Red squirrels are found in most regions of the US except the midwest which doesn’t have many trees and very little to no conifers. There are only small pockets of Red Squirrel population in the southeast, but they are found in the Blue Ridge and Smoky mountains in southern Appalachia. That being said, there are different kinds of Red Squirrels scattered throughout the USA. On the West coast the Douglas squirrel is found. It is a close cousin to the East coast American Red Squirrel.
Females only come into estrus one day and travel for the week leading up to mating to announce to the males that the time is near. They can breed with many males during that 24 hour cycle. They sometimes build several nests and move their 3-4 size litter amongst the different nests. The young take 4 months to grow to full size and will nurse for more than half that time.
Red Squirrels have a set territory and stash White Spruce cone seeds in middens. More than 50 % of their diet consists of these seeds which are harvested in August and September. The offspring are sometimes given a dowery of part of the mothers territory to start their own lives. They can breed at 1 year of age but sometimes wait until the 2nd year to do so. Their life expectancy is only 2.5 years and maximum age is 8 years.
Common predators are Lynx, Fox, Coyote, Bobcat, Marten, Wolf, Weasel, Great Horned Owl and Goshawks. To combat the young mortality rate, American Red Squirrels will breed at a young age and even breed with close relatives. Studies have determined that neither of these habits have a negative effect on the offspring and indeed help in keeping their population from decreasing. This image was taken on a trail through a Spruce Forest in Baxter SP in Maine.
The Piping Plover population of the USA has been in trouble for a long time now. Thankfully conservation actions were started to protect the beaches along the Atlantic coast where they breed. There has been a slight boost in the population (numbers now range in the 5-10 thousand) in recent years as a result of these actions of conservation. Their breeding range is from south Newfoundland to northern South Carolina along the Atlantic coastline. There is also a small population in the midwest, south and west of the great lakes.
The Piping Plover gets its name from the bell like whistles used in its call and is often heard before it is seen. The adult is about 7 inches long and has a bright yellow beak as well as yellow legs. Despite that bright coloration, they blend in remarkably well to their beach habitat. They can stand still for long periods of time and then suddenly run for a burst 20-30 feet before stopping motionless again. They feed on small insects and vertebrae found on the beaches. Piping Plover are often found breeding on the same beaches as breeding Least Terns. I will be posting the terns in future posts.
They winter in the Caribbean and US Gulf shoreline from September-March and breed April-August along the Atlantic shoreline. They can have several broods, and the 1st one in May usually produces 3-4 chicks with subsequent broods producing less. The chicks have to forage for their own food, and they do so as early as 1 hour after birth. This chick included in the post is only days old and about 2″ long. I included the seaweed in the image to show the details of its small size at such a tender young age. The images were taken on the last day of June. I witnessed a few 3 chick families but mostly 2 chick families at this location.
Piping Plover Adult
Reference: Wikipedia contributors. “Piping plover.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 23 Jun. 2020. Web. 9 Jul. 2020.
Black Bear Cub climbing tree in the Great Smoky Mountains.
The American Black Bear that we see here in the Smoky Mountains and Cades Cove are also found in the other mountainous areas of the United States. Those areas include all the Appalachian mountains, Ozark Mountains, Rocky Mountains and ranges in California up through Alaska. The state of California has the largest population of Black Bears per state. They are noticeably mostly absent from the Ohio Valley and Midwest regions of the US.
Estimates have the population of American Black Bear at around 500,000 in the US. The American Black Bear range also includes almost all of Canada and parts of Northern Mexico. Canada also has a population similar to the US at around 500,000, and Mexico has just a small population in very small pockets of their country. This brings the total population of American Black Bears in the world to around 1 million individuals. They are found nowhere else in the world, and the closest cousin is the Asian Black Bear. They are only a distant cousin to the Brown Bear that sometimes shares the same territory in the Northwest.
Although their namesake derives from the most common color black, American Black Bears range in all shades between black and white. In the Northeast and Southeast, there tends to be around 70% of the population that are black. The number of black colored bears in the Rockies and western states leans more to 50% of the population. There are as many as 15 different subspecies of the American Black Bear. One of those subspecies is the Kermode Bear also called Spirit Bear which has a recessive gene that results in 10% being white in color. These are found in British Columbia.
Adult American Black Bear in Cades Cove
Smoky Mountain Black Bears males average around 250 pounds while females are just over 100 pounds. This is an extreme difference and can sometimes be used to tell the sex of a mature bear. Some other physical appearance differences are the shape and size of the head and its parts. Adult females tend to show a more elongated face (more dog like) and longer taller ears. An adult male’s head and face has more round like features, and their ears have a more squatty appearance. Both males and females can run up to 25-30mph if they have to. They are extremely strong and able to lift 300 lbs. with a single lift of a front forearm. What is more amazing is the dexterity they have along with that strength. They are able to use their paws and claws to do the smallest and most difficult precise movements when foraging and feeding. They hear and see better than humans, but their most amazing sense is smell. They can smell 7x better than a domestic dog. Females can breed as early as 3 years old, and American Black Bears live on average to be 18 years old in the wild.
