The male ruffed grouse in the photo above was documented on a Rosslyn wildlife camera about a year ago. Fancy fowl! And the two images below were recorded a few weeks ago.
Rosslyn’s backlands are fortunately flush with ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus), a welcome reminder that wildlife gravitates — as if by some primal sense — to safe havens and sanctuaries. If you preserve it, they will come (or so our experience over the last 12+ years suggests.)
Ruffed Grouse (Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
What is a Ruffed Grouse?
A brown or gray-brown, chicken-like bird with slight crest, fan-shaped, black-banded tail, barred flanks, and black ‘ruffs’ on sides of neck.
Habitat: Deciduous and mixed forests, especially those with scattered clearings and dense undergrowth; overgrown pastures.
Female gives soft hen-like clucks. In spring displaying male sits on a log and beats the air with his wings, creating a drumming sound that increases rapidly in tempo. (Source: Audubon)
Popular among hunters for their tender meat, the ruffed grouse in these images are safe in Rosslyn’s wildlife sanctuary. Although Susan is a vegetarian (a pescatarian, actually), I concede a robust appetite for wild game. That said, I’m not a hunter. And when we purchased first one, and then a second adjoining lots, our intention was to preserve and rewild, to invest in a healthy and resilient wildway buffering the already significant wildlife moving along Library Brook. With acreage expanded and John Davis’s wildlife stewardship guiding our rewilding efforts, native wildlife are returning and prospering.
If you’ve never heard a ruffed grouse drumming, you should definitely play the video below. It’s a mysterious rhythm I associate with late winter through early spring outings — cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and sometimes mindful, sometimes mindless meandering — through Rosslyn’s forests and meadows.
This evening we’ll let the photos do the talking. Enjoy this healthy fisher (Pekania pennanti) documented recently with one of Rosslyn’s wildlife cams.
Fisher (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife cam)
Part of the weasel family, these native neighbors enjoy dining on wild gates and they’re one of the few predators in our forests who successfully hunt and eat porcupines.
Given that we frequently document both sling the trail targeted by this camera, I suspect that this stealthy hunter will be sated during his nocturnal ambling.
Fisher (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife cam)
Often referred to as “fisher cats”, they’re actually altogether unrelated to cats.
Fisher (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife cam)
It’s profoundly satisfying to document these wild creatures trafficking Rosslyn’s wildway earlier this month. Here’s hoping this robust specimen has plenty of companions.
We survived 2022, friends, and in some fortunate cases, we even thrived. Cheers to surviving and thriving an occasionally challenging year!
New Year’s Day: Writer’s Garret (Photo: Hroth Ottosen)
That means it’s time for a meandering year-ender…
Retrospective
I’d like to jumpstart my retrospective with a positive personal milestone.
Yesterday’s post, “New Year’s Eve”, was my 153rd post in a row, completing a 5-month streak of daily updates without missing a single day. It’s an impartial victory at this point with seven months still on the to-do side of the ledger, but it’s an accomplishment that underpins my optimism — indeed my confidence — that I can achieve my goal of 365 days of uninterrupted Rosslyn updates. (Wondering why one year is a significant benchmark? I’ll explain soon, I promise.) In broad strokes, this is beginning to feel like actual, believable progress toward resuscitating Rosslyn Redux, my multidisciplinary meditation on the *art of homing*. There are so many reasons why this is important to me, and I’ve poked at a bunch on them in recent months, but for now I hope you’ll just allow that this exploration, this inside-out creative experiment, this quasi crowdsourced inquiry, and the resulting nexus of artifacts and stories and visuals and poems and all of the esoteric marginalia that has accreted over the last seventeen years since Susan and I bought Rosslyn is meaningful. Heck, to be 100% candid, for me it’s not just meaningful; it’s vital.
But enough heavy handed me-centrism. I’m flirting dangerously close to catharsis, so it’s time to lighten up. Time to imbue the balance of this post with effervescent toast-worthy bullet points like champagne bubbles rising giddily. Time for levity.
