Red Wing Nature Notes

We are well into summer. It’s like a rainforest out there. Tree limbs hang low with moisture from frequent rains. Vines of woodbine and wild grapes grow thick and lush. I know this mainly because I see it from the window of my car as I drive down the gravel road from our house and eventually  to work.  Country living is a stark contrast to life in the “cities”.

Friends took us to the Twins game a couple of nights ago in the new stadium. Not being a big sports fan I wondered if my attention would wander and if I could make myself sit for several hours. I shouldn’t have worried. The new stadium, with it’s capacity of 30,000 is beautiful in it’s own way. When we first walked in I looked around and wondered what it would be like if everyone had to get out of there in a hurry. 

There is a big screen that, at times, shows what is going on with individuals in the stands – we actually saw one guy propose to his girl friend. He got on one knee and you could see his lips move “will you marry me”. Twenty thousand people participated in her teary eyed acceptance. It was sports and reality TV all wrapped into one. At one moment the big screen zoomed in on a Falcon perched somewhere in the stadium watching the game — why would it do that? Commerecial jets carrying hundreds of people crossed the sky high above. I wondered if they could see us. Mauer bunted – what?

It occured to me as we sat in that stadium we could set our eyes on at least twice the number of humans as the entire population of earth 10 to 20 thousand years ago. Because of the level of DNA similarity between any two humans scientists are sure our population dropped to just several thousand souls sometime before the last glaciers receded. There is evidence that massive volcanic eruptions spewed ash into the air that caused an unforgiving “nuclear winter ” planet wide, killing much life on the planet earth. How would we deal with that today? — just a thought.

I spend a lot of time in my job driving around Dakota County checking on foreclosed homes. Yesterday I found myself  making random turns, driving down long gravel roads in the Umore Park area never meeting another car. I theorize no one drives those roads because they don’t want their cars to get dirty. I discovered gravel road driving is a good thing to do if you want to see hawks. I saw several big ones that must have been immature red tails. One was so large I thought it must be an eagle. I saw many, many small hawks sitting on wires or swooping over roads and fields. I forgot I was working as I wandered without destination down gravel roads for an hour or so. I wandered towards Farmington but never got there.

Eventually I made my way to the roller coaster highway between Highway 52 and Red Wing.  It climbed and dropped repeatedly as I drove  through the glacial morrain left behind 10,000 years ago.  Close at hand were healthy brown fields of grain waivng in the wind punctuated by fields of deep green leaves of healthy corn fully tasseled.

The view was to my right, farm fields following the countour of the land as the hills soften to flatter land in the distance.  No matter how many times I drive that road I feel like a tourist. And every time I drive it I think of the economic development meeting I attended a couple years back where a business man, like me, said it was important to flatten that road and make it four lanes so that Red Wing can survive and compete. I am afraid someday the “improvement” will happen.

Quintuplets:

When I got home and let the dog out I noticed the air was filled with more swooping, bug eating birds than normal. Some seemed so slow and awkward  I was worried the dog might snap one out of the air. As evening came I saw five of the  birds lined up on our retractable closeline with an adult swallow swooping in to stuff bugs in their mouths. Just after I pulled out cell phone to snap a photo of the line up they scattered to the wind.

The trapper hired by the state has had trail cameras out in the suspected pig area for several weeks now and he hasn’t reported news of any pig activity. It’s not very gratifying to know the cameras are out without getting to see the results ourselves. Last week my brother put out his own trail camera and after talking to the local authorities put some corn out as well.

This produced some activity, but not from pigs. The camera registered some good shots of deer and turkey’s, but no pigs. After doing a little reading we’ve learned that while it’s interesting, having deer come to the corn is bad. For one thing they eat all of the corn intended to attract the pigs. Evidentally, “un-natural” concentrations of deer feeding in one area pose a risk of spreading disease in the deer herd.

If there are pigs out there we’d still like to catch them on film. The USDA recomended putting out sour corn to attract pigs but not deer. The method of souring corn used here is putting a couple packages of jello in the bottom of a container then adding corn and adding water until it just covers the corn. We will put the container in the sun for a week to let the corn get sour before putting it out.

The result should be smelly corn that will attract pigs, but not deer. Another method that is not being used here is mixing the corn with diesel fuel to which pigs but not other members of the animal kingdom are attracted.

With trail cameras photos like this probably aren’t all that unusual these days, but I’m still impressed.  Camera technology has made it possible to learn a lot of new things like.. “Field mice and deer prey on ground nests of birds”. I found this link interesting. http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/news/press/ontape.htm

The thermometer read 34 degrees this morning at our place and the ground is covered with frost.

There is an intense debate going on. I should make it clear this debate is taking place exclusively in my head. The experts agree that feral pigs have moved in and are laying waste to certain areas. “laying waste” is my description in this case. The reason I have more than a passing interest in this is that one of the areas affected is the field outside my house.

In areas near Frontenac State park and in our fields something has been expending a considerable amount of energy turning over sod. Bare dirt is exposed in large areas. If I had stumbled upon one of these scenes of destruction just walking I would be at a total loss as to the cause. If presented with the idea that a herd of pigs came during the night to do the destruction I would raise my eyebrows and accept it as one of those strange things that happens in this world.

