This was most evident in the nose, and their body shape and color a much different from a mouse. Here is some interesting stuff from the Smithsonian website:

“Northern Short-tailed Shrews have poisonous saliva. This enables them to kill mice and larger prey and paralyze invertebrates such as snails and store them alive for later eating. The shrews have very limited vision, and rely on a kind of echolocation, a series of ultrasonic “clicks,” to make their way around the tunnels and burrows they dig. They nest underground, lining their nests with vegetation and sometimes with fur. They do not hibernate. Their day is organized around highly active periods lasting about 4.5 minutes, followed by rest periods that last, on average, 24 minutes.”

They live short active lives, rarely getting to 2 years old, and they eat massive amounts of food, up to half their body weights in some species. I’ll try to keep track of them, but if they sleep as much as mentioned above, I may not find them.

The squirrels in Dunn’s Woods are a happy bunch, but they must be very wary of the Cooper’s hawks in spring and early summer. But with so many people around, there is always something to eat, and all the squirrels look healthy.

I’ve counted and mapped all the nests in the woods, and at the beginning of this spring, there were over 30 nests visible. But I don’t think they are all inhabited, there seem to be no more than a dozen squirrels active in the woods. This guy is relaxing near Bryan Hall where someone threw down some cracked corn.

I was walking around last week when I thought to stop by last year’s hawk next in the woods, I thought I heard a hawklike squawk, then saw one fly into an upper branch about a hundred feet from the nest. This week I saw a pair, I am pretty sure the bigger one is the female, and she flew onto a branch with the male, and proceeded to eat what looked like a small mammal, while he kept watch.

Then today I saw what appears a new nest a few hundred yards from the bigger original, and I’ve seen the mom sitting on the nest, and the dad swooping down from the incredibly high beech tree and fly through the woods. If I stand on one of the pathways for a while, I am able to spot one of them, often after hearing them call. In a few weeks, the babies will be calling for food all day long, that is how I spotted them last year, and I will be keeping a close eye on their growth.

Two weekends ago, Jojo and I saw a courting display by hawks on the ridge overlooking Lake Lemon, and the week before I saw the same at Dubois Ridge Rd.