American Black Bear Cub
As a nature and wildlife photographer, one of my great joys is observing and photographing black bears in the Smoky Mountains. I have spent many hours learning about the habits of our local bears (and other wildlife), and of course photographing them. Sharing the wonder of nature with others is my passion, so if you are interested in black bear photography stop by my gallery (Cades Cove Gallery, Townsend, TN) or check out our online store. I also provide customized guided tours for individuals and small groups. This allows me to share my passion with others and to help them “get the shot” themselves plus improve their photography skills.
Today’s post is on the Red Fox. Hopefully between description and photos when you are done reading my blog you will have a better understanding of the differences between the Red Fox and Gray Fox which I blogged on yesterday. The two foxes are distant cousins to each other as we discussed already. Both are common to the US with the Gray Fox being the dominant fox West of the Mississippi and the Red Fox the dominant fox East of the Mississippi.
The Red Fox is only slightly larger than the Gray Fox. Its overall color is an orange brown and the tip of its tail is white. Different to other foxes it has black legs called stockings.
It is also different than the Gray Fox because of where it lives. The Red Fox has only a small presence in the actual territory of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Fearful of another canine, the Coyote, it chooses to rather live in outlying areas buffering the heavily wooded national park. It can be found in towns and even cities which have greenbelt areas and county parks. It also enjoys living around golf courses and country clubs. Those locations are surrounded by wooded areas in which they hunt and the grassy fairways are like their highways to get from one hunting ground to another.
Because they do live in close proximity to humans, Red Foxes may be seen when they are moving from one area to another. They are seen even more in late winter and early Spring when males are searching for females. Females and kits are seen frequently in late spring. One of the reasons for this is that female Red Fox have to hunt and provide for their kits. They also have a tendency to move their kits from one den site to another. Sometimes the first spot is very small or very close to human activity. As the kits grow more space and privacy may be required, so she moves them during the night time hours. If this occurs she will move one kit at a time until the whole family is secure in the new location. Red Fox usually have 1-7 kits sometimes called cubs. It is common for a female to have a litter of 4 or 5.
(References: Wikipedia contributors. (2020, May 1). Gray fox. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:33, May 6, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php…)
As mentioned in the last post, the Red Fox and Gray Fox are distant cousins that have many large differences. Today I will be covering the Gray Fox which gets its name from its gray muzzle and back. Sticking with the color of the animal, the Gray Fox always has a black tip to the tail where as the Red Fox always has a white tail tip. Another color difference between the two foxes is their legs. The Red Fox front legs (stockings) are black. The front legs of the Gray fox are orangey brown, white and gray like the rest of their body.
The Gray Fox build is just slightly smaller than the Red Fox but would be hard to tell the difference unless the two foxes were side by side. The biggest difference in their bodies would be their toes and claws. They have strong hooked claws which allow them to climb trees. There is only one other canine in the world able to do that, and it is their cousin the Asian Raccoon Dog. Tree climbing is used as both an offensive and defensive maneuver. It allows them to flee from such nemesis as the Coyote when their paths cross. It also allows them to climb a persimmon tree for the fruit when ripe.
If you were to come upon a Gray Fox, the encounter would be a brief and fleeting glimpse as they are very timid to both humans and most other animals. On the other hand a Red Fox has become more accustomed to people and may have more curiosity at such an encounter. A Gray Fox encounter in the Eastern US has become more rare with deforestation resulting in loss of habitat and the decline in numbers. One of the largest strongholds in the East for the species is the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee.
(References: Wikipedia contributors. (2020, May 1). Gray fox. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:33, May 6, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php…)
Hundreds of years ago both the Red and Gray Foxes of North America dominated the landscape. Gray Fox still thrive West of the Mississippi, especially the Rocky Mountains, but loss of habitat in the East has isolated them to the more remote areas of deep woods such as the Smoky Mountains. The Gray Fox still prefers to be away from the sprawl of society and have little to no contact with humans. Gray Fox are the dominant fox in the West, and Red Fox are the dominant fox in the East. Both species have called North America home for millions of years.
The Red Fox have adapted better in the Eastern US by staying closer to cities and towns. They can dig a den in a neglected yard of a subdivision or in a small tree line between properties. They will also roam towns and cities at night raiding trash cans and parking lots for food that humans leave around. Gray Fox are still the timid fox species and prefer to den in a tree, stump or sometimes the base of a turned over tree.