A google search for “feral pigs minnesota” or the same search for Wisconsin area shows that there are wild pigs in Wisconsin and even some sightings in Minnesota. The wisconsin DNR has a map showing that feral pigs live in Pierce County just across the Mississippi river from us. A person who I’ve been told knows about trapping and tracking animals has observed the damage in Frontenac and in our fields and he is certain it is the work of pigs.

Why would I be a non believer?  The damage started a few weeks ago while I was mowing CRP land with a brushog pulled behind a tractor. When I was mowing I noted large soft areas in the fields filled with rodents that would scatter into the grass when the tractor wheels sunk into them. Also this year I have noted many badger holes in the fields. It takes several days to mow the fields. When I resumed mowing one morning I came upon an area that had been filled with rodents the night before. The ground was bare, the sod torn out in patches about a foot square in an area that covered 200 square feet. A short distance away was a fresh badger hole. As the mowing continued over the next couple of days there was more torn up ground. I was so impressed I asked a couple friends who get outside alot over to take a look. Neither had seen anything like this before. A couple of days later I got a call from one of them who said he’d been over near Frontenac State Park and seen the same kind of damage there. This is how I was put in touch with the trapper guy.

When he told me it was pigs I had already formed an opinion. I’ve had a hard time changing. Maybe because it’s because I don’t want pigs. So even though the experts say “Pig” I am clinging to “Badger”.
For the time being the massive destruction has stopped. The pig theory is that the pigs are eating acorns now and have left the fields alone.

Last night I looked for pig rubs and trails in the woods surrounding the fields. I went to two possible water sources in the area to look for pig wallows and found a few deer tracks. I went in the nearby woods where there are mature oaks and jumped two whitetails feasting on acorns. I stood and listened to the squirrels chatter and heard acorns fall around me when the wind blew. I saw deer tracks and little holes made by squirrels. The most apparant thing out of place was how dry everthing was.  No pig sign – that I could identify.

This morning I walked in the fields, not as if I was out for a walk, but more like somone looking for a lost watch. I found little holes in the grass like a skunk would make. There was a trail in the dew and followed it to more holes that were bigger, then there was one piece of sod that probably weighed as much as a skunk torn from the ground, then more little holes. This pattern repeats itself all over in the fields, less noticable than the dramatic destruction.  

video:  Maybe badger/Maybe pig

Before we had pigs on the radar the following badger theory was offered up. Right now everything is very dry and our clay soil is as hard as a rock. Voles seem to be living between the sod and the soil. They would be an easy target for a badger with big digging claws. It would be easier for a badger to scrape the sod off to get abundant voles than it would be to pursue pocket gophers in the hard clay. The unusual destruction would then be the result of dry weather and abundant vole populations.

Here are some questions I have of anyone who knows about feral pigs.
1. How can an animal that weighs over 100 lbs, doesn’t hibernate, doesent hunt, doesn’t store food sustain itself in Minnesota winter?
2. How can pigs move into an area, do all of this damage without leaving tracks or droppings?*
3. How come no one has seen a pig?
4. Why is there no sign of wallowing in the only two water sources for miles around?
I realize it is likely the experts are right, but I will still hope the badger theory is correct. Here is a video showing some of the evidence.

video: ferral pig or badger?

 *There are lots of droppings, but I think they have been identified as badger.

For the last couple of weeks there have been more deer in our yard than usual. I am sure this is because the white oaks have been dropping their acorns and the deer come to feed on them. At night you can hear the acorns falling through the leaves and hitting the ground.

Something about nature that is difficult to fully appreciate is the meaning of timing. Bruce mentioned in a previous post that finches nest according to when thistles bloom. I see this as an example of how plants seem to take turns bearing fruit and specific animals live with a rythm that allows them to take advantage of this timing.

The white oaks are nearly done dropping their acorns now and you might wonder what the next course will be on the late summer menu. I noticed this morning that some red oaks are just starting to drop their acorns. In a few weeks they will be done. We will have to pay attention to see what comes next.

White oak and red oak  are general catagories that describe many species of trees. White oaks have rounded lobes on the leaves where the group of trees that fall into the catagory of red oak have leaves that are more pointy. The most common white oak around my house is the burr oak. The cups that hold the acorns of the burr oak look like burs.

A question to anyone who might know:

We planted a maple tree in our yard two years ago which we purchased from Sargent’s Nursery. It seems healthy, but I notice the bark around the trunk about a foot off the ground looks loose and dead. Does anybody know what this is and if it is cause for concern?

Chickens have been part of our life this summer. We bought seven hens in April and they are just begining to lay eggs now. It seems everything in nature wants to eat chickens. We worry about Great Horned owls, coyotes, racoons and weasels. We’ve managed to lose only one chicken so far. It is ironic that the the damage was caused by a cat, a creature that probably survied in the wild for less than a week.

Barn cats occasionally make their way across the field from the neighboring farm. They are never around very long. I have seen evidence that they get eaten by coyotes.

It seems unatural that hens lay eggs without any help from a rooster. They will lay almost one egg a day until the days get too short. It seems nature still has a hold on chickens, they remember that the short days of winter are no time to be laying eggs.

To counter this we have solar lights that collect the sun during the day and shine into the roost at night. The structure in the photo is a little coop called a “chicken tractor”. It has no bottom, wheels on one end and handles on the other like a wheel barrow. It can be moved around the yard so we never have to shovel chicken manure. The back of the tractor has a little door to access the nesting box for gathering eggs.