Boardman River Nature Center

Steph and I have been in Traverse City for the past few days, and we decided we'd take a look at the Boardman River Nature Center. It's a relatively new building, situated in the Grand Traverse Conservation District, and it's one of the nicest nature centers that I have had the pleasure of visiting. Neither Steph nor I had been there before, and we were pleasantly surprised by the wide variety of child-friendly hands-on activities and displays, some of which had an emphasis on art.

The nature center's taxidermy was all museum-quality, and was some of the nicest I've seen. What I found to be most interesting was that very few of the mounted animals were behind glass, and many were accessible -- pelts and skulls accompanied the mounts, and could be touched. Because the taxidermy was of such good quality, and because most mounts were supplemented with information about the animal, very few live animals were in captivity at the nature center -- another plus, in my book.

One of the central displays was a collection of freshwater fish mounts, showcasing the fish of the Great Lakes. Pictured here: a burbot and a crappie.

A wild turkey and a common loon -- one is hunted, the other is conserved. I think both birds are pretty neat in their own ways!

Mustelidae -- the minks, martens, otters, and ermines. I thought the river otter mount looked quite noble and dignified. Accompanying it was also a (very long) pelt, as well as a skull.

A worried-looking snowy owl, one of the few mounts that was behind glass.

Taxidermy is a wonderful teaching tool, as are other animal remains: antlers, bones, turtle shells, and fur scraps were available for handling and close examination. The children who were at the center seemed to be extremely excited to see the animal mounts (especially the bear); one child pointed to a fawn behind glass and said, "Look at the pretend deer!"

Related, I recently checked out a book, Are Those Animals Real?, at the library. It explains how museum taxidermy mounts are made, and their value to education and science. The book is a good, short read for children and adults alike, and I learned a few things!

Taking Shelter in the Dead

As the weather warms and the snow melts away, tiny creatures that hibernate during the long winter months crawl out from their hiding places. How do such small, fragile beings survive the cold temperatures and harsh conditions? Some invertebrates tuck themselves away beneath fallen leaves and tree bark, and others overwinter, metamorphosing inside woolen cocoons. Other arthropods are more inventive, as I found out on a Vernal Equinox walk through the Matthaei Botanical Gardens property.

I encountered the remains of several deer, including this doe skull. It was resting in the middle of a field, with no other bones nearby; the long exposure to the sun had bleached the skull a bright white, unmistakable in a sea of brown grass. I turned the skull over -- and what did I see?

A tiny millipede -- the first of several I saw that day, all using bones as their shelter. I made sure to turn the doe skull back to its original position; I have no doubt there were many other creatures living inside.

Nearby, I found the bones of another deer, this time a buck whose antlers had long-since been removed. While most of the skeleton was relatively intact and more or less articulated, the skull and a few of the leg bones had been scattered further away. I turned one of the leg bones to see what I could find; not only was there a strange cocoon wedged into a hollow of the bone, but also two velvet mites milling around on the surface of the cocoon.

Velvet mites are something I don't see very often, but when I do, I'm always happy to watch their behavior. They're quite large (for mites), so it's pretty easy to observe them. I'm not sure what the mites were up to, but judging by their different sizes, I'm guessing it was a male and female, the female being the larger of the two. They interacted for a while, touching legs and scurrying about.

The last find of the afternoon had far better camouflage than the bright-red velvet mites:

This daddy long-legs (order Opiliones, also known as harvestmen) was squeezed into a furrow of this woodchuck skull, looking a lot like the nearby dirt and other organic matter.

It has become obvious to me that bones, especially skulls, are very important to insects, arachnids, and other terrestrial arthropods. Not only are dead animals a source of food, but they provide shelter, as well. During the cold, snowy, and icy months of a Michigan winter, skeletons become instrumental in keeping our invertebrates safe and dry.

See also -- Bone Home, June 23 2010.

A Hawk in the Courtyard

Hawks are a common sight in our neighborhood. Sometimes, they are seen being mobbed by crows, and other days, they are predators, swooping down on mourning doves and sparrows. The two species most often seen where Steph and I live are sharp-shinned hawks and Coopers hawks; sharp-shinned hawks are quite small -- no larger than a crow -- but won't hesitate to take down mourning doves and pigeons.

A few days ago, we actually witnessed a sharp-shinned hawk swoop at a flying mourning dove -- there was an audible whump -- and miss. As feathers floated away, the hawk sat on the branch of a pine tree, probably wondering where to hunt next. The courtyard, usually so loud with birdsong, was absolutely silent, and the hawk departed.

The day after, as Steph and I walked through the courtyard, finding feathers left over from the previous day's near-miss, I spotted something else: the body of a sharp-shinned hawk, resting beneath a tree. At first, I worried that it was the same hawk we had seen the day before, but we soon realized the corpse was far older. The bird's eyes were dry and had sunken into their sockets, meaning that the body had been lying there for quite some time.