The two fox species are actually distant cousins and are very different in many regards. I will go deeper into their differences in future posts. The images here are of a kit from each species and labelled for comparison.
This is one of my 1st Black Bear images to sell off the charts. In fact many of you still following my page have this framed print hanging on your wall. Taken back in August of 2010 over 10 years ago, it is an image that is the topic for today.
Todays topic is sharing photography. Many novice nature photographers run around with the same people most of the time. That is not what I am talking about today. As my career began to take off, I found great fun in sharing my skills and knowledge with others. I would buy a piece of photo gear from someone local and invite them to shoot with me. A week later there would be a new member to the local photo club, and I would ask them to join me on a photo shoot. You get the idea.
Some years later, I began having people ask me to guide them. Some are from the South Eastern US and some much further away. In the last few years, I have even had a few international travelers commission me to guide them. Like teaching, it has been very gratifying sharing Nature and Wildlife Photography with others and doing it for a living now for 13 years come June.
But the photography sharing I want to tell you about today is much more simple and gratifying than all the above. My favorite sharing is with family. This is especially true of sharing photography with your children. Both my children were raised here in East Tennessee, and they don’t miss a trip to Cades Cove when they return to the area. They grew up with a father who had them hiking, fishing and in the woods most of the time. Of course I was always toting a camera around with me everywhere we went.
My daughter graduated high school and went off to college. When she returned, she became my social media advisor. She also was in charge of my images and storage of them on drives and in LightRoom. She is married now and has a family of her own. They return around once a year, and she usually visits the Smoky Mountains with them just as I did with her.
My son is a Navy man and has been for 11 years now. He is active Sea Duty which means he is away from the US as much as 6 months a year. He calls home Whidbey Island in Washington state. He rarely makes it home to Tennessee, but when he does it usually means a trip to Cades Cove, and if it is in the Fall, a UT football game. I wanted to tell you about this family sharing of nature and photography for all these reasons mentioned and more. You see, I will never forget the day I took this image. My son and I were spending the day together, and I decided it would be a good time to give him a photography lesson. I set him up with a camera/lens combo and gave him a quick lesson. By 8:30am we were on a momma and (3) 2nd year cubs. Now usually momma bears release their 2nd year cubs on their own by August. They ate from a cherry tree and my son was having the time of his life snapping away at the 4 bears.
All of a sudden the cherries were running out, and they left. We were thinking about leaving when I spotted another Black Bear peaking from the woods. Everyone else had just left, and she was making sure it was safe to go to the cherry tree. She came out with (3) young cubs about 8 months old. Together we photographed the family in the tree. You see the older cubs couldn’t get the cherries on the smaller limbs because of their heavy body weight. This was not a problem for the younger and smaller cubs. During this photography sharing time with my son I was able to get this shot entitled “Cherry Pie”. Thank you all for following my page and all your financial and moral support through my career.
Always be ready for “The Shot” is what I preach and teach to my students. I try to do as much nature and wildlife photography as possible using a tripod. However, when driving backwoods roads my handheld set-up is always at the ready. I try to estimate the closest settings for seeing wildlife along side the road. I angle the camera where I can easily find the grip with my right hand. I roll all the windows down when possible. I always keep track of the sun and the direction I am traveling for the quickest calculation of available light.
On this day I was driving down the road and saw a Red Fox on the right side of the road moving slowly away from me. I knew if I tried to stop too quickly it would put the fox on high alert. I also knew that if I passed the fox and shot back behind the truck I would gain even better lighting. Knowing the length of my lens paired with a crop sensor camera would give me the best results from about 30-50 yards, I stopped when at about the 50 yards mark. While slowing down, I had already gripped the camera and in an instant was slowly out the door closing it quietly behind me. The fox slowed and came to a stop about 40 yards from me. I carefully squeezed off a few shots and the fox looked across the road from where it was standing. This allowed me a few more shots with different head angles. It turned and started moving slightly away from me and across the road.
I went into action walking fast, to almost a jog, careful not to make any noise. I was traveling about twice the speed of the fox and making up ground. As I looked ahead of the fox, I realized it was about 20 yards from a river running along side the road. I made up some more ground and when the fox was about 10 feet from the bank leading down to the river, I calculated it would turn to see if I had been following it. I hit my knee to help steady myself with my left elbow on my raised right knee. This is always a good idea when trying to shoot with your heart racing after a good little jog. I had just enough time to lock on focus before the fox spun around to look back. I took this shot before it turned its head and looked straight ahead. I fired off another shot and the fox was gone. It scampered down the bank and maneuvered through some trees, never to be seen again.
