Extra Fall Color: Witch Hazel in Bloom

Recent wind and rain has knocked down much of the brightest foliage around southern Maine. If you look closely while in the woods, you may still be able to find one of the last splashes of fall color. Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is common tree throughout our region's mixed deciduous forest. It is generally small and comfortable growing in the shade of the understory. Its large slightly lobed leaves turn yellow and drop early in autumn revealing stringy yellow flowers.

Tiny yellow flowers are visible on this witch hazel tree in the T.A. Forest.

This is the last tree in Maine to bloom and relies on a group of moths active in the fall and winter for pollination. Once the flowers are pollinated, they develop into a seed capsule that takes a year to mature. After ripening, the capsule bursts open shooting tiny seeds up to thirty feet from the tree. I have always wondered what it would be like to witness this subtle event happening in the forest. Talk about right place, right time!

A closer look reveals a beautiful autumn flower. 

Squirrel Trapping Update

As of this writing, we have trapped a total of twelve squirrels since October 11th. Of those twelve individuals, three were young of the year and thus too small to be fitted with collars, another was a recapture from this year. This means that in the past two weeks, we have collared eight squirrels. Most notably, the first squirrel captured was sporting a green collar from last year's research! This squirrel was fitted with another green collar, this time including a fancy RFID microchip. The remaining squirrels have all been fitted with an orange collar. Keeping the green collars on our "year one" squirrels will help us to keep track of year class in our future observations and begin to build some idea of possible life span.

A squirrel waits in a live trap on campus.

Subscribers may remember last week's post regarding our struggle to capture squirrels on this bumper acorn year. All of this changed when we added walnuts to the equation. After searching around online, I found a story where a Minnesota biologist with the same trouble capturing squirrels began having success after switching to walnuts for bait. The next day I sweetened my offering by sticking with the usual chunky peanut butter but adding a few walnut halves. Immediately, we began catching squirrels. It seems that while acorns are plentiful, a fresh walnut is too much to resist. Lab aide, Sam is preparing to equip a squirrel feeder with a RFID sensor in the next week or so. We are hoping to begin monitoring multiple feeder sites within the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

This photo was taken moments after release of a campus squirrel. Look closely for the orange collar.

Squirrel Trapping Underway

Our fall trapping season got underway yesterday morning for the T.A. Squirrel Project. This year's trapping has started off a bit slower than last year. In the fall of 2015, we captured 5 squirrels in the first two days. I half expected the same success rate this year and was surprised that only one squirrel was captured all day yesterday. This was a juvenile squirrel and was too small to receive a collar, thus it was measured and released. As of second block today, there were no new captures.

I set a game camera up on one of my forest traps hoping to get video of a squirrel entering the trap. Instead, I was rewarded with some evidence as to why our trapping season may be a little more challenging this year. It is a banner year for acorns from the northern red oak (Quercus rubra) trees in the T.A. forest. Acorns as well as beech and hickory nuts are commonly referred to as "mast" by wildlife scientists. Mast producing trees are important as food sources for squirrels, deer, wild turkey, bear, as well as a host of other Maine creatures.  It seems the squirrels are currently flooded with a bounty of acorns offering a high energy food source that doesn't risk entering a trap. Last year was a much lighter year for our T.A. mast producing trees and it makes sense that the squirrels would have been more eager to enter the trap after our peanut butter in mid October. My gut tells me that as the season rolls on, the acorns will become more scarce and our catch rate will increase.

Watch as this gray squirrel carefully hides an acorn in the leaf litter on the forest floor. 

I close the traps each afternoon and open them the next morning in an effort to avoid catching skunks and other nocturnal critters. When I arrived at this trap this morning, I found it flipped upside down with the leaves disturbed all around it. It seems squirrels are not the only creatures that like peanut butter. Check out the videos below to see some of our night time visitors. 

A dog out for a walk along the Eastern Trail must have followed its nose right to our trap.

This raccoon flipped our trap over and carefully stole all the peanut butter from inside.

Squirrel Research Going High Tech

In Maine Fish and Wildlife class, we are preparing to begin our fall gray squirrel trapping next week. Last year's research helped to begin piecing together a rough population estimate for our campus but ended up creating more questions than answers. How far will squirrels travel to visit a feeder? What is the typical home range of a gray squirrel? Do squirrels seek different habitats at different times of the year? This year's research is geared toward answering our new questions. The collars our squirrels will be wearing this year are almost identical in to last year's model except for one key modification. This year's squirrel collars will be carrying a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip as well.

We plan to have 10 feeders spread throughout campus and nearby neighborhoods equipped with electronic RFID readers. When a squirrel and its microchip get within an inch of the reader, its presence will be recorded. This will offer important data on home range as well as documentation of suspected seasonal movements from our campus to nearby neighborhoods. Any data collection we are able to do this fall will be scientifically valuable as there is almost no published research on gray squirrels.

Note the RFID chip protruding from the custom housing on the squirrel collar.

Yesterday we employed Thornton Academy's 3D printer to build custom housings for the microchips. These plastic housings will keep the RFID chips safe from the weather and securely attached to the collar. Having this piece of technology in my classroom is a great way to connect science and engineering with my students. A huge thank you has to go out to junior, Sam Archibald, for his computer programming talents in making this program happen this year.

15 housings near the end of the printing process

Alumni Academy Photos