“Mammal-ling” With Friends Second Place Winner
“Moose!”
The van erupted as a dozen people slammed from slumber-ish moments to actively attempting to catch a glimpse of the coveted northern mammal.
“Where?”
“Right beside the road!”
“I want to see too!”
“Oh, wow!”
“Look at that calf!”
Then they were past it. Craning their necks, they watched it for a little bit longer, to remind them that they were officially in Ontario wilderness.
And that’s where they were. My parents, along with Dad’s four brothers and their spouses, were on their way to visit their sister at a mission on an Indian reservation in northwest Ontario. With this came an opportunity to find some mammals we normally don’t see here in Illinois.
Soon they left the paved road and turned onto a rough logging road. It was along there that they spotted the first bear. Again the van exploded as they all scrambled to view the black beauty.
“Oh, wow!”
“That one is big!”
“Hey, it has a cub with it!”
“Oh, sure enough!”
“How cute!”
“Cute” was definitely true. Both bears posed curiously, then ambled away into the thicket.
At the mission, they had a bird food thief to deal with, a feisty little red squirrel. After a futile, one-man attempt with a broom, all five brothers jumped aboard, and they ambushed. With one man here, two men there, and two more over there, they were set.
The green light came when Thief reached down for another bite. Whoosh! The five brothers charged, armed with leading-edge weapons of bird-food-thief warfare—brooms, hockey sticks, and fish nets. Thief scurried down the post and hit the ground at Mach 90. He darted here and darted there, narrowly escaping the high-speed hockey sticks sent his way. His hurried beeline to safety beneath the cabin was stopped short by the sight of another person interrupting his escape.
Without a turn signal, Thief veered to the side, only to feel the dreaded net come down upon his back. He used every ounce of his flesh in the next bound, and Thief outwitted the men. Tearing up the tree, he could have looked down to see the men doubled at the middle and producing explosive, mirthful noises from within. One squirrel whipped five men, but still they laughed.
They spotted a mink in the lake, and a couple snowshoe hares on land. On the way home, they saw two more moose and two more bears.
But I had fun at home. Rabbits? I had no problem finding them. After all, they can have anywhere from twenty to forty-five young in a year, so it’s no wonder they abound. In my seven days of watching for mammals, I saw a rabbit or two or six every day.
Coons? Deer? No problem. They were easy prey, as were groundhogs, bats, and mice. As for deer, I was anticipating seeing a doe-fawn pair, but I didn’t. Probably the coyotes that I heard howling one night ate all the fawns. Or that bobcat that I didn’t see. Or that wolf that my brother heard one night.
At the river, I was hoping for more moving things than only birds and water. But that’s all I got most evenings. One evening a beaver glided by, and another evening I spotted a skunk.
That same evening I shared the bridge with a mama coon and three babies, but they didn’t like my company. They backed off with fear shuddering through their vertebrae, making their backs appear as bristle brushes.
And what fun I had watching the roadway crossers while on my way to work, namely, chipmunks and gophers. The chipmunks are day-brighteners for nature lovers like me. They stop at the edge of the road and look around. Then they scurry across the road with their tails in 12 o’clock position, attempting to warn me that a CHIPMUNK is crossing the road! On the other hand, when gophers cross (in a “go-phor it” manner), they do so with only a lowly hump of the back.
Our enjoyable week ended much too soon. The world would be bland had God not created mammals. Praise Him!
Participants
Jason, Esther, Jonas, Judah, Jabez, Hadassah, and Teddy Yoder
Mammal List
- American Mink
- Beaver
- Black Bear
- Coyote
- Deer Mouse
- Eastern Chipmunk
- Eastern Cottontail
- Eastern Mole
- Field Mouse
- Gray Squirrel
- House Mouse
- Little Brown Bat
- Moose
- Norway Rat
- Raccoon
- Snowshoe Hare
- Striped Skunk
- Thirteen-striped Ground Squirrel
- Timber Wolf
- White-tailed Deer
- Woodchuck