But first, an aside. I’m trying to distill my year-ender into a positive, celebratory retrospective without slipping into a post-mortem review of some of the less celebratory events. For this reason I started with a little victory dance celebrating the Rosslyn Redux momentum. My re-immersion has been stimulating and it’s catalyzing all sorts of overdue transformation. For this I’m profoundly grateful. And I’m doubling down on my commitment to see this challenge through to its conclusion.
There’s actually much more to celebrate, but to avoid overburdening this retrospective I’ll streamline my recap by simply listing and linking some of the most notable highlights. That way you can follow the links to more specific updates if you’re interested. And I’ll add a coming-soon placeholder in lieu of a link for those I haven’t yet covered. I’m hoping that this will keep things as lean as possible, because isn’t that always on our New Year‘s resolutions?!?!
High on the happy news is the ongoing icehouse rehab. It’s been a looong fantasized vision (and an almost equally long unrealized vision) that involves rehabilitating the last of the four buildings we set out to revitalize back in 2006. And, in this case, there’s a self-serving motive fueling my push. I perennially pine for a writer’s “garret”, and at last the icehouse loft will become that sanctuary just far enough removed to allow me to spread my stacks and sink into my writing projects. I. Can’t. Wait.
In addition to the icehouse rehab (and a writer’s hideaway), another biggy on the decade plus wishlist came tyre. In late winter off 2022 we finally invested in a high tunnel for the Rosslyn vegetable garden. It’s been a fascinating learning curve, and in a couple of months we’ll be getting it ready for another growing season with the benefit of one year already under our belts. Totally unrelated to gardening but similarly braided into the lakeside lifestyle that draws us to this remarkable property, we’ve made a change in our aquatic locomotion. You may recall that Errant, our 31′ sloop was sold in the hopes of replacing it with a slightly larger sailboat. Well, that plan was impacted by the attenuated pandemic which distorted the boat market and compelled us to stall long enough to deep-think our wants/needs. In short, our plans evolved significantly. Last summer we took delivery of a new 28′ Chris Craft launch that has become our entertaining and “picnic boat”, allowing our ski/surf boat to serve it’s proper purpose despite serving as our “everything boat” for years. This decision was part of sailboat shift as well. In a pretty significant reorientation we’ve been exploring the possibility of our future sailing adventures happening along the California, initially, and then possibly further north and south. This spring we’ll again sail on the west coast and continue to experiment with different iterations for our future sailing plans.
But I’m drifting of course, so I’d better tack back toward Rosslyn.
New Year’s Day: Writer’s Garret (Photo: Hroth Ottosen)
Despite a disheartening debacle a year or so ago during our first foray into repairs on the Rosslyn’s boathouse gangway, the summer of 2022 marked a turning point. First came Patrick McAuliff‘s monumental transformation of Rosslyn’s front yard, replacing the overgrown, toppling arborvitae hedge with a handsome hemlock hedge. This quick summary oversimplifies (and leapfrogs a mysterious discovery), but I’ll unravel this yearn soon enough, I promise.
And then there was Rosslyn’s deck rebuild. This story had been evolving for a while (all the way back to TimberSIL). Most recently the same OPUD who cost us dearly on the boathouse gangway effectively hamstrung us on the deck as well. We retreated to Essex from Santa Fe earlier than normal to escape the worst forest fires in New Mexico history. With boathouse and deck in unsafe and unusable condition we began cancelling summer guests and plans…
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m sidestepping into the post-mortem that I intended to keep separate. Back to the deck rebuild which is complete, sturdy as can be, and stunningly beautiful (Hurrah, garapa decking!). And better yet, the ingredients for this rebuild included an outstanding team of friends and family and former collaborators on projects like the ADK Oasis Lakeside renovation who coalesced at the last minute and quickly became a skilled, collegial, productive, and fun loving team. In fact, much of this team is what has now evolved into the icehouse team.
After the boathouse gangway’s false start, there’s good news on Rosslyn’s waterfront as well. After the deeply discouraging setback inherited from the OPUD, after dismantling much of their work in order to rebuild correctly (the verdict of every single contractor who evaluated the miscarried first attempt), and after painstakingly recreating the original conditions instead of perpetuating the errors inherited from the OPUD, we’re back on track with a capable, experienced team. Fingers crossed that the boathouse gangway will be good as new next spring!
