By Rachel Katz
Rachel here, your Dancing Rabbit nature correspondent. I've been getting deeper
into our local flora and fauna and want to share some of the wonders I've
encountered on my walks on Dancing Rabbit land.
We have 280 acres, all
but 10 of which are primarily left to wildlife right now. We have lots of old
fields, woods around our creek and draws, and a couple of prairie restoration
plots. Our land is shaped like two rectangles offset from each other and it's
about a mile between the two farthest corners, which leaves lots of nooks and
crannies to explore.
As I'm writing this, the natural world is just beginning to
wake up from its winter sleep. The trees we've had to identify by bark and buds
are beginning to flower and leaf out. Nearly every time I walk I come back with
some twig or sprig that I can't identify and spend hours poring over guides
trying to sleuth out what I've seen. All those mystery plants should become
obvious once the leaves appear.
Even before the longer days and the warmer
weather we had plenty to see. The ponds froze almost crystal clear, giving a good
view of the fish and insect larvae underneath. Our cattail pond had huge sturdy
tadpoles (baby bullfrogs) tapping on the underside of the ice. The frozen creek
allowed us to see the land from a rare perspective. We followed its path all the
way onto our neighbors' land to where beavers had chewed down multitudinous
trees. No luck finding the beaver den, though.
And the birds! The Milkweeds and I
both have bird feeders, which attract a wide array of feathered friends.
Goldfinches galore visited our yards, along with cardinals, tree sparrows,
nuthatches, purple finches, juncos, and a red-headed woodpecker. With no leaves
on the trees, birds are especially visible in winter, so we've had a front row
seat on the activities of kestrels, red-tail hawks, and marsh hawks. And when I
walk in the woods, I nearly always manage to startle up a covey of bobwhite
quail.
As it's been warming up, more birds have returned to Dancing Rabbit and
their summer homes. We've been excitedly reporting the return of the red-winged
blackbirds, robins, killdeer, meadowlarks, etc. as they come home. Courting
activities have already begun for a few birds. One day I saw a bird of prey
landing on a nest, and after careful observation I determined it was a pair of
Great Horned Owls, the largest of our local owls. We leave them alone so they can
raise their owlets undisturbed, but I'm so pleased to know we are hosting the
breeding of such awesome birds.
My walks in the woods almost always reward me
with the sight of some mammals. Winter is the time to see rodents in action,
building their little runways above and below the ground. We've seen shrews
(vicious little pointy-nosed creatures), voles (slower than molasses in January),
and deer mice (with their big eyes, they're ridiculously cute, even when they
appear in the kitchen). Once I came upon an opossum. I've often seen them dead on
the roadside, and they are known to play dead, but even alive this one looked
like death warmed over. It must be a defense mechanism.
We see deer pretty often
in the winter, though most often I see their white tails leaping away. One time,
while sitting on a log in the woods, I saw a deer very nearby snorting and
stamping its feet and looking my way. It must have sensed my presence and was
trying to warn me, or maybe other deer. It decided to flee rather than fight, but
I was awed by the presence of such an amazing animal so close.
Just as
interesting are the animals we didn't see. When we had snow cover we were treated
to a record of all the comings and goings we miss. The rabbit tracks all around
the village revealed how much our little namesakes gallivant around our homes.
And further out on the land were plenty of squirrel, deer, and coyote tracks. And
when there's no snow, the silt by the creek shows who came by for a drink: lots
of mammals, and birds such as turkey and bobwhite quail. Even the dead trees have
the telltale signs of squirrels climbing up and down their trunks, leaving
scratch marks from their little claws.
Every time I walk on our land, I come home
with a few answers, and lots of questions. Now when I walk I can see this year's
green peaking out from beneath last year's dead growth. I can feel the speeding
up of spring as each day brings huge changes, and more questions. Look for my
column in the next March Hare and join me as I continue to experience and learn
from our land.
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