Greetings, readers. Today we learn about unique holes in the ground (no, not bomb shelters) made by wild animals as we continue our series, Caring for Mother Nature, by my friend, author and naturalist, Peggy Sias Lantz (click her name to visit her website).
Burrows
by Peggy Lantz
Somebody’s digging burrows in my yard. There’s one under the fence to my chicken yard, one under the chicken house, one in the ferns near my house under a log, and a couple under piles of logs in my piney woods. And I don’t know who’s digging them!
I keep looking carefully to see if I can recognize any foot prints on the burrow apron, or a line made by a dragging tail, but I can’t identify anything.
So who digs burrows?
Gopher tortoises, but I don’t think any have come back to my property lately, and the biggest burrow is in the ferns, where no self-respecting gopher would live.
Coyotes. We have them around often. They’ve caught a few chickens. I’ve suspected them of building dens on my property, but I would think I would be able to recognize footprints in the clear pile of sand in one of the burrows. If they are digging burrows, I suspect they are under the big pile of brush away from the burrows I’m investigating.
Rats. There is plenty of room for rats to roam around my property, and from time to time they get into the chicken yard and nibble on the chicken feed at night. They build smooth tunnels, but these burrows I’m wondering about have a bigger opening than the rats dig, I think. I’ve pretty well prevented them from getting inside the chicken barn, but something is often under the barn.
Armadillos are great diggers, but I have never seen an armadillo around my house.
So what to do?
I called my friend at Oakland Nature Preserve who sets out the trail cameras on the Preserve trails. She offered to loan me a cam for a while, brought it out and set it up on what looks like the newest burrow.
Below in the photo gallery are some of the pictures we got. Rabbits. Squirrels. Possums. A rat. The last one, that looks like a colandar, might be an armadillo.
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Thanks for reading!
Your writer on the wing,
Charlene
Kathleen Brandt
I loved looking at the shots from the wildlife camera!