And there’s sooo much more. But I’ve waxed wordy, and my update has gotten too long. So I’ll abbreviate boldly with that list I promised earlier. Better late than never.
Trail building was advanced significantly with the hard work of Tony Foster, the guidance of John Davis, and the oversight of Pam Murphy. Rewilding progress was made, and thriving wildlife population documented. Tile and grout maintenance underway in bathrooms and kitchen by Clay Belzile. Stone wall reveal and landscaping at ADK Oasis Highlawn, and orchard restoration and stone wall rebuilding at ADK Oasis Lakeside. Too many contributors to these projects to list them all, but some notables were Bob Kaleita, Phil Valachovic, Patrick McAuliff, Roger King, Aaron Valachovic, and Tony Foster.
Other highlights include excellent gardening assistance on all three properties by our incredibly hardworking Amish neighbors, re-homing the zero-turn and the truckling, and one of our best apple and pear seasons in the orchard.
I’ll close with an admission that I didn’t succeed 100% in restricting my retrospective to the celebratory highlights. I drifted into post-mortem territory a couple of times. But, for now at least, I’ve edited out our unfortunate encounter with Covid, my father’s health upset, and Susan’s miraculous recovery from a life threatening tragedy this autumn. Today is a day to embrace success and optimism. And from the vantage point of January 1st even the most difficult challenges of the last year give me cause for celebrating success and renewing optimism.
There’s something stunning if slightly startling about spotting (or hearing the howl of) our ubiquitous Adirondack canid. Agile and attentive, swift and stealthy, this familiar predator is a familiar and important part of our ecosystem. And yet much mystery and misunderstanding collects around this handsome neighbor, not the least of which is disagreement over whether what you’ve seen (or heard) was a coyote or a coywolf. Today I’d like to gather some helpful insights about this debate while showcasing some of the most recent Rosslyn wildlife cam photos of the carnivore in question.
Coyote or Coywolf? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
The term “coywolf” is increasingly used to distinguish between the Eastern Coyote (Canis latrans) and a regional hybrid ostensibly blending coyote, wolf, and domestic dog.
By now, most of us who spend much time outside in the Adirondack Park have seen some sort of large canid that looks too big to be a Coyote, not quite big enough to be a Wolf. Quite likely, many of us have seen what some wildlife observers are calling the CoyWolf. — John Davis, January 23, 2016 (Source: Welcoming the CoyWolf: Whoever It May Be, Essex on Lake Champlain)
This topic is debated among naturalists and armchair pundits, curiously provoking much more emotional investment and editorializing than other similar topics. So, needless to say, I don’t pretend this post will decide the matter once and for all. But it just might provoke your curiosity, inspiring you to research and a little more. And perhaps these recent photos (as well as previous coyote images we’ve recorded and published) will afford you some visual context for conjuring your own opinion about the coyote-coywolf neighbor maintaining balance in our our wildway.
Coyote or Coywolf? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
Let’s start with the first two photographs above, captured last Sunday. The top image of an unclose and personal encounter with a healthy and undebatable handsome wild dog was photographed on one of the Rosslyn wildlife cams exactly 18 minutes prior to my arrival on cross-country skies with John and Denise to download the photos. In other words, almost enjoyed this face-to-face encounter in person rather than digital facsimile. And about three and a half hours later, while John, Denise, and I were wrapping up a tasty brunch indoors, this same coyote (or coywolf?) returned in the opposite direction, perhaps after a similarly tasty brunch.
Coyote or Coywolf? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
Persecution and Evolution
Too often conversation about the coyote involves judging it a nuisance or a threat. And too often “controlling” and/or attempting to eradicate the perceived nuisance or threat is treated as reasonable and even ethical. Our opinion differs profoundly, and the Rosslyn wildlife sanctuary is in no small part an effort to protect and preserve an essential part of our ecosystem. (I will defer frequently in this post to John Davis, our rewilding steward, who is far better versed in the merits and circumstances of both the Eastern Coyote and the Coywolf.)
