A Watering Hole

One of the brooks comes down the mountain and flows through the apple orchard. John and I went out four days after the first day of spring when the snow was three feet deep and so crusted that we did not need snowshoes to move around. It was fun being taller for a few hours! I saw that the orchard brook was open in this one spot and there were tracks down to the water. Foxes are using this spot for their water. If you look carefully on the left end of the open brook, you may see the faint tracks. Below, I have a closer shot of the tracks. They are faint and difficult to see.

I don't really like foxes. They have been known to eat kitties.

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Two Less Chickens

Tuesday was not a good chicken day here. The weather was unusually beautiful. John and I were on the sun porch on the computers most of the morning. The chickens were enjoying the sun and the bugs and worms in the fields and lawn. But by noon we noticed that feathers were in the yard where there were none before. Nate went out to follow the feather trail. They went from the barn and all the way around the house and then up into the back field.

John went out later to brush hog the back field and found the hapless chicken body that you see in the photograph above. A fox had gotten her in broad daylight and ran with her in his mouth right past the windows in which we sat.

The chickens have also been nervous of the noisy tractor as it brush hogs. And Willow, one of the three beagles, got loose and ran right to the barn so that she could chase chickens — her favorite activity after eating.

On the next day, Wednesday, I myself discovered another dead chicken in the barn! This one was eaten by a weasel. Amy and Nate have made the barn more secure and we have not lost anymore birds.

What I find very strange is that without these two chickens, the remaining hens are laying more eggs! One of the killed chickens was low on the pecking order. Did the other hens dislike the dead chicken so much that they did not lay as well as they do now?


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Urine Trails

While out snowshoeing in the fields, we came across many trails that we at first thought were cat tracks. They were small and four toed, without claws. But we came upon other clues that told us that these were not cat tracks. Above you see a urine trail left by the small animal. These urine tracks were made every couple dozen feet. I've never known a cat to mark a trail like this. Not at all.
Then at one of the apple trees we saw chewed up apple cores (above). There were many of the animal tracks here.

Above you can see the tracks of two animals coming from the bottom right. They led to the disturbed snow just above my snowshoe. That is where two animals rolled and played together. There was no fur left behind, so there was not a fight. Cats don't roll around friendly-like in the snow.

Have you guessed which animal would eat apples, leave urine trails, frolic in the snow and has tracks similar to a cat?

It's fox! Probably, because the tracks were so small, they were gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus). The urine was left by the male to attract girls. And he got one! They most likely mated in the snow where the snow was disturbed. January, when we found these trails, is when they mate. In one area the tracks showed that the animals were leaping and running as if they were courting. The apples? Gray foxes are omnivorous and eat a lot of wild fruit! I can't find out if they eat cats.

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