As our days keep growing shorter, extra testosterone is being released in the bodies of bucks. This causes all sorts of changes in them. For one, the antlers they’ve been growing all summer harden and their velvety covering falls off. The antlers are now ready to help the buck compete for does. When bucks compete, they lock antlers with one another and shove and twist their bodies back and forth for several seconds to minutes. Eventually, the loser will give up and retreat.

Bucks also begin to advertise their presence by leaving several types of scent markers. One is left when they rub on shrubs and trees, leaving scent markers from glands on their foreheads behind. Another is in their saliva and is left by licking high branches. Their calling cards are also left by glands between their toes when they scrape at the ground. These scent markers advertise a buck’s territory to other males, as well as their presence to females. When does are ready to mate, they leave scent messages behind in their urine. Bucks are able to read these messages and will then pursue the doe.

Did you know? Bucks like this one may lose a quarter of their body weight during the rut season!

To fuel all of this activity, deer eat an amazing variety of things: buds, acorns, leaves, twigs, fruit, seeds, moss, lichens, fungi, aquatic plants, and grasses. They have even been seen munching on snails and dried fish! Deer need to eat ten pounds of food a day to survive, not an easy thing to do while you’re looking for predators.

To allow deer to eat and run, they have a four-chambered stomach. The first chamber, called the rumen, stores food that has been quickly gobbled up. When the deer find a safe place to rest, they will regurgitate the food from the rumen up in a lump and rechew it. Then, they swallow the food again and it travels through their other three stomach chambers and into their intestines. A deer’s stomach has millions of microorganisms in it which help digest the tough plant fibers a deer eats.

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Now that most of our leaves have dropped to the forest floor, the process of decomposition can begin. Each tree species has a slightly different method of decay. Maple leaves hold their nutrients when they drop from the tree. This means that they decompose quickly, creating a forest floor rich in nutrients, insects, and bacteria. Oak trees, however, draw nutrients back from their leaves before they fall. This makes fallen oak leaves acidic and slow to decompose. The forest floor beneath oak trees often has few nutrients, bacteria, or earthworms, but many fungi. Fallen pine and hemlock needles are also acidic and decompose slowly, giving off few nutrients to the surrounding soil.

Did you know? Any leaf or needle that falls helps insulate soil from winter temperatures and creates habitats for a multitude of organisms.

As the weather turns cold, you’re likely to hear the light, high “sree” of a moving flock of cedar waxwings. Because these birds eat mostly fruit, they nest later in the season than most other birds. This helps to ensure lots of available food for their young. It also means that they must migrate later than most other songbirds. Flocks of 30-100 birds are often seen at this time of year, stopping wherever there is fruit along their southward path. Unlike most other flocks of birds, waxwings are very polite about feeding together and actually take turns. Cedar waxwings got their name from the red tips of their wings which look like they were dipped in wax.

Did you know? Most cedar waxwings have a yellow band at the bottom of their tails, but researchers have recently noticed that some birds have orange tail bands instead. Why? It turns out that these birds have been eating berries from an invasive honeysuckle with red pigment, which turns the tips of their new tail feathers orange instead of yellow.

Hear this bird’s call: Macaulay Library

Learn more: Cornell Lab of Ornithlogy

 A good ID clue is the cedar waxwing’s black mask and crested head feathers.  

When cedar waxwings court in late spring, the pair pass a berry back and forth until one finally eats it.

As you’ve walked among the pines at CWES, you’ve probably either seen or heard a great deal of this bird.This nuthatch is a smaller and quicker cousin of the white-breasted nuthatch. It is often seen near groups of chickadees and responds almost as well to “pishing.” When identifying this bird, look for a rusty red chest and a black eyestripe. The red-breasted nuthatch hops along the length of tree trunks in search of insects, spiders, and conifer seeds. It sounds like a tiny toy horn with its “annk, annk” call.

Strange Behavior: Red-breasted nuthatches are cavity nesters that excavate dead limbs to lay their eggs in. This species has a tendency to smear pine pitch around the entrance to their nest. No one knows why.

Did you know? The top of a bird’s head is called a crown. Male red-breasted nuthatches have a dark black crown, while females have more of a gray colored crown.

Hear this bird’s call: Macaulay Library

Learn More: Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Scattered throughout the woods at CWES you’ll find a few of these intriguing trees. One is on the path to Walker Lodge, and the other on the way to the challenge course. For centuries, hemlocks have been useful to humans and wildlife alike. Many creatures eat its buds and needles, and porcupines often call them home during winter. Humans can use its needles to make a vitamin C rich tea, though it tastes rather bitter. In the 1800’s, the bark of hemlock trees was used to tan leather in factories because of its high tannin content. Huge strips of bark were taken from the trees, causing them to die. Lumber from the trees wasn’t used because their lower branches often contain pitch knots that can chip saw blades!

The next time you pass by these trees take a look at the undersides of their lacy needles. You’ll see small white stripes that are full of tiny stomata (openings which control the flow of air and water in and out of the needles). Every leaf or needle contains these, but on the hemlock they are clustered together in a way that we can see. Needles from coniferous trees, like the hemlock, have a tough waxy coating and substances within their cells that prevent them from freezing. This allows them to stay on the tree year-round.

The leaves of many plants have dropped, but not all have vanished. There are two evergreen species of fern at CWES that will remain green year-round: the intermediate wood fern and the polypody fern. Intermediate wood ferns can be found near many of the forested trails at CWES, and the polypody fern can be seen clinging to the hillsides (especially near the firebowl). Flip over the fronds of both of these species and look for the tiny reproductive spores underneath.

