Did You know - outdoor edition

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that snakes come out in the winter? While they are not very active since they are cold blooded they are still awake and will come out to sun themselves on warmer sunny days. They tend to crawl under things or go into holes in the ground where the temperature does not fluctuate as much but you need to be careful moving old logs and board piles and such. I read where a dog in Charlotte NC was bitten last week apparently by a copperhead. 

   I remember hunting wood ducks one day in N Fla and we had a real cold spell come through. It was 20* with ice along the edge of the pond formed by a beaver dam when a large cottonmouth suddenly came swimming by. He ended up with a load of #4 shot in his head. I suspect something had disturbed him but I have no idea what it could have been.

[billporterfield]

Did you know? Woodchucks are one of few true hibernator. In northern Great Lakes region, its from October to April. The body temperature will go as low as 35 degrees. During the sleep heart will beat 4 to 10 per minute. The breathing rate a little  as one breath every 6 minutes. How much does a woodchuck chuck, very little at this time

[Don P]

And now I can't remember if it is them, do they wake in Feb, go courting and then wander back for a nap?

[WV Sawmiller]

Don,

  We will see next week. :D


Did you know woodchucks (Marmots) are common in Mongolia? We did a tour over there at the end of my work assignment in the Gobi Desert in 2006 and found they were quite common in the hills and grasslands of central and northern Mongolia. Eastern Indian tribes used Woodchuck hides for drum heads as they are very tough skins.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that the type of gator hunting you see on Swamp People was late in coming into practice before gator hunting in Fla was outlawed? My grandfather was a professional gator hunter and he said just before he had to quit people were starting to hang lines out over the water with beef "lights" and such to catch them.

I don't know whether Grandpa Green loved gator hunting that much or whether us grandkids just loved to here him tell about it and conned him into telling about it more than his other adventures. He was a plume hunter for a while and did not know they had passed a law against it till he sent his bundle to his 3rd buyer. The first 2 sent them back immediately with no comment. The third buyer said it was now a federal offense to possess them and not to send him any more, He said he wished either of the first two had told him and saved him the postage.

Grandma was bedridden so we'd all gather in their big joint bedroom where she could listen too. Grandpa had string pull light fixtures with cords stretched to the bedposts so he could pull them from anywhere without having to get up from the bed. He sit up against the headboard with several pillows to prop him up and we'd gather at the foot of the bed or on the floor to listen to his tales.

He said when he hunted gators mostly he'd "Set them up". I asked him what that meant and he said he'd find a gator hole (Den) in a sinkhole or stream somewhere and try to find the direction of the entrance and get on the back side of it and "Set" there till he came up and then he'd shoot him. He evidently had a long pole with a hook on it he'd use to retrieve the dead gator. He told us a gator could stay under water an hour or more without breathing and if they knew he was there the gator would often come up behind a stick or such and just stick his nose out of the water and take a quick snort of air then he was good for another hour or two of bottom time. Grandpa said if he could just shoot the nose it would injure and agitate and cause the gator to use up his air quicker and he'd come back up quicker.

He speculated that a gator could not count past 2. He said he'd be hunting and some other hunter would walk up and see him and apologize for messing up his hunting and walk away and it would be a long wait for the gator to come up. He said if 2 or more people came up on him, as soon as they left the gator would pop up and he'd shoot it. (I don't know why he never got 2 hunting buddies to come with him then let them walk away if that was true - but he did believe it whether it was right or not.)

Grandpa said he'd found a gator den in a sinkhole one time and was poking around in it with his pole trying to find the direction it went and he said a big old bull gator busted out of there and grabbed 5-6 ft long piece of driftwood in his jaws and turned and tried to take it back in his den but it was too long and he could not get it with it crossways to the entrance like it was so Grandpa jumped on top of him and shot him.

As I remember only the belly hides were sold although he said something about the "buttons" from the back were sometime sold. One lady buyer would dock him $1 for a cut in the hide on  every gator he sold. She paid top dollar so he still bring them to her. Finally one day he explained to her that hole was the gator's anus and it was going to be on every gator. She dropped her buying price by a dollar but no longer penalized her buyers for a cut hide.



Grandpa finally had to quit his by then illegal gator hunting and several other activities when he joined the Fla Fish and Game Department and became one of their early Game Wardens. In the picture above he was probably about 60 years old in his uniform (Looks like an Army Uniform and this was not long after WWII and Korea so it may have been they had them in excess) and his department jeep. He said they gave him the Jeep and told him to use it like his own and he did till they made him quit plowing his garden with it. He explained to the department if it was his jeep he'd be out there plowing with it but they told him it was inappropriate use of State property and he had to quit.

