Did You know - outdoor edition

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know with many birds and some animals the males have brightly colored plumage, markings and coats to attract females while the females tend to be drab and dull so they blend in the background more so they can safely sit on the nest or otherwise protect the young. Think of redbirds, peacocks, mallard and wood ducks, etc.  as good examples. An African Kudu antelope is an example of a mammal where this is the case. 

(I would suggest this is also true with humans too but I don't want to stir up controversy with any of our female respondents. :)

[Hilltop366]

Careful, would't want to have to move this over to the "Did something dumb today" thread. :D

[KEC]

WV, the womens groups are already building a file on you, be careful.

[Tacotodd]

WV, the womens groups are already building a file on you, be careful.

:D

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know wild grapes will dry into raisins on the vine and will be eaten by wildlife for weeks to come? The high sugar content helps preserve them and they don't rot. Any Fall Season turkey killed around here in WV will almost certainly have dried grapes in his crop. Deer, squirrels, coons, bears, and other birds readily eat them too.

[Ianab]

Lil was putting out some rubbish tonight and tells me "there's this monster slug on the side of the house". 

It was pretty impressive so I bought it in to show the kids. 



 

Turns out its a Leopard Slug, a European species that's spread to many places around the world, and can grow to 8" long!!!.  So this one is just a baby.  :D

It had friend as well. 


 

Being in a kind mood I took them down the back and let them go in the long grass where they won't cause any more frights. 

[Don P]

I think the herb butter was my favorite part of the fancy meal of those things  :D

[WV Sawmiller]

   I could relate my politically incorrect snail joke about snails not having a backbone and you are what you eat and such but I will be nice for a change.

   What I remember of big snails was waking up all bleary eyed when I had OD in Okinawa and they'd have a comm-ex going on. I'd have to walk next door to the comm center sign for messages in the wee hours of the morning and would be half asleep and I'd step on an egg sized snail on the sidewalk and go slipping sliding all over the concrete for several feet trying to stay upright.

    Did you know the preferred fire starter in the southern USA was heart of pine with the sapwood all rotted off and was called "Light'erd or Light'ard" assumedly (Is that a word? Should be.) from the more "sophisticated" term "Light Wood". Light'erd stumps, knots and occasionally a standing pith would be cut or broken off and hauled home and cut into splinter sized pieces for fire starter.  Light'erd was so rich in sap a single match touched to it would immediately ignite it. It was very aromatic. Old timers would light a light'erd knot and use it as a torch. It is very hard to saw because the pitch sticks to the blade so bad and is very hard to split because of the tight grain pattern and such.

[WDH]

For me, it is not was but is is....I still start all fires in my wood stoves with light-erd pine.  

[Don P]

I use fatwood when I can get it  ;D

I heard on the radio a little while ago that they just declared 23 species extinct, most have been gone for years. Among the critters was the ivory bill woodpecker.

[Texas Ranger]

Some folks in Texas call it fat pine.

[WV Sawmiller]

Don,

   I bet Fatwood is the same thing just a different name here closer to the Glaciated North. As a small kid I can remember going out with my maternal grandfather in his mule and wagon to collect light'erd knots for his winter kindling.

   I saw that about the 23 newly declared extinct species. I hope they are wrong about the IB Woodpecker. 

   I did a research paper on them in college and that was when I found the big woodpeckers my grandfather talking about shooting and eating from Pumpkin Swamp in Dixie County Fla were the IB woodpeckers. When doing my research I remember reading there was some hope there were some surviving in Cuba. I don't know if it was the same species or a sub-species. I know they spotted/confirmed a sighting of a male bird in a swamp in Arkansas 10-12 years ago but never found a female or the den/nest hole and they had a hurricane or bad tornadoes come through that swap a year or so later and were concerned that might have been the coups de grace for the IBW. I hope they are wrong.

TR,

   I think we are all talking the same wood.

[Texas Ranger]

Don,

  I bet Fatwood is the same thing just a different name here closer to the Glaciated North. As a small kid I can remember going out with my maternal grandfather in his mule and wagon to collect light'erd knots for his winter kindling.

  I saw that about the 23 newly declared extinct species. I hope they are wrong about the IB Woodpecker.

 

TR,

  I think we are all talking the same wood.

Yep, you hear it all down here, fat pine, fatwood, lighter pine, etc.
One Ivory Bill Woodpecker story.  I held one in my hand back in the '60's, it was frozen, and in the freezer of a far out newspaper publisher in a little town in south east Texas.  Would have made a good meal, by size.

Might have tasted like spotted owl.

