Look Out For Bears!

We woke up yesterday morning and found that some critter had knocked our birdbath completely over, denting the edge of the basin and knocking the water wiggler across the path.  Since it's a fairly substantial birdbath, it had to be a fairly substantial critter that did it.

That started us wondering what animal could have done this.  I don't think that even the big papa skunk we've seen around is big enough to do it.  A large raccoon could probably tip it over, or possibly the neighbors' cat could have jumped up on it, but there seemed like a lot of destruction for that.

Then we found a strange track in the decomposed granite pathway.

The track was about four inches wide by about four inches long and appeared to have at least four separate toes and possible a fifth toe, too.  We couldn't see any claw marks in the DG, but it's probably too coarse a texture for that, anyway.  

That started me off on an internet search of tracks of various animals that could have done it:  dog, coyote, cougar and bear.  The bear tracks at the San Diego Natural History Museum look the closest to what we saw, considering the size of the track and the number and width of the toes.

It's really hard to believe it could be a bear, considering that we live in a city of 1.3 million people, surrounded by freeways, but that was our reaction to the suggestion that deer had chomped our citrus trees, until a deer crashed through the IHOP window a few miles away.  

However, my brother, who is familiar with the tracks of many different types of critters, says he thinks it was most likely a large dog; a bear would probably have also trashed our bird feeder, especially the suet feeder, and there would probably have been a lot more digging in the raised beds. 

O.K., so maybe it's a dog, but we're going to be pretty cautious about going outside at night from now on.   

Christmas in Indiana

Cindy and I traveled to a family Christmas in Indiana this year, arriving to find snow on the ground.  It was beautiful driving through the monochromatic landscape, with the full moon shining on silvery sheets of snow.  

Then it rained for three days and the snow melted away, but it snowed again on Christmas Day.

Christmas Day Cornstalks

Not much gardening going on in Indiana at this time of year.

Lake Waldron--Yes, It's Frozen

Snow is wonderful to look at, and even more delightful to leave behind in Indiana.

Scene of Destruction

Some enterprising varmint, probably a skunk, got into one of Cindy's grow bags last night and dug all the dirt out of it looking for edible grubs.  Fortunately, Cindy had already harvested all the potatoes that formerly were in that bag, so the critter didn't get any of those.

Since there was nothing in the bag, Cindy had taken off the plastic fencing that was around it, giving the varmint a clear field for its excavations.

The skunk must have had a lot of fun as it dug most of the soft potting soil out of the bag and spread it all over the decomposed granite (DG) of the pathway, leaving little skunk paw prints in the dirt, but that made it difficult to sort the soil from the DG.  Not so much fun for the clean-up committee.

Dirt All Over The DG Pathway

This little episode makes it very clear that we need to continue to practice exclusion of varmints from the growing beds; we certainly need to get the new area finished before the ground squirrels wake up from hibernation and the blueberries start ripening.  Those ground squirrels loooooove those blueberries.

At least this varmint didn't get any of our potatoes.  Those are MINE!

New Butterfly

Miss Blueberry

The new butterfly
Tries her wings, flutters,
And then lets go of the branch.

The butterfly that had formed her chrysalis on the blueberry bush hatched out successfully the other day.

She spent about a day spreading her wings and drying them in the sun, and taking short test flights.  Then she finally flew off.

Trouble

The trouble with obsessing with butterflies and caterpillars is that sometimes things don't go well, and that gets depressing.

The Monarch chrysalis on the twist tie on one of Cindy's panels finally opened today and the butterfly crawled out, but it was clearly damaged.

When the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis, its wings fill with fluid and expand to its normal size.  However, this one never really expanded properly and the right wing remained crumpled.  I used a leaf to try to help it straighten out, but it never did so.

We had been concerned about this chrysalis for some time because the chrysalis had become very dark, almost black at the top.  It's normal for them to get darker shortly before they hatch and you can usually see the orange and black of the wings inside the chrysalis, but this one was darker than that.  This chrysalis was in a position exposed to the elements and there was some fluid on the chrysalis after the hard rain we had a couple of weeks ago, so it simply may not have had enough fluid left to survive.

Although that butterfly obviously isn't going to make it, other caterpillars are industriously looking for places to attach and form their own chrysalises.  I found this one trucking along close to where the damaged one had attached, so I gave him a ride onto the boxwood hedge; that should be a more hospitable place for him to attach and form his chrysalis.

Caterpillar in the Boxwood