The Coyotes and CoyWolves we’re seeing in the Adirondacks and Vermont are being heavily persecuted, which may not much depress their numbers (Coyotes practice compensatory reproduction) but upsets their social dynamics, and causes untold individual suffering.
Please read “Friend of Foe: Eastern Coyote” for a more detailed look at precisely why killing these apex predators is wrong.
Coyote or Coywolf? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
Now let’s examine the intriguing overlap of DNA that appears to be altering the native Eastern Coyote population, blending the bloodlines of three different canids.
We have in northern New York an illuminating experiment that we may do well to let play out. Coyotes have interbred with wolves, producing a bigger, more wolf-like eastern coyote, or coy-wolf, which is hunting in packs and occasionally taking down whitetailed deer…” — John Davis, November 1, 2016 (Source: “We Shouldn’t Hunt Moose“, Adirondack Council)
Coyotes and wolves have interbred. Not by whimsical accident or desire, but by necessity. But more on that in a moment. First a look at the first time I began to realize firsthand that the coyotes I was experiencing seemed different.
The coyote—or possibly “coywolf”—was easily as large as a malamute… and the head and tail were notably larger than other coyotes I’ve seen…
I have witnessed firsthand coyotes of significantly larger proportions. My first experience took place almost a decade ago while brush-hogging one of the rear meadows. The coyote—or possibly “coywolf”—was easily as large as a malamute and considerably more robust than the coyotes in these trail cam photos. Coloring was mottled grays and browns, and the head and tail were notably larger than other coyotes I’ve seen.
My second experience was more recent.
An almost black coyote/”coywolf” of still larger proportions was startled by me during an early morning orchard inspection. S/he loped away from me across the near meadow, slowly and confidently, gliding through the high grass with a confidence and elegance I’ve never before witnessed among coyotes. (Source: Coyotes Captured on Camera, May 10, 2017)
Coyote or Coywolf? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
These sightings of larger canids, especially when the question of interbreeding with wolves enters the equation, alarm many homeowners and farmers.
Conversation about coyotes, coywolves, and most other apex predators inevitably incites worry among pet owners, farmers, and outdoor enthusiasts. Popular mythology has long touted the ferocity of our charismatic, carnivorous neighbors. While we are wise to respect their feral nature, wise to minimize risk to our domesticated animals, and prudent to ensure that we not take undue risks or provoke wild animals of any sort, it’s also important to balance our concerns with a scientifically sound understanding. It’s even more important to adapt and embrace cohabitation; our ecosystem will pay dividends and our own health and pleasure will benefit immeasurably. — Geo Davis, January 6, 2022 (Source: Friend or Foe: Eastern Coyote)
Coyote or Coywolf? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
And this blurred barrier between coyotes and wolves becomes even more complex, and for some homeowners and farmers, even more threatening, when we consider the fact that our domestic dogs have also sometimes interbred with their wild cousins.
Our beloved dogs, of course, are in the same family as wolves, coyotes, and foxes. Indeed, domestic dogs, Canis familiaris, are closely enough related to both wolves and coyotes that interbreeding does occasionally happen, when a dog goes feral. Our big eastern coyotes can be nearly a third wolf in genetic material but also may have small vestiges of the domestic dog genome. — John Davis, December 15, 2022 (Source: “Dogs of the North Country”, Adirondack Council)
There’s plenty of interesting information if you’re interested in researching further, and the graphic, Eastern Coyote Genetics – What is a “Coywolf?” from the Wolf Conservation Center is a visually useful reminder for the evolutionary breakdown of the coywolf.
Let’s wrap up with a few helpful tidbits and links from John Davis that help illuminate the coy wolf’s fascinating evolution happening in our time and presence.
Coyote or Coywolf? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
What is a Coywolf?
The CoyWolf is a skilled predator combining the wily nature of the Coyote with a healthy mixture of Eastern Wolf (resulting in more heft and power) and perhaps also a small amount of our beloved domestic dog (resulting in more nerve around humans). Recent genetic testing suggests that these hybrid canids are probably on average something like two-thirds Coyote, nearly one-third Wolf, and a small fraction domestic dog. — John Davis, January 23, 2016 (Source: Welcoming the CoyWolf: Whoever It May Be, Essex on Lake Champlain)
Coyote or Coywolf? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
From Whence the Coywolf?