Today ends an unbelievable week of photography here locally. With many of my bird photography trips being cancelled including the Texas bird migration this month and the Magee Marsh trip next month, I focused even deeper into the local birds.
With many people talking about invasive species and right and wrong human behavior, I will add this into the mix. Today was a usual day for me. Check on the local birds including Spring migrating warblers, Bald Eagles, Common Mergansers and the local wildlife including deer, fox, beaver and River Otters. When I came to the area where the momma and Merganser chicks are in the river, I saw a 4 year old Bald Eagle perched in the tree. Below it was the female merganser momma slowly swimming in a circle in the middle of the river. She was obviously trying to keep the attention of the eagle.
While pulling over to park I was deciding whether or not to intervene with what was happening. My decision was to photograph the Bald Eagle knowing that it would feel uncomfortable with me doing so and eventually fly off. That is exactly what happened. The momma merganser almost instantly swam down river about 100 yards and gathered up her babes and returned to the slower water where I stayed with her for about 2 hours photographing her and her chicks. Consciously I knew that I helped save some of her chicks, but I am a photographer and I viewed it as just another opportunity to photograph a Bald Eagle. The Common Mergansers just happened to benefit from my doing so.
One hour after the Bald Eagle engagement another small crisis arose. With three successful years since the return of the Common Mergansers to the Little River in Blount County, the section of river used for much of the nesting birds has got a little more crowded with mergansers. A mating pair came swimming into the momma’s area curious about all the little ones she had. She was having no part of it. My research has focused a lot on the behaviors of adults toward each other. This week I witnessed several new behaviors, and today was another lesson. The momma focused on the male, and it took 3 different chases with the last one resulting in a good nip to the back of the neck. He was leaving, but the female was still curious. One final chase of her, and she joined her mate down river.
Many of you know by now that I try my very best to have my own style of photography and seek out the most unusual shots that I can. However I am always mindful of staying true to nature and wildlife photography as a classic art form. Living here in Townsend I am not able to put out bird feeders in any form due to the large Black Bear population. You would think that this would hurt my chances of seeing and photographing many bird species; however, this is not the case. We are fortunate to own 7 wooded lots and a one acre field. We have most varieties of low elevation Smoky Mountain Wildflowers on our land. We also have many of the Smoky Mountain blooming shrubs and trees including Flamed Azaleas. Spring of 2018 we had a great Warbler migration happen in our front yard. During the 2018 Fall migration we were fortunate to have many Orioles, Grosbeaks and Waxwings in our Dogwood trees.
About 2 weeks ago we noticed that a Hummingbird was hanging around our home. Just a short time later my wife saw the hummer land in our front Maple tree and then hop into a nest. Just a few days after that I was able to witness her feeding chicks in the nest, but I only saw the beaks when feeding. Last night I was finally able to photograph the chicks heads above the top of the nest and today I got some shots of momma feeding them again. I also made the mistake of leaving my garage door open yesterday afternoon and yup, you guessed it, a Black Bear wandered in. It knocked over my Rubbermaid trash can and grabbed a bag before heading back up the mountain behind our home. (As a side note, we have our own Black Bear cave just behind our house.)
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are the only hummers East of the Mississippi River except for a few wanderers of other species. They migrate a total of about 1000 miles round trip. They leave their wintering grounds of Central America and Mexico at the end of February and arrive in the Smoky Mountains around April 1st. Others sometimes winter in South Florida and the Southern coastal states and migrate to Northern USA and Canada. They breed in June and July and start leaving the area around the September 1st time frame. When migrating they can travel 20 miles per day. They feed in the mornings adding 25% of their body weight. They travel during the day so that they can continue to feed on the nectar of their favorite red and orange flowers. Their wings beat up to 80 times per second and their hearts beat over 1200 times per minute.
After breeding the female builds a nest usually 10-20 feet off the ground. It builds it on top of a descending small branch. It is made of Thistle and Dandelion down held together by spider web and is a cup shape usually 2″ across and 1″ deep. The outside of the nest is camouflaged by lichen and moss and is difficult to see by animals and humans alike. The nest takes about a week to build and the female forms the walls between her bill and neck.
The female lays between 1-3 white eggs that weigh only 1/2 gram or 1/50th of an ounce. She only weighs about 3.5 grams herself and the male weighs just 3 grams. The incubation takes 2 weeks and that is followed by a 3 week nesting period. The chicks are born almost completely naked with just a row of feathers down their back. Adults feed mostly on nectar but the mother targets insects during this time because they are rich in proteins which are important for the chicks development. They target mosquitos, gnats and small bees. They sometimes will take spiders but would rather raid spider webs of their prey.
