Winter Series Challenge For Mammals: A Hike and a Study of the Douglas Squirrel

Yesterday we were able to take a hike out in the snow at our favorite spot. It felt like spring and the sun warmed my neck in a welcome way. I realized I can smell the forest again. This is the first time I noted that during winter there are far less fragrances in the air. Yesterday we smelled the piney woods fragrance of the evergreens in the warming sun. It smelled delicious.

We tried to focus on finding signs of mammals on our hike as part of the Winter Series Challenge for mammals.

The squirrels have been busy munching on cones.


Isn't this just the most wonderful cone you have seen in a long time?


The snow is melting a little on this familiar hike. The beaver dam is still visible with all the leaves gone from the trees and bushes.


Here you can see the snow pulling away from the creek water and exposing the grasses underneath. It feels like spring here for the first time.


I am thinking these are dog tracks but perhaps coyote since we have seen them in this area before.


Now these I am pretty sure are rabbit tracks...or perhaps snowshoe hare tracks.


We spotted this trail of tracks to the left of the snowy log and if you look carefully you can see them disappear in the distance. I have no idea who made them but they were fun to see and to talk about.


Here are some more tracks down by an icy spot on the creek.

We came home and decided to look up and learn about a mammal from our field guide. There are quite a few to choose from that live in this particular area, but we chose the Douglas squirrel (or Chickaree). We often hear squirrels in the trees and now we know that in this particular area, the only tree squirrel is the Douglas squirrel. They have a chattering sound that is distinct, making it easier to identify even if we don't actually see them in the trees. Our mammal field guide says that they are active all year long, but they still store a winter cache of cones. We also learned that the piles of leftovers where a squirrel eats are called middens. There is an actual name for those piles we see under trees!

We used this online book to learn more about our local mammals: Nature Guide to...
Wikipedia Article: Douglas squirrel
Link to its tracks at BearTracker: Douglas squirrel
This site has some great images: Nature Works

"Nature has made him master forester and committed most of her coniferous crops to his paws. Probably over fifty percent of all the cones ripened on the Sierra are cut off and handled by the Douglas alone, and of those of the Big Trees perhaps ninety percent pass through his hands."
John Muir on Douglas squirrels, The Mountains of California.

Isn't that interesting? I love when we take a few minutes to learn a little more about something in our nature study that really is meaningful and will help us understand our local environment better.

This was a great challenge for us this time around.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Bright Shiny Day Snowshoe Hike

The sun was out and we jumped on the chance to go to the snow for some fun and refreshment.

Let's just say it was breathtaking....far too awesome for words.
(Not sure if you are on an email subscription if the video shows up, but you can click over to my blog and view a 30 second video of the landscape.)




It was so quiet and we had the whole place to ourselves. This is the best kind of hike...time to enjoy the quiet and the beauty. Look at those cattails. It reminds me that in the summer this place is hopping with red-winged blackbirds and egrets. This day we saw nuthatches, mountain chickadees, and a raven. It was surprisingly quiet.


The beavers have actually dammed up the regular waterway and it is now flowing around the right side instead of straight through. Fascinating.


Some of the creek is actually all covered over with snow...you can see openings where the water is frozen over. As many years as we have been coming here in the winter, we have never seen this before.


Not very many tracks in the snow this time...


As usual, we end up spreading out and just taking the trail at our own pace. We are usually all within eyesight of each other but keeping a nice distance in between.

As much as I hate to miss a day of regular schoolwork, we really needed this day to wander out in the sunshine and fresh air.

Winter Day Hike: Animal Tracks

It was a day of hiking in the aspens and pines....there is something so refreshing about hiking in the snow on a sunny day. The light must be different or perhaps it is the air. Whatever it is about winter hikes, I feel more alive. The indoor life does not suit me very well and getting the chance to spend a few hours hiking with my family makes me smile even now just thinking about our time outdoors.


Although there were no other hikers on the trail this time, we knew there were other living creatures near-by. The snow recorded their activity for us. We always have a great time imagining who the tracks belong to and then discussing what they may have been doing out here in the woods.


Many times as we hike along we spread out and have some alone time. I love to walk and pay attention to the crunching of the snow under my boots. There were a few birds that showed their faces while we walked and a few that just let us know they were there by knocking on the tree or whistling a little tune.


These ducks don't seem to mind the cold, cold water.

