[ValleyNature] nature notes: gray squirrels, coyotes, bobcat, eagle watch, monarch butterflies, red-tailed hawk

[James W. Wolford]

JAN. 19, 2010 - Continuing wintry weather, which is a good thing for  
the imminent EAGLE WATCH WEEKENDS coming up at Sheffield Mills and  
elsewhere in eastern King's County where poultry producers put out  
their daily chicken mortalities for the eagles, hawks, gulls, etc. to  
utilize and act as dispose-alls.

Anyone interested should go on-line to www.eaglens.ca for details  
about dates and what is offered where during the last two weekends in  
January, beginning this coming Saturday, and the first weekend of  
February.

BAD NEWS RE MONARCH BUTTERFLIES -- go to www.globeandmail.com for  
today's article on p. A2 titled "Monarch butterfly count at a record  
low -- North American weather extremes take toll on migratory insects  
whose colonies in Mexico were already in decline", by Martin  
Mittelstaedt -- the first paragraph reads: "The number of monarch  
butterflies in the Mexican colonies where the colourful orange and  
black migratory insects spend their winters has declined to the  
lowest on record.

Today in downtown Wolfville at 1:50 p.m., I was in my car at the 4- 
way-stop intersection by the Tim Horton's when a red-tailed hawk  
glided through the intersection going north to south at a very low  
altitude, no doubt on a hunting foray and hoping to startle an  
unalert pigeon or other possible prey.  Five minutes later I was on  
foot at the same place and noticed a red-tailed hawk perched  
prominently atop the tower on the Railtown development along the RR  
tracks, very probably the same hawk seen earlier.  I wonder if this  
is the same town hawk I saw several days ago perched in a small tree  
at the Bank of Montreal intersection.  It was still perched on the  
tower a half-hour later.

I dropped in at Peter Elderkin's house to inquire about the half- 
grown or 2/3-grown cub bobcat (definitely a bobcat) that was at Paul  
Elderkin's farm at the Wolfville-Greenwich boundary from last Tuesday  
to Saturday, Jan. 12 to 16, 2010.  Peter said he was away on Sunday,  
but the young bobcat has disappeared and not been seen since  
Saturday.  It had been offered a bit of cat food, but Peter was  
doubtful about whether or not it ate some of that.  Harold Forsyth  
had seen the bobcat move a bit on Saturday and said it looked very  
weak and shaky on its feet, whereas the other observers had mainly  
seen it just lying in one spot just inside the entrance to Paul's  
barn.  Several people including Mark Elderkin, Harold Forsyth, and  
myself, took photos.  Peter told me he heard that a Dept. of Nat.  
Resources man had checked the site on Sunday but didn't hear anything  
else from DNR.

MORE LOCAL NEWS ON GRAY SQUIRRELS: Jacquie Roche, who lives along  
Main St. between Sherwood and Maple Avenues in east Wolfville, and  
who has a long history of sightings of up to 3 gray squirrels at once  
(so I thought) has now been seeing up to 5 at once -- 4 are gray- 
coloured and the 5th is black.  When I asked her about any size  
differences between these individuals, nothing had been noticed.   
Also there is a red squirrel there occasionally.

MORE ON GRAY SQUIRRELS: Last night at the Blomidon Naturalists  
Society meeting, Ed Sulis who lives in Kentville on Canaan Avenue,  
and has history of a couple of years of sightings of 1-2 gray  
squirrels in his yard, said that as of a week ago he once again has 2  
of them again (one of his earlier 2 was trapped and killed and added  
to the Acadia Biology Museum collection).

One more fascinating note from Jacquie Roche: about two weeks ago,  
she saw THREE COYOTES in her yard, and they crossed east Wolfville's  
Main St. and went through another residential yard and apparently  
headed southward?, which is all residential.

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