"Taught" caught the change of hands from Tasha’s den to Holly in this 2:15 minute music video in which Holly discovered a wonderful den full of bedding with no one home and said, “I’ll take it.” She sniffed the inside intensely, rearranged some bedding, and called it home. From all reports, Tasha was distraught after all her work. I feel for her. We’ll see what she does next. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HLH4rgNG2k
Ducks en masse
Out a window at the Wildlife Research Institute, it was more ducks than ever. I counted 159. They came walking and flying in, began foraging, and then frantically flew with a loud flutter of wings back to the water. They eventually came back. My quick unprepared picture shows only a fraction of them.
Dark-eyed junco in paper birchOut an upstairs window, dark-eyed juncos were gathering treats from the tall birch tree that will likely come down with more chewing by beavers or the first big wind. There, dark-eyed juncos were finding tiny, winged seed fruits in the bulky female catkins that are torn up in the picture. Male catkins are the untouched sleek and slender ones. The juncos are on their way through, coming from their boreal forest summer homes in Canada and Alaska and heading to their winter homes between Duluth and the Gulf of Mexico.
As the light was fading this evening, the fox made a couple visits, each time saying “I’ll take a blueberry mini-muffin please” and then burying them in the yard where the ducks will probably find them tomorrow.
We only had one skittish bear visit us today, just as I was leaving at 8:30.
Thank you for all you do,
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center