Our Bird List for the Day:
Mallard ducks
Ravens
Steller's jays
Red-breasted nuthatches



The creek was flowing along with crystal clear water, much deeper this time of year than in the summer and fall. We observed lots of tracks on the other side of the bank....big tracks where it looks like someone came to get a drink perhaps.


I told the boys to be on the lookout for interesting tracks in the snow and if they found some to call me over. These are the "dinosaur" tracks they found....very funny.


Seriously though, this photo shows the most interesting and most abundant track we noticed through the trees. It looks like footprints with something that made a line to the side....a tail perhaps? I would love to know what made this track in the snow.

Maybe this is why I love winter hikes so much....there is an air of mystery and awe to them that I love and crave. We are looking forward to more snowy hikes in the near future.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Early Autumn: First of Many Walks

We took a long walk today to enjoy the last of the hot afternoons...we know they will be coming to an end soon. Here are a few things I want to share from our day.


This is a sure sign that autumn is coming quickly. The aspens are beginning to change color and the wind makes them shimmer and shake.


The Kokanee salmon are spawning and their green and red color is brilliant in the clear creek water.



The creek is very shallow and the salmon come here to lay their eggs and die. This becomes a habitat for eagles and bears and ducks this time of year. Can you guess why?


If you click this photo it will enlarage and you will see the outline of a bear at the bottom of the photo among the trees. She was on the other side of the creek sharing a salmon with her baby. We gave her a lot of space and the few of us that were there snapped a few photos and left her in peace.



The whole afternoon was picture postcard perfect.



The Pussy Paws are golden and the goldenrod is golden and the pines are green and the sky is blue......where are my paints?

This was a great afternoon and I feel so refreshed.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Out on the Bike Trail Again

It was a hot summer day at our house and we were trying to think of ways to escape the heat. We decided to head up the mountain where it was about twenty degrees cooler and take a bike ride and have a picnic. (Another very crooked horizon in this photo....I had my little camera and the viewing screen is nothing but glare sometimes in the bright sun so I have no idea if what I am shooting is crooked or not.)

The trail was fairly crowded with others that shared our idea to cool off. We pedaled about eight miles round trip but since the temperatures were so much cooler, it was very enjoyable.

We mostly stayed in the forest but at one point we veered over to the lake and sat in the shade and had a drink.


Along the trail there were patches of Indian Paintbrush blooming like orange pokers tucked in and around the green grasses.



This pretty pink flower was blooming as well.



This was the first time I noticed this particular sign on a tree near where we stopped to picnic. I thought the graphic was rather clever.



It just so happened that this guy was trying to find a meal as well. He checked out under our table but then decided to dig little holes to see what he could munch on.

I actually was able to get rather close to take this photo since he was occupied with something tasty. He is a Golden-mantled ground squirrel....which looks like a chipmunk but with no stripes on his head.

We had a very refreshing day on the bike trail and there were plenty of interesting things to keep us entertained.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Music While We Walked, Catkins to Look At, and a Squirrel Entertainer

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Click this photo! Gorgeous!

We had a unique experience the other day out on a walk in an area where at this time of year there are very few other people. It was a quiet, bird watching sort of day as we hiked along until one section of the trail where I swore I heard music. We all stopped and listened and sure enough, far in the distance we could hear music playing....I thought banjo music. We had no idea where the music was coming from. We were pretty far from the parking area, we had only seen one other person the whole afternoon, and I was fairly sure it was someone actually playing the music since it sort of started and stopped and wasn't like it was a CD or something like that.

We rounded one bend in the trail and we had our answer. You can listen for yourself here in this very short video. (I felt really weird taking a video but I was sure we would want to remind ourselves of this in the future...it made us smile.)




We did eventually catch up to these two walking along and they were just out enjoying the spring weather, making some music. I have no idea what kind of instrument he was playing. It looked to be homemade. It sort of looked like a guitar/banjo/cigar box stringed instrument.

Sometimes I feel like playing music when I am out on a hike too. No, I won't be doing it anytime soon.

Here is a little friend that entertained us on this afternoon as well.

California ground squirrel....he was posing for us for a very long time.

We also had a chance to observe up close the catkins of the Quaking aspens. This is something new and interesting that I want to do some more research about.....the boys were not impressed with this subject but I will do research on my own. :)

The photo at the top of the page is a bunch of catkins hanging on the tree. Aren't they pretty?

Something I learned about the Quaking aspen is that is the preferred food of the beaver. It makes total sense to me since this is where we saw the beaver's dam and there is an abundance of aspens. I love making connections.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom