Category Archives: Mammals

Are You Saying Something?

Horse in flehmen response to a scent (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

4 January 2024

Is this horse neighing? Is the lion roaring?

Male lion in flehmen response (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

No. In both cases they have smelled something interesting, perhaps a female in heat, and are breathing through their mouths and opening their airways to take in as much scent as possible into a special olfactory organ called the vomeronasal organ.

They are making a flehmen response. On Throwback Thursday, learn more and see a video in this vintage article:

Coyote Sends Greetings

“The suspicious coyote adds her full throated song to the music of Cleveland’s finest” (photo by oblende via Flickr Creative Commons license)

2 January 2024

Coyotes (Canis latrans) live in Pittsburgh but you might never notice because most of them keep a low profile. In Pennsylvania coyotes are hunted and trapped all year long — and they know it — so they generally avoid humans and operate at night.

Occasionally coyotes howl in Pittsburgh, usually from the woods, but I have yet to hear it. Since they’re larger than their western cousins you probably won’t see an amazing performance like this one in Tucson.

This coyote was sending greetings so important that he had to climb up high to say them.

Reindeer Cyclone

Herd of reindeer, Ljungris, Sweden (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

15 December 2023

Reindeer, also known as caribou (Rangifer tarandus), have been hunted by humans for thousands of years. An individual reindeer is vulnerable but the herd has a defense mechanism that protects them from humans, polar bears, grizzlies, wolves and other predators. It’s called a reindeer cyclone.

For another view, see this video excerpt from PBS Nature’s program about Vikings that shows reindeer making a cyclone to evade a hunter and it works.

Wildlife in the Borderlands

Ringtail resting on a rock, Phoenix, AZ (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

14 December 2023

Watering holes are places of abundant wildlife in Arizona’s Sonoran desert as captured on this trail cam in the borderlands. One of the night visitors is a ringtail (Bassariscus astutus), a member of the raccoon family, shown above. (There are two embedded videos below; please wait for them to refresh.)

When water crosses political boundaries animals cross, too, back and forth from Arizona to Mexico. But now the Border Wall makes most of that impossible.

This vintage article explains.

UPDATE on 15 Dec: Here’s the Border Wall.

Caught In The Act

Great egret chases a cattle egret that’s carrying a mouse (photo by Wendy Miller via Flickr Creative Commons license)

10 November 2023

“Hey!” says the great egret as it chases the cattle egret. “That’s my mouse!”

Cameras capture birds and animals in surprising ways. A stack of shorebirds. A bobcat on a prickly perch.

tweet embedded from @AubertHeidi1
tweet embedded from @AZStateParks

And deer running from …?

In New Jersey a buck ran through a front yard, jumped over two cars, and miscalculated the landing. Despite that he hopped out of the truck bed and ran away.

video embedded from Fox 26Houston

This month deer are still in the rut and still running into traffic. Caught in the act.

(credits are in the captions)

Getting Serious About Winter

Gray squirrel (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

3 November 2023

This week is the coldest we’ve had since last March or early April. Squirrels are getting serious about winter in @YardGoneWild‘s North Carolina backyard.

(photo of squirrel in Woodbridge, VA from Wikimedia Commons)

Feeling Thirsty?

Rock pigeon taking a drink (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

19 October 2023

Do you feel thirsty when you wake up in the morning?

It turns out that as we exhale we also breath out water vapor, so during the hours of sleep we lose water. According to sleep specialist Dr. Michael Breus, the healthy solution is to drink a full glass of water in the morning before you drink coffee because caffeine is a diuretic.

We could avoid this by getting up in the middle of the night to drink water, but perhaps our bodies are compensating in another way …

(credits are in the captions)

Cheep and Chip, Tock or Knock

Chipmunk with full cheeks,  Cap Tourmente NWA, Canada (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

1 October 2023

Fall migration has been intense over Pittsburgh lately and promises to be excellent tonight and tomorrow as well. Yesterday morning I went birding at Frick Park, expecting to find loads of warblers. No such luck. The birds flew over without stopping. However, for chipmunks it was a fantastic day.

Despite the current warm weather, chipmunks (Tamias striatus) are frantically gathering food to store in their underground burrows where they’ll spend the winter. Since they can’t use their paws to carry food, they fill their enormous cheek pouches.

What could possibly make their cheeks so fat? How about acorns?

Chipmunk stuffing an acorn in his cheek (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

With so many chipmunks scurrying in autumn, you rarely see two together. Chipmunks are antisocial but they like to make calls to warn each other of predators. Among their most common calls are two kinds of warnings.

Cheep or Chip: “Danger from the ground!” This call sounds almost like a bird and warns of nearby terrestrial predators such as a cat, fox, coyote or raccoon.

video embedded from @MarkCz on YouTube

Tock or Knock: “Danger from the air! I see a hawk!” This is a useful call for birders that tells us to search for a hawk nearby. However, chipmunks know that hawks fly rapidly through the forest so all of them take up the call, far and wide, even though the hawk is not near them. Tock! Tock! Tock! Where is that hawk? Erf!

video embedded from Mybackyardbirding on YouTube

Read more about the chipmunk’s calls at North American Nature: What Sounds Does a Chipmunk Make?

(credits are in the captions)

It’s Time to Hear the Elk

Elk bugling in Elk County, Pennsylvania (photo by Paul Staniszewski)
Elk bugling in Elk County, Pennsylvania (photo by Paul Staniszewski)

29 September 2023

If you’ve been waiting to hear the elk bugling in Pennsylvania, now’s the time to make the trip to Benezette, PA.

In September and October Pennsylvania’s elk (Cervus canadensis) are in the rut, their annual period of sexual activity. The bulls gather harems, pursue the females, antler-spar with other males, and “sing” a bugling love song.

Like white-tailed deer, male elk grow new antlers every year but these cervids are huge. Males are 25% larger than the females and can weigh up to 1,100 pounds with antlers that can span five feet.

Consequently it’s a bit surprising that the bugle is such a high-pitched call. Its bell-like echoing carries far in the woods and fields.

Visit the Elk Country Visitor’s Center in Benezette to see and hear the elk, perhaps even in the parking lot.

If you can’t be there in person, watch the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s live stream

p.s. Elk, also called wapiti, were reintroduced in Pennsylvania in 1913 after we extirpated them in the late 1800s. Did you know white-tailed deer were reintroduced to Pennsylvania, too? 

(photo by Paul Staniszewski)