[Don P]

When we moved up here the eastern white pine doesn't really make lighter. The best it'll do is sometimes I'll slice off a streak o' lean around an injury, not that there can't be places full of liquid rosin in a split or break, it just doesn't seem to make much in the way of real fat lighter.

I remember the ivory bill sighting, it was quite a commotion at the time but I never heard of another. After hearing the recording of it, I don't think you would have to set your eyes on one to know it was there.

[KEC]

When they reported Ivory-bills in Arkansas it prompted me to read 2 different books about them. I think one was "Lord God Bird". It is a sad story. Amoung other things, the Singer Sewing Machine Co. clearcut the huge Singer Tract out of fear that they might be told they would have to leave habitat for the birds. Then there were "ornithologists" that went out of their way to shoot some of the last known birds to add them to their personal collection. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   As I have related before when I was 7-8 years old I went hunting with my paternal grandfather in Pumpkin Swamp in Dixie County Fla and while we were walking along a big, I assume, Pileated woodpecker flew by and Grandpa changed from buckshot to small shot and said "Them ol woodpeckers are good eating but you don't hardly ever see none of them old big ones any more."

 Probably 12-13 years later I was studying Wildlife Biology at Auburn and did a research paper on Ivory Billed Woodpeckers and during my research I found one of the last know locations for IBWs was in Pumpkin Swamp in Dixie County Fla. I have no doubt my grandfather was a contributing factor in the IBW demise. :(

 Grandpa was one of the early game wardens in the state of Fla after a career as a plume hunter, alligator hunter and such. To the day he died I think he would still shoot at any Bald Eagle he saw as he swore one tried to catch my dad when he was a baby on a quilt under a shade tree at the edge of the field where Grandma was working. He said a little old Feist dog chased it away. For all we know the eagle might have been trying to catch the dog.

[WDH]

You are just one eagle away from not being born .

[WV Sawmiller]

 Danny,

 There were several gators and many, many rattlesnakes and cottonmouths that could make that same claim.

  BTW - did you know that venomous snakes can control the amount of venom they inject into their prey or enemy when they bite? Often they will make what is called a "dry bite" and inject little, if any venom into a bite. Evidently it takes a while for the snake to replace venom used so rather than waste it chasing away a potential threat they will make a dry bite as a sort of warning. I assume they are more likely to make a wet bite on prey they intend to kill.

  I also understand snakes that hunt birds and such often have more potent, faster acting venom because they need to make a nearly instant kill or lose the prey. Evidently snakes that hunt ground prey like rodents and rabbits and such can bite then trail it several feet if needed to find it.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know when a constrictor type snake kills its prey it does so by wrapping its coils tightly around it and holding steady pressure? Every time the prey exhales the constrictor tightens its grip and takes up the slack. The prey soon suffocates because it cannot inhale.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Do you know if a chipmunk will bite when caught? You'd think he would but I have caught several and they did not. You'd think he would eat you up and enjoy doing it. I can't say my sample was big enough to qualify as a proper scientific study.  I know even an otherwise gentle, pet flying squirrel and it seems like the cat squirrels too, would nip you when you put your hands around their belly.

[Chuck White]

I caught a chipmunk by hand probably about 60 years ago and once I got a good grip on him, he quickly pierced a hole through the web between my thumb and index finger!

I guess reflex action kicked in and the little bugger was suddenly squashed!

[WV Sawmiller]

   That's what I suspected but the last 2 I caught/rescued only tried to escape and did not bite. I have been very reluctant to try again as it just looks like those little mini-beavers would shred your hand quickly. I still have nightmares of the time I stuck my finger in to touch the wiggly nose of a big tame rabbit and he nearly took off my trigger finger. I've never had a cottontail try to bite me but that tame one sure did. 

[HemlockKing]

Did you know the North American porcupine can weigh up to 77 lbs and live up to 15 years? Also, if you care for your oak trees, take a inventory check every couple of days or you may lose some to these beasts.




Black blobs in tree crowns? Rid of them before your trees end up like this 

[WV Sawmiller]

   I had no idea they could get that big. I thought they were about the size of a coon. The only one I ever saw was a road kill near Bar Harbor Maine on a vacation up there. He looked about the size of a big beaver but I thought he was severely bloated by the sun. A 77 lb porcupine sounds like a good start to a horror movie to me.

[HemlockKing]

I seen one today I tried to catch with a club but it was fast! Ran over into the neighbouring land so I stopped chasing, sure he'll be back. I did not know until today they could run that fast, probably a good jogging speed of a human.