The Camera Shy Mr. Muskrat

While trudging along on my late afternoon walk on the frozen Mississippi, I was surprised to see a local resident come trundling out to meet me.

An afternoon greeter

Here's a closer look at the little guy.

Mr. Muskrat

It took me a moment to realized he really was coming out to meet me. I stopped, dropped my gloves on the snow, and pulled the camera from the camera-bag. As I raised the camera to focus, Mr. Muskrat decided he was camera shy. He turned tail and headed back to shore.

A major source of enjoyment on my winter walks is reading the stories told by the tracks in the snow. I wonder what story these tracks will tell to the next reader....

Will the next track-reader know that Mr. Muskrat was camera-shy? 

Eight Deer Walk

I went for a walk in the woods today. More accurately, I went for a walk where the woods had been.

Timber Harvest

Where once there was a narrow, overgrown road through a dense stand of popple, there was now a wide open field studded with piles of eight-foot lengths of popple.  These piles were up to fifteen feet high. A lot of wood to be hauled away.

Popple Logs

 A bit further on, I came to another harvested area. The pile of logs here was twenty feet tall. The logger has left the few scattered oak trees standing.

More logs

 A timber harvest sure changes the look of a place. If prior harvests are precedent, all the slash will be piled up and allowed to dry for a year or two. Then the piles will be burned off. What comes next will be a mystery. The county may decide the simply let the popple (aka aspen) regrow in what's known as an "Aspen Release Program", which will provide good deer-browse for many years.

Or, the county may decide to replant the are with another type of tree. In this neighborhood, spruce are often planted in harvested areas. The picture below is the same trail as above, just a few hundred yards further along. These trees are, perhaps, twenty to thirty years old.

Spruce plantation

Spruce Plantation

Sometimes, the county will replant a mix of spruce and Norway pine. The picture below was taken at the edge of an area that was harvested last year. The harvested space abuts an area that was replanted with spruce and pine.

Spruce and Norway Pine

As you can see, I was the first two-legged critter to walk on this trail. Only deer, rabbit, and partridge had walked there before me. Just after I snapped this picture I noticed the white flag of a white-tailed deer crossing the trail, right to left, about twenty yards beyond the tree line. Cool! I don't often get to see deer on my walks in the woods.

As I got to the more open area at the other end of the spruce/pine plantation on this trail, I came upon two more deer. They moved to the far side of the open area. Then, there were two more deer! They headed in the same direction as the others. They were in no hurry. They'd move a bit and stop, move a bit and stop. It amazes me how an animal as large as a deer can stop behind a scraggly willow bush in an open snow-covered area - and disappear! Unless it twitches its ears, it is nearly impossible to see!

A five deer day. One trails where I often walk and never see one, today I was treated to five of them. A special day!

To top it off, as I returned home along the road, three more deer crossed the road just before I got to our mailbox.

An eight deer walk!!