WindStar Wildlife Garden Weekly
Connecting People
To Nature Through
Education October 15,
2007
Official
Publication of WindStar Wildlife
Institute
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Fall Was Busy With Family
Activities 
FALL IS one of my favorite
times of the year. I can remember, when growing up on an
Iowa farm, how colorful the leaves of the maples and hickories
were in our timber. The range of colors was
staggering!
My grandfather, who lived in a log
house, had built a road through the timber so farm machinery
could be moved to the back of the 411-acre farm. The
road was cut into a fairly steep hill so it was recessed in
some places 5 or 6 ft. When the leaves fell, they would
completely fill these areas.
One
of my fondest family memories was when my grandmother, Mom,
Dad and I picked up pails of hickory nuts and black
walnuts nuts underneath the trees in the timber. We
had to hurry to beat the squirrels. Sometimes neighbors
were invited to share the crop in a bountiful year.
I can vividly recall standing on the
"running board" of our neighbor's Chevy with "knee action",
hanging on to the door post for dear life, as he sped down the
hill through the huge piles of leaves which would "explode"
when hit. Naturally the leaves would cover the car and me,
completely cutting off all sight of the dirt road.
I
often wondered what would have happened if we hit a tree limb
or large rock! Somehow we survived.
The nut meats were delicious in pies and cakes after
being "picked" out of their shells over the winter.
Tom
Patrick
Founder &
President
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Wildlife Feeding Frenzy
Begins
Birds line up to eat at this Heritage Farms feeder.
Photo by Duncraft
WITH THE start of
autumn, a feeding frenzy for wildlife goes into full
swing in preparation for their long winter ahead. Deer,
turkeys, squirrels, mice and raccoons are among the
animal species busy feasting on fallen
acorns.
Laura
Simon, field director of urban wildlife for the Humane
Society of the United States, explains, "Wild animals
need to fatten up for winter, whether they are true
hibernators like woodchucks (groundhogs), or whether
they merely hunker down and remain inactive during cold
spells (like Raccoons).
If wild animals
don't go into winter in good condition, their chance of
surviving times of minimal food and extreme cold lessen
significantly. And, acorns are the hottest item in town.
Even deer are leaving shrubs alone this time of year--if
they can get their acorn fix.
While this frenzy can
sometimes mean frustration for homeowners, the Humane
Society has provided some tips for co-existing with the
four most common human "side effects" of the season:
Read
On
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Nature
Quotes
"The sun is on fire
In the sky
And
in its warmth
Flowers open
In the garden
And
the butterfly
Flutters by.
Wings widespread
It stops to feed
At
the flower bed
And on its favourite flower
The
butterfly settles
Like two extra petals."
--Stanley Cook
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Native
Plants: Key To Survival
Developments like this
one result in wildlife habitat lost forever
By Lillie
Dorchak
I JUST
PASSED a landscape crew cleaning up understory
brush under a row of old pine trees at the edge of an
empty residential lot on my road. New house coming. My
mind said "There's another habitat gone!"
All
around us, natural places are being consumed by
"development." Here on Minneakoning Road in Raritan
Township (NJ) developers of big box stores have been
tearing away at the buffers on the old fairgrounds
property, displacing wildlife that I enjoy
watching.
This includes families of rabbits and
groundhogs, bluebirds that nested at the buffer line,
and who knows what else. Sad, but more than that, it's a
trend that may bite us back in the future.
News
about global warming has been depressing enough over the
past decade, but it isn't the only issue to be anxious
about, if we want a future that isn't drastically
different from the present... Read On |
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Wildlife Photo of the Week
Juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk by Arlene
Ripley
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People Flocking To Outdoors
Early morning bird watching is
popular. Photo by Mike Dunn
By Scott Shalaway
WILDLIFE-RELATED
recreation continues to grow in the U.S., but the
dynamics of the activity is changing
significantly.
According to the 2006 National
Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated
Recreation, conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service every five years, the number of adults (age 16
and older) participating in some form of
wildlife-related recreation jumped nearly 13 percent
from 77 million in 1996 to 87 million in
2006.
But who is doing what? It's
changing, thanks to modern culture and society. In 1996,
51 percent of wildlife-related recreationists said they
were hunters and anglers, and an overlapping 82 percent
said they were wildlife watchers.
In 2006, the
proportion of hunters and anglers dropped to 39 percent,
while watchers remained steady at 81 percent. Clearly
the number of anglers and hunters is declining, while
the number of watchers is stable. People enjoy and
appreciate wildlife, but in today's society more enjoy
watching wildlife than consuming it.
At a glance, these trends
might...Read
On
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Bears Are Holding Their
Own
 By Ed Wall
NEW BERN, NC--I
witnessed an interesting thing a couple of weeks
ago.
While
sitting at a stop light on a major highway at about 10
a.m., I noticed what appeared to be a large black dog on
the side of the road a short distance ahead.
(American Black Bear by Charles Jonkel)
As I
watched, he very casually loped across the highway and
into some woods, heading toward a housing development
and an elementary
school.
The "dog" was a
American Black Bear--about 150 pounds by my estimation--
and he didn't appear to be in any particular hurry to
get wherever he was going. None of the other motorists
who saw the bear pulled over or, in any way, seemed to
be alarmed. A few heads swiveled and then everyone,
including the bear, went on about their business. And,
since nothing showed up on the six-o'clock news about
the incident, I assume he avoided any run-ins with
little school kids or soccer moms.
The real significance of the
incident...Read
On
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Have An EXCELLENT Day
in your WILDLIFE HABITAT!
Tom
Patrick
President
(The Striped Skunk is a common skunk of North
America.
Photo by Thomas Kitchin & Victoria
Hurst)
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10072 Vista
Ct.
Myersville, MD
21773
301-293-3351
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