Now that you've completed the Winter Wildlife Scavenger Hunt, check your answers below and learn a little bit about these amazing creatures that call the Wells Reserve home. Did you write your own nature haiku too? Place it in the dropbox by the restrooms or email to caryn@wellsnerr.org. Thanks for playing along! 

Porcupines are the 2nd largest rodent in North America, surpassed only by the beaver. The famous, or infamous, quills of the porcupine are specialized hollow hairs that contain microscopic backward-facing barbs! Porcupines have about 30,000 quills and no, they cannot shoot them! Quills are loosely attached and will dislodge in the skin of predators upon contact.

Porcupines are herbivores, eating only plant material, preferring new buds, evergreen needles, and inner juicy bark, which is why you often see them up in trees! Learn more.  

The saw-whet is a tiny owl (robin-sized) with a catlike face, oversized head, and bright yellow eyes. While one of the most common owls in forests across northern North America (year-round in Maine), saw-whets are highly nocturnal and seldom seen. Saw-whet owls mostly eat small rodents, but will eat small birds, beetles, grasshoppers and moths. Many owls have asymmetrical ears, with one higher and one lower, but the saw-whet’s are the most pronounced. This adaptation helps them pinpoint the exact position of prey under snow and in the dark.

Can you turn your head all the way around? Owls can’t either! They have double the number of vertebrae in their necks compared to humans and their eyes are so big that they can’t really move them like we can. Instead they have to turn their head - but their limit is 270 degrees! Learn more here and here. 

Do you have foods you like to eat right away and others you save for later? Gray squirrels do!

They can tell the difference between acorns from different types of oak trees. The white oak acorns are lower in tannins and don’t overwinter well so squirrels eat them first. Red oak acorns lie dormant overwinter so squirrels bury these and eat them throughout the winter and in the spring.

While gray squirrels prefer more protected places in the winter, it’s a good time of year to look up into the tree tops for balls of leaves, or dreys. Dreys are spherical, scraggly-looking nests consisting of leafy branches, with an inner layer of soft material like moss and pine needles that squirrels use in warmer months. Learn more here and here. 

White-tailed deer are crepuscular, meaning they are most active at dawn and dusk, though they can be seen anytime of day. Deer have a keen sense of hearing and smell, can run up to 35mph, and may ‘snort’ and flash their white-tail to signal danger, an act called “flagging.” Deer eat all types of trees and shrubs as well as acorns, lichen, mushrooms, grasses and fruits. Male antlers start growing in April (velvet shed in late summer) and are shed after the breeding season (mid November) is over from Dec -March. Have you found antlers in the woods? Where do they go?

It’s rare to find shed antlers because they are quickly eaten by squirrels, mice, porcupines and other rodents looking for extra minerals such as calcium. Have you seen deer tracks? The narrow pointier ends of the hoof track point in the direction the deer was moving. Learn more.

The Black-capped Chickadee is the state bird of Maine. Chickadees are active, acrobatic, curious, social birds that live in flocks, often associating with other small forest birds.

Chickadees are year-round residents of Maine and even when temperatures are far below zero, they virtually always sleep in their own individual excavated cavities. The Black-capped Chickadee hides seeds and other food items to eat later. Each item is placed in a different spot and the chickadee can remember thousands of hiding places. Chickadee flocks have many calls with specific meanings, and they may contain some of the characteristics of human language. Listen year-round for their most common calls: chickadee-dee-dee-dee and the three-note cheeeeese-burr-ger. Learn more.

The Pileated Woodpecker is one of the biggest (nearly crow-sized), most striking forest birds on the continent. Listen for Pileated Woodpeckers hammering at dead trees and fallen logs in search of their main prey, carpenter ants. Look for the unique rectangular holes they leave behind.

How would you describe a woodpecker's tongue? Squishy? Sticky? Nope! Pileated woodpeckers have pointed, barbed tongues that they use to extract beetles, ants, and termites trees and logs. A woodpecker’s tongue might just be their superpower! Woodpeckers tongues are long and wrap around the back of the brain protecting it from injury during high-speed hammering.

Most woodpeckers have zygodactylous feet (two toes forward, two toes backward). This X shaped adaptation provides enhanced grip and stability for perching and climbing up the sides of trees. (Most perching birds, like robins and chickadees, have three toes forward, one toe back.)

The nest holes these birds make offer crucial shelter to many species including swifts, owls, ducks, bats, and pine martens. If you have dead (snags) or dying trees on your property, consider leaving them alone as they are vital as feeding, roostings, and nest spots for many types of birds (including the saw-whet owl)! Learn more here and here.

Maine is home to two rabbit-like species, but only one of them—the New England cottontail (NEC) is a true rabbit. The other is the snowshoe hare. The ideal habitat for NECs is dense, shrubby thickets (the kind you wouldn’t want to walk through!) that provide food and cover. NECs are listed as endangered in Maine due to loss of field, shrubland, and young forest habitat. The Wells Reserve received grant funding to plant native shrublands (rabitat!) and become part of a captive-raised reintroduction program. In 2017 the first group of NECs were reintroduced. There have been successive releases and the population is growing! At the start of the project, NECs were tracked by telemetry and radio collars. Now their population is tracked through winter fecal pellet (rabbit poop!) surveys in the winter. Look for NECs on the trail at dawn and dusk and their pellets and tracks in the snow! Learn more. 

Thanks for playing along! We hope you'll come back and visit soon. 

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