We're not sure how the hawk died. The body wasn't near any windows, though it's quite possible the bird struck a window and was subsequently thrown beneath a tree, away from an apartment. Perhaps the hawk was mobbed and killed by crows; its feathers were quite rough in some places, though no blood was visible. Perhaps it was sick or old, and, roosting in a tree, it passed away.

This sharp-shinned hawk was a challenge to photograph; its proportions were small, but being a bird of prey, it was still quite majestic, a duality that was hard to portray.

Twins

Yesterday, I got a call. A doe had been hit and killed by a car, and it was discovered that she had been pregnant. Not one, but two fetuses were found inside of her; both males, they were small, mostly hairless, and pink. Their ears were folded behind their heads, their hooves were rubbery and soft, and the only pigment to be seen was the black on their noses. I was struck by the fetuses' fragility and strange peacefulness, and their almost translucent nature. Knowing that this was something one does not usually have the chance to see, I took a series of photographs. I hope these views convey the same sense of both wonder and melancholy for you, the reader, as the fetuses did for me, in person.

Useless Creature Triple Feature

I've got a trio of animals to discuss, the first of which is March Buck. The day after the body was found and the head was removed, I transferred it from my parents' garage to their backyard. An amazing amount of blood -- almost a cup's worth -- had dripped out from the neck overnight. I took a few photographs of the buck's head; a bit of blood had fallen near the still-intact eye, staining the fur, and looking for all the world like a teardrop.

The next step was to cover the antlers in aluminum foil, in an attempt to discourage squirrels and mice from chewing on them. A a result, the buck looks a lot like a macabre Christmas decoration. I tied the head to the fence, to keep any scavengers from taking off with it, and that was that. Over the next few days, I returned to check up on the head, but as of Sunday, there really wasn't too much to report.

Yesterday, I returned to visit the rest of the body. On the way, I encountered an old deer skull that had long ago had its back half (and likely antlers) sawed off; the mice have since used it as a source of calcium. When I finally reached the site of the dead buck, I was amazed to find that the (very heavy) body had been dragged between twenty to thirty feet from its original place! I have no doubt that this was done by coyotes; indeed, they had truly ripped into the carcass, taking advantage of where we had sawed off the buck's head. The skin on the neck stump had been peeled back, and the coyotes had stripped the muscle from the remaining neck vertebrae. Parts of the ribcage were also exposed, and the shoulder blade was no longer inside the skin. It's probably reasonable to assume that the next thing that will happen -- if it hasn't already occurred -- will be the scattering of the deer's limbs.

Here is the view from the cedar tree, where the dead buck was first found:

As I drove out, I noticed a dead opossum on the side of the road, near the gardens' entrance, but I decided I'd come back for it later. That afternoon, Steph and I did return, with the intention of simply moving the opossum from the ever-busy Dixboro Road to a more sheltered place. It was a bit more of a trickier operation than I'd bargained for, and it involved crossing a stream and getting whacked in the face by many a thorny branch. I finally reached the opossum, waited (quite a while) for traffic to pass, and grabbed the tail, disappearing back into the underbrush.

The opossum was a huge male, and very heavy. His skull was split, and a tire tread had ripped open his belly. He had a faint, musky smell, the tip of his tail had succumbed to frostbite, and his feet were absolutely fascinating.

It was so interesting to be able to view this opossum's feet up-close. The whorls on the paw pads looked a lot like human fingerprints, and the front foot even felt a bit like a human hand. Opossums have such specialized feet for climbing and gripping branches; the "thumb" on the back foot was a bit of a surprise!

Like many roadkill opossums I've encountered, this individual's mouth was wide open, exposing his very sharp and numerous teeth. One canine had been crushed when he'd been hit, but the rest were present. Opossums have a pretty bad reputation, and I'm guessing it has a lot to do with their naked, rat-like tails and their pointy, seemingly endless number of teeth. They're North America's only marsupial, and they've gradually moved north into Michigan. Opossums didn't originally live in such cold areas, and their naked toes and tails often suffer because of this northern migration.

We left the opossum's body near the bank of the stream; it will decompose in a more dignified place, and it will be scavenged in a far safer area.

As we studied the many animal tracks in the mud near the water -- we identified raccoon, muskrat, and mink prints -- a flash of white caught my eye. It was another raccoon skull poking up through the leaf litter, not far from where I'd found the raccoon skeleton on Thursday.

We found many bones, resting both atop the leaves and in the dirt. This was another young animal; the ribs were tiny and the vertebrae were not fully fused. As we drove home, Steph made a discovery that was at first alarming -- something was inside the braincase! I feared the worst, thinking it was a spider egg case, but whatever it was seemed far too woolly and hairy to belong to a spider. We decided it was probably a moth cocoon, and a quick internet search matched exactly with what is inside the skull. Right now, we're keeping the raccoon skull inside a bugbox, with the hope that the tussock moth will emerge.

I hope to follow up on this interesting re-purpose, and will definitely take some photographs. What a neat use for a skull!