I saw some old Randolph Scott movies recently and Grandpa always seemed to have the same craggy face Randolph did.

I have mentioned but Grandpa hated the Seminole Indians because they raped and scalped his grandmother during the second Seminole Indian wars while his grandfather was away fighting the Seminoles. My Aunt did some research and said Great-Great Grandma was a Seminole herself. We think her name was Moon and her father was Osceola.

Grandpa caught a man firehunting out of season and confiscated a deer he had killed and gave it to the local school. They had deer stew for lunch the next day and the man's son told several classmates "We would not be having this deer stew if it weren't for my dad." Dad's older brother, Uncle Junior replied "You might be having deer stew but we would not be having it if not for my dad".

Grandpa Green was the patriarch of the family and we all lowed to spend time with him.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that some birds can live to be over 100 years old? Act now - buy an obnoxious parrot or macaw, train it to talk using embarrassing phrases and will it to your grandkids and get even with them for not coming to visit.

   When she was a kid my wife's local vet, who was obviously an Auburn grad, had a pet parrot and a bunch of his derelict buddies there in N. Alabama (I think one ran a sawmill near Huntsville) taught the bird to yell "Roll Tide". Fortunately the vet had a sense of humor and did not remove the birds vocal cords.

   In some quick research I discovered birds do not age like people and many other animals do and it is very hard for scientists to tell the actual age of a bird once it reaches full maturity.

https://abcbirds.org/blog21/bird-longevity/#:~:text=Whether%20you%20want%20to%20ace,years%2C%20depending%20on%20the%20species.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know birds preen to clean, straighten and protect their feathers? They spend much of their day preening. Most birds have a type of oil secreting gland at the base of the feathers and a few others have a number of down producing feathers that serves the same purpose. The birds evenly spread the oil or dust on their feathers to help make them waterproof and reduce wind resistance. During this process they also remove parasites and broken feather and other debris. Each feather gets individually preened cleaning and fluffing and arranging it.

[KEC]

Ducks have an oil gland by their butt; when you see one rubbing its' bill there and then on their feathers they are transferring oil to the feathers so that water beads up and runs off. I think that birds that get into petroleum that rehabilitators wash with soapy water have to be held captive until they can replenish their feather oil. If released just after being washed they can get waterlogged and or succumb to hyperthermia.  Some birds will hold an ant in their bill and run it through their feathers. Ants produce formic acid and this may be a way to make life hard on parasites. I once watched a Great Crested Flycatcher laying on its' back on a hot sunny day with its' wings open. I suspect that it had something to do with parasites. 

[WV Sawmiller]

    I don't know about flycatchers but Anhingas and Cormorants will often be seen on low limbs over and around the water with their wings spread as you describe. They are nearly always drying their feathers after a dip/fishing trip in the water. I never saw a bird doing that laying on his back though.

[WV Sawmiller]

  Since we drifted off into threshing material on a sister thread I am reminded of seeing old leftover millet stalks and such used for roofing materials on huts in remote African villages. Did you know how a round African mud (Sometimes stone or cow manure but usually clay) hut/home were built?

The builder basically starts with a stake in the middle of the new hut. He then takes a piece of rope the desired radius (half the diameter) and with one end connected to the stake he scribes a circle with the other end like using an old style compass like we used as kids in school. Instead of a rope a small diameter stick could have been used.

Once the outer floor is marked a foundation is built using stones or mud bricks/blocks. In some cases short poles will be inserted in the foundation for extra support. These are not very tall as I do not remember the walls of a mud hut ever being over about 5' tall. These poles, IIRC, will be completely covered in mud, clay, cow manure, etc. during the building process.

The walls are built on the foundation leaving spaces for doors and windows. Casings of local materials (Wood, raffia palm fronds, bamboo, etc.) are made to support the sides and a lintel of sorts is places across the top. In dry, rocky areas flat stones are collected and stacked. These may be the finished walls or covered with other building materials. If covered the stones are often just used for fill to reduce the amount of other material used. If stones are not readily available small brush may be woven in the wall to help hold the wet clay and manure or such used. As I remember the walls were typically 6"-8" thick.

Long, straight, small diameter poles are connected at the center like on an American Indian TeePee with the other end resting on the wall. In many cases these are Raffia Palm frond stems or Indian Bamboo if available. Often these "Rafters" extend past the wall 2'-3'. Thick vines or ropes of thin limber twisted brush or grass are placed and tied to the rafters in concentric circles around the roof. These are placed in parallel rings about 18"-20" apart. The actual roofing varies but is whatever is readily available. Millet stalks, local grass (similar to our broom sedge), or palm fronds are place and tied into place starting at the bottom and overlapping like our shingles to shed the rain. These materials last from a few (2-3) to several (5-8 years) before they have to be replaced. Where possible now many tribesmen cover the roof with corrugated roofing materials. The natural materials are cooler.

