Fisher

Sunday morning, 8:30AM, March 11, 2001, I looked out my window and saw something unusual: A clump of black fur, apparently eating or burying something in my backyard. The animal was moving slightly, from side to side, in a depression next to a tree. I surmised that this animal was a fisher and that this fisher might be either eating an animal or burying a piece of its last meal for some future purpose. My fear was that this meal was one of my neighbor's cats. Either way, it didn't bode well, as Dozer would surely have caught the scent of the "meal" and either eaten it himself or, more likely, rolled in it.

Note the clump of black fur in this picture. I took this picture from my family room window (thus the poor quality and distance - Paul Rezendes I am not!). Anyway, I went outside to investigate. What I found, much to my surprise, were two fishers mating! When they saw me, the female (the smaller of the two) ran up a tree and the male just stood there and stared at me (angrily, it seemed). I went back into the house and took the following photos.

Female fisher climbing headfirst down the tree!

Female fisher jumping from tree and landing with a thump. Nice tail-high landing!

Female fisher scampering across the frozen wetlands. I watched her run up the deer trail and into the forest. Good luck with the children!

Deer

Exactly a week earlier (2001), a troupe of deer wandered through this same area. Here are some pictures.

There are four deer in this picture. Three are bedded down, and one is standing. A fifth can't be seen in this picture.

Deer on the march, casually eating buds off the saplings.

A baby deer, apparently staring at me. Note the cardinal on the brush to the left. Also note the same tree where I photographed the female fisher climbing down.

Barred Owl

On March 25, 2001 at approximately 2:30 on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I grabbed my new digital camera and took Dozer for a walk in the woods. There was snow on the ground and I forgot to wear gators. At times I was knee deep in the soft corn snow. But the hike was worth it. I saw a barred owl in a familiar tree. This was a tree that I had see it in before. I would have never seen the owl if I hadn't looked for it. It was quiet and didn't fly away as Dozer and I walked right beneath. It didn't mind posing for the photo either - the sound of the camera didn't frighten it.