Catching Up with 2020, Part I: Trail Camera Mammals and Birds

Wow, what a blur these last few months have been. I've had very little time for outdoor wanderings since September, let alone time to share sights here. Sigh. But I have indeed been watching out for nature around our house over the last few months as best as I could, and the holiday break means I can finally catch up with sharing 2020 wildlife happenings here. Hooray!

Our trusty trail camera captured plenty of interesting animal activity in our woods even while I was stuck inside (mostly tethered to my computer), so we'll start there! Throughout most of August, the trail camera was watching a tree trunk that had long ago fallen across our woods path, and this turned out to be an incredibly productive viewpoint. A large variety of birds and (mostly small) mammals made an appearance on these mossy logs during that time. Here's a compilation of some of the best videos from this spot, featuring:

1. A Raccoon (one of several that wandered along this path in August, usually stopping to sniff the logs).
2. An Eastern Chipmunk perching on the log for a thorough grooming session.
3. The Ruffed Grouse family who showed up on the trail camera several times this summer. Here, the adult female keeps watch while the two now-nearly-grown chicks snatch up nearby seeds. I can't believe I get to see grouse foraging in our woods, and I love the soft sounds they make here!
4. A Long-tailed Weasel -- the first one we've seen on our property! -- slithering along the log in what I feel certain must be scent-marking behavior. (Mmm, weasel-scented log!)
5. A White-footed Mouse (or Deer Mouse) with its tail held high, possibly also scent-marking?
6. A White-tailed Deer munching on nearby shrubs.
7. A Virginia Opossum moving across the logs and stopping to scratch an itch.
   

At the end of August, I moved the trail camera among a few other locations in the woods, which resulted in some other interesting animal videos, including our first sightings of Flying Squirrels! (These could be Northern or Southern Flying Squirrels, but I'm not sure which.) I already knew we had Flying Squirrels on our property because I found the remains of someone's Flying-Squirrel meal in September of 2018... but this is the first time we've seen these fancy arboreal rodents whole and alive. :) White-tailed Deer were (as expected) the most frequent visitors on the trail camera during the last couple of months. This last compilation video shows a brief Flying Squirrel clip, and then three clips of deer -- a male with tiny antler spikes, a male with impressively big antlers, and some deer foraging in deep snow on Christmas Eve:

I have a bunch more sights to share over the past few months, beyond these trail camera videos -- Part II is up next!

Mouse Relocation

Last winter, Paul and I had our first experience with a mouse in our apartment. We never actually saw the thing, but someone was clearly chowing down on the food in our cabinets and leaving little droppings everywhere -- not really something we wanted happening in our house. We decided, eventually, that we didn't want to kill the creature, but we did need it removed -- besides the destruction of our food, mice can carry diseases dangerous to humans, which is a little scary -- so we settled on a humane mouse trap that came highly recommended to us*, prepared our bait, and waited for the little monster to fall for it.

The next morning, we heard scurrying sounds coming from the trap and were almost afraid to look, because we didn't want to see the dirty, grimy creature that we imagined would be inside. But we did look, and it wasn't a monster, but a little puffball with big round eyes and ears, a rusty red back and shining white belly, and as soon as we saw it both Paul and I immediately exclaimed: "Awwww!"

The little mouse turned out to be a White-footed Mouse**, which is a native species, and not the introduced (European) House Mouse that most frequently causes problems in human homes. We dubbed our new friend "Cracker", and released him/her in a park a few minutes drive away.

So now that we are experienced mouse relocators, we were all ready to deal with the little house guest that made its presence known in our cupboard last night. Again, we set our trap, and were greeted this morning by another adorable White-footed Mouse face. Paul had a hard time letting this one go (they really are cute, and this one seemed curious and friendly), but we drove "Cracker II" out to the woods and gave him/her a chance at a new life -- there won't be any crunchy granola bars out there, but there also (hopefully) won't be poisons or baited death traps, so maybe it's a good trade.

Cracker II paused for a picture before bounding off, with astonishingly high leaps, over the dry leaves and into the woods:

Goodbye, little fellow, and good luck!

Two mice in two years doesn't seem too bad, so we're just hoping that we don't start to see an increase in numbers. From what I've read, White-footed Mice don't tend to nest in people's homes, so maybe we'll be OK. You're welcome to keep living, pretty little creatures, we just don't want you in our pantry. :)

Notes:
*If anyone's curious, the trap we use is the Smart Mouse Trap, and it's worked perfectly right away, both times we've put it out.
**It's also possible that this could be a Deer Mouse, which looks almost exactly the same as the White-footed Mouse. However, most of the sources I've seen don't extend the Deer Mouse's range into Southern Connecticut, so White-footed Mouse is my best guess.