Fern Lingo

The leaf of a fern, from tip to root, is called a frond. The small leaflets that make up the fern frond are called pinnae. Ferns reproduce using tiny clumps of spores called sori. A fern will drop millions of sori in its lifetime, but only a few will land in a spot with just the right light and moisture to grow.

(You are looking at the pinnae of a fern frond.The brown dots are the sori)

Did you know? Ferns have been around since before the time of dinosaurs!

Learn more: Ferns of Canberra

Right now, skunks are fattening up on whatever they can get. Being primarily carnivores, this includes insects, small mammals, grubs, birds’ eggs, and fruit. When winter weather turns severe, skunks will hole up for a few days in a den, stump, wood pile, or cave. They then depend on their fat reserves to survive.

Most people know about this nocturnal hunter’s stinky defenses. Skunks first warn their potential predators by stamping their front feet. Then, they’ll raise their tail and take a stiff-legged walk. If this doesn’t work, they will drop onto all fours and spray away. Their spray is aimed at a predator’s face and can cause temporary blindness. A skunk can spray at only one month of age, and can accurately spray a target over six feet away!

Learn more: Animal Diversity Web

While exploring the woods at CWES, you are bound to encounter several woodpeckers. The most common are hairy and downy woodpeckers, but how do you tell them apart?

• Beaks: A downy woodpecker has a beak that is shorter than the width of its head. A hairy woodpecker has a beak that is about as long as the width of its head. 
• Size: The hairy woodpecker is about 1/3 longer than the downy and weighs almost 3 times as much!
• Location: Downy woodpeckers usually stick to smaller branches and hairy woodpeckers to the trunk.

Telling male and female woodpeckers apart is even easier. Male hairy and downy woodpeckers have a red patch at the back of their heads and females do not. As with other woodpeckers, the male is larger than the female. This allows the males to chisel deep into wood with their longer, stronger bill, where females pry under the bark with their shorter bills. These differences help a pair share food resources without competing with one another. Woodpeckers feed on all sorts of insects and spiders, and occasionally eat seeds and nuts. They are able to listen for their prey crawling beneath bark.

Did you know? The bristly feathers around a woodpecker’s nostrils keep them from breathing in sawdust.

Learn more: Project Feederwatch

Hear a downy woodpecker call and drum

Mosses are found on many of the rocks and trees at CWES. They are soft and springy to the touch. Mosses are very simple plants with no roots or vascular systems (the tubes that move water and nutrients throughout plants like trees). Instead, mosses are able to absorb water and nutrients from the atmosphere. Because of this, they don’t grow well in polluted air. Like other plants, mosses have tiny leaves and are able to photosynthesize. Mosses can grow in temperatures just above freezing. They remain green in winter, but do not grow or photosynthesize.

Mosses reproduce with tiny spores found inside little capsules at the end of hair-thin stalks. In some mosses, as the capsules dry out and shrink over time they trap gas inside them. Eventually the pressure in the capsule increases until it pops open and releases a cloud of spores. If a spore lands in the right spot, it can create a new moss. New mosses can also grow from broken off leaves. This is called vegetative reproduction.

Because mosses need water to fertilize and produce their spores, they are found most often in cool, damp areas. This is where the “moss only grows on the North side of trees” myth comes from. There’s some truth to this, because this side of the tree is usually more shaded and damper than the others. However, if a tree is shaded by other trees, then moss will happily grow on every side of the tree.

Did you know? Some mosses like sphagnum moss can absorb 20 times their weight in water. This made them perfect for use as diapers by early peoples and as dressings for wounds in WWII.

Learn more: The Hidden Forest

Clubmosses have a misleading name. They aren’t actually a moss, they are more related to the fern family. This is because they are a vascular plant, and mosses are not. Clubmosses often creep along the ground and stay green year-round, so they’ve been nicknamed “ground pine.” They reproduce using spores in late summer. Their spores are very flammable and were once used in fireworks. About 300 million years ago this type of plant would have been the size of a large tree!

Did you know that turkeys were once extirpated (gone) in Wisconsin? A combination of overhunting and diseases from domestic birds wiped turkeys out in the state by the late 1800’s. In the 1970’s, the WI DNR traded Missouri a population of our ruffed grouse for a population of their turkeys. The birds were reintroduced to the area and are now doing better than expected with a population of 300,000 in the state.

Turkeys fatten up on insects, acorns and other nuts, grapes, berries, and tubers. During severe winter weather, they can roost for up to two weeks, sometimes losing up to 40% of their body weight when they do so.

Wild turkeys don’t see well at night, so they roost in trees to protect themselves from nocturnal predators. During the day they rely on their speed to protect them. A turkey can run up to 25 mph and fly up to 55 mph!

Did you know about…

Beards: Male turkeys (and a few females) have these bristly masses of feathers hanging near their chests.

Wattles: Both toms and hens have this loose flesh under their chins, but a tom’s is more noticeable.

Snoods: On Toms this fleshy growth is prominent and starts out above and then drapes across their bills. How’s that for some new vocabulary words?

Learn more: Cornell Lab of Ornithology

This adaptable creature has been furiously feeding all fall. At this time of year 50% of its 14-24 pounds may be fat! In cold weather raccoons seek shelter in a tree or cave and sleep for a few days at a time. A mother raccoon’s 4 young kits will spend the winter with her. They’ll then be kicked out in the spring when mom has her next litter.

These nocturnal animals have great night vision and hearing, as well as very sensitive front paws. Omnivorous raccoons will eat just about anything they can get. If they’re very lucky, they may live up to 16 years.

Learn more: Animal Diversity Web