Under Attack

The winter fauna are getting to me.  Here, in order of increasing annoyance, is the latest:

1.  A squirrel is back at the bird feeder.  It's a plain old gray squirrel, so I can't tell if it's one of the four that we trapped and deported across the state line.  It hasn't gotten inside the squirrel-proof bird feeder or into the chicken house yet, or into the trap that we have set under the feeder.

2.  The ermine, which I mistakenly identified as a stoat until corrected by Marty--  http://www.wcax.com/video?clipId=2211121&autostart=true--is still AWOL.  My husband baited the trap with one of the dead field mice he had trapped in our basement (traps upon traps--it's the dark side of country life).  The next day the mouse was gone, the trap unsprung....

3.  And, this is the worst, the deer have, for the first time in eight years, invaded our yard.  Yesterday, walking in the woods behind the house with Wolfie and Bisou, I noticed that my previous tracks on the snow were a palimpsest of deer hoof prints which ultimately led to our backyard and to the baby Leyland cypresses I planted last year in a desperate attempt to camouflage the failed wattle fence around the hen yard.  Alas, those little cypresses have been eaten down to the top of the snow.  I dearly hope there is some living bit of cypress left under that white duvet.

I have since moving to Vermont met dozens of people who can't grow evergreens, or hostas, or vegetables on their land because of the voracious deer.  I have always mentioned, with a humble smile, that "our" deer seem to find enough to be satisfied with in the fields in front of the house, and never wander into the backyard because of the mystical, magical effects of my marvelous dogs.

Well, that's all over now.  The backyard is the playground of the deer.  Was it Lexi's assertiveness (you remember Lexi, she was euthanized last spring) that kept them at bay?  She kept Wolfie and Bisou firmly in their places, and she may have done the same for the deer.  But Wolfie is a lot bigger and scarier-looking than she ever was....

If I were a dog owner like the dog owners of past millennia, I would tie Wolfie out on a chain and leave him out all night to earn his kibble.  There's no question that we would not then be troubled by deer.  But I am a 2013 tree-hugging, quasi-vegetarian, tender-hearted dog owner, and Wolfie is accustomed to sleeping next to our bed, plus he gets weird sores on his pasterns in deep snow.  I'll sacrifice the cypresses for the sake of his comfort if I must.

I have asked my spouse to let Wolfie out for one last patrol just before his bedtime, which is considerably later than mine.   And I have bought a roll of burlap with which to swaddle the remains of the baby Leylands.  Whether the burlap turns out to be a cozy blanket or a shroud, only spring will tell.

Winter Fauna

I've long been under the impression that wild creatures hibernate, or at least slow down, during winter.  But around here the cold weather seems to have raised activity levels by several notches.

A couple of weeks ago, for the first time in the two decades we've had our squirrel-proof counterweight bird feeder, the squirrels defeated it.  The feeder consists of a metal seed container with a feeding tray and a perch in front of it.  If anything heavier than a tufted titmouse lands on the perch, it closes the feeding tray.  This year the squirrels--sumo-wrestler, rabbit-size gray squirrels--managed to undo the latch of the seed container, crawl inside, and have Roman orgies. 

Then they got tired of gobbling sunflower seeds and made for the chicken house, where they feasted on the all-vegetarian, high-protein, Omega-3-enriched laying mash and stressed out the hens, who all but stopped laying eggs.  

I sniffed skeptically while my husband set up a humane trap next to the hen's feeder.  But the next morning, mirabile dictu, there was a squirrel in it.

He put the trap in the car and drove off to the next state, where he released the squirrel into the wilderness.  Then he set the trap again.  The next day, there was another squirrel in it, whom he also deported.  We caught four squirrels in as many days.  We seem to have run out of squirrels, at least for the moment, and the hens have resumed laying.

Meanwhile, at the bird feeder, evolution is at work.  In Vermont cardinals are fairly scarce, and I was glad to see a pair at our feeder after the last big storm.  Unfortunately, the seed that spilled from the feeder would sink instantly into the snow, where the ground feeding birds, such as cardinals, couldn't get it.  That's when I saw the male cardinal clinging for dear life onto the hanging suet feeder, eating blueberry-studded peanut butter with the finesse of a woodpecker.  It's safe to say he'll be passing on his DNA next spring.

I was in the garage yesterday, carrying their winter breakfast of hot powdered milk and laying mash to the hens, when something small and sleek and very white scurried from under the car and hid behind a stack of cardboard boxes.  For a nanosecond it turned to look at me, and I saw a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, two bright black eyes, and a tiny muzzle.

Google tells me that it is a stoat, a member of the weasel family.  Unlike most species, which grow in size as the latitude increases, stoats get smaller as they approach the pole.  This accounts both for my stoat's cuteness and the hens' survival (I once lost an entire flock in a single night to a weasel).

So now the trap is set again, this time in the garage, and baited with a bit of lunch meat, stoats being carnivorous.  But I don't think that if we catch our little stoat we'll deport him.  I really just want to get a closer look.  Has anybody ever tamed a stoat, I wonder?