   At the very peak where the straw and such meet it is tied together like a bundle of oats or such and an inverted clay pot is often place over the knot to keep rain from falling into the hut. In several cases I saw old metal chamber pots used for this purpose.

BTW - did you know one reason the African's like round huts is they believe evil spirits are little men who hide in the corners and work their evil magic. The tribesmen also sleep on raised beds so the little demons cannot jump up and reach them while sleeping.

[WV Sawmiller]

  Did you know that different animals eyes shine in different colors when you shine a bright light on them at night? The different colors are caused by mineral content in the eyes and especially the retina. People's eyes do not shine partly because we are diurnal instead of nocturnal and we lack certain features in our eyes night active animals have. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that many snakes eat other snakes? King snakes are famous for eating other snakes and IIRC several species of cobras eat other snakes. Now if we can just super size a king snake and turn him loose in the Everglades to eat the pythons there we will be in business. Of course when they eat all the pythons they will probably shift to other animal and bird species and do as much damage as the pythons. :

[Don P]

That reminded me. I was rummaging in the barn upstairs today and this backed me up for a second  :D. It's about 6' long, happily it was well below freezing up there. 


 

[WV Sawmiller]

   That skin reminds me of the old adage "He won't hurt you but he will make you hurt yourself." Usually that was when a harmless water snake would fall into the boat with you.

  I don't know how many times an old broken fanbelt, a rope or an old bike tire nearly caused me to have a heart attack or run into something getting away from it.

  I still have about a 6-7 inch long keloid/scar on my right side from when I was a kid swimming in a local creek and walking along the bank when a big old cottonmouth slid off the bank through the dry leaves. He was several feet in front of me and crawling away from me and no real threat but I jumped back, something stopped me so I jumped back again before I realized it was a good tight barbed wire fence and I had a 12"+ gash in my side. I should have gone to the doctor and gotten stitches but I had this vision of Mom pumping the treadle on her old Singer sewing machine and refused to go. I did get in front of a big old box fan before I started applying alcohol or iodine or whatever antiseptic we had in the house.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you ever think of how painful it must be for a mother porcupine or hedgehog to give birth? Actually it is not as bad as you might think because the baby porcupine and hedgies have soft spines/quills before they are born. Evidently the points lay flat away from the direction of the birth canal and pass though easier that way. The quills and spines get hard after they come into contact with the air.

[KEC]

When I did wildlife control I once got a call from a guy who said there was a snake in his toilet. When I looked into the toilet it looked like it might be a snake but a closer look revealed a spoon handle. He was happy to pay for a service call charge. Did you know that some birds like to incorporate a snake skin in their nest material, such as the Great-crested Flycatcher ? Don, hopefully the snakeskin was from a black rat snake and he's helping you with rodent control.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I had not thought of it but I have seen dry snake skin in bird nests. I poisoned/dusted some paper wasp nests last year and in very short order the local birds had torn the nest to shreds for their nesting materials. They might have been getting the grubs too.

[Don P]

That is a black rat snake skin and the barn is full of mice so we have an agreement not to see one another even when we do  :D. They do not have the best disposition. I'm not saying they are aggressive, but...  I had one last summer crawl right across my walking path while I was planing and set up housekeeping under the planer, while its running. After a few minutes of that nonsense I could either get into a battle or,  I gave the snake the planer for the afternoon  :D

[barbender]

WV, porcupines have to make those babies while loaded with quills, too😬

I've read that many porcupines that have been examined have healed broken bones, likely from falling out of trees. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   That is a good point I had not considered. Do you know how porcupines mate? The article below describes best as "Conventional but very careful". :D

https://www.zooniverse.org/talk/1485/1330923?comment=2161393&page=1

[WV Sawmiller]

   In a sister thread someone mentioned Otters have a designated toilet area. I did not know they did that but did you know other animals may do the same thing? It is common for dogs in a fenced yard to have an area they use for their bathroom. I visited a small zoo in Arizona one time and they had a lama in one of the pens and it had a regular mound several feet high of accumulated droppings. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that some animals cover their droppings apparently to hide their presence from other predators? Domestic cats are famous for this but you will see some dogs scratch dirt, leaves and grass over their droppings. I gather other wild canines do the same thing. 

[KEC]

Not sure but the canines digging/scratching might be due to their having glands on the pads of their feet; leaves their calling card.

[Magicman]

Yup, cats cover, dogs scratch off.  :D

[WV Sawmiller]

  That is probably a better description. I know when Sampson finishes his business and starts kicking leaves and grass he is pretty cocky about it rather than like he is trying to hide something. :D