How the CoyWolf emerged is a long, fascinating, and somewhat mysterious story. To greatly oversimplify, eastern North America originally had two or three Wolf species, at least one of which (now known as Red Wolf and surviving in tiny, imperiled numbers in coastal North Carolina) was closely related genetically to the Coyote. When European settlers eradicated our large Wolf species, they left a void that Coyotes moved in from the west to fill.
As Coyotes colonized eastern North America, they occasionally interbred with remnant Wolf populations in eastern Canada, and then moved south into the northeastern US. Coyotes in the US Southeast apparently came by a more southerly route (and were released by hunters, some accounts suggest) and did not interbreed with the larger Wolves (but do so now with Red Wolves), so are generally not as big as our northern Coyotes. — John Davis, January 23, 2016 (Source: Welcoming the CoyWolf: Whoever It May Be, Essex on Lake Champlain)
Coyote or Coywolf or Gray Fox? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
How to Respect the Coywolf?
In my opinion, informed by thousands of miles of rambling Eastern forests and listening to and reading the words of naturalists and biologists, it is time to recognize this charismatic canid. Specifically we should:
welcome the CoyWolf,
consider the CoyWolf a native top predator,
and protect the CoyWolf as an integral part of healthy ecosystems.
The CoyWolf may be partly a consequence of human modifications of natural systems, but its emergence offers glorious evidence that evolution still works, even in our fragmented world. The Coyote and the CoyWolf are important regulators of prey populations which otherwise might grow out of balance with harmful results for natural and human communities. Plus, these big wild dogs are beautiful creatures, worthy of our respect and admiration. — John Davis, January 23, 2016 (Source: Welcoming the CoyWolf: Whoever It May Be, Essex on Lake Champlain)
Coyote or Coywolf or Gray Fox? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
I spy a bobcat blurring brookside, loping contentedly across a path padded with pine needles. Do you see what I see? S/he’s pretty well camouflaged in the range of rusty hues filling the majority of this image. But look for the lean, well muscled legs, the bobbed tail, and the pointy ears with a spray of white fur behind and below each tuft. Now do you see the bobcat blurring up the trail from left to right, ascending just swiftly enough to challenge the wildlife camera’s focus.
Bobcat Blurring (Note: date should be 2022) (Source: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
It’s been a while since we’ve observed a bobcat blurring or otherwise, so this hind quarter, fleeting glance will have to do for now. From what I can see, she’s (yes, I’m committing, perhaps erroneously, but she strikes me a lithe and feminine!) a slender but healthy wild cat patrolling her territory, wayfaring the wildway, perhaps pursuing a mate, or perhaps just hunting for lunch. Perhaps all of the above…
We’re fortunate to share Rosslyn’s fields and forests with so many wild neighbors, and this is due in no small part to the conscientious efforts of our close friend and Rosslyn’s wildlife steward, John Davis (@wildwaystrekker), who patrols these acres year round monitoring the health and wellbeing of the the flora and fauna. I share this post today in part as a retrospective on recent bobcat sightings, but foremost to reiterate our gratitude to John for his gentle vigilance and guidance. His collaboration has catalyzed our hopes of rewilding much of Rosslyn’s land, ensuring a welcoming and safe wildlife sanctuary not only for bobcats, but for all of the wild neighbors that enrich our North Country life.
And, with respect to the bobcat blurring image above, we thank you, John, for checking the wildlife cameras on your final day of freedom before entering hip replacement surgery. Certainly you have more pressing priorities, but you took the time and made the labored effort (given the condition of your hip) to hike deep in to Rosslyn’s backland to check cameras. Thank you! May your recovery be swift and 100% successful.
Backward Review of Bobcats Past
Given the recent laps in bobcat (Lynx rufus) images, I’d like to gather some previous fortunate captures into a quick retrospective.
About that time I shared another post on the Essex blog that has mysterious vanished, a bit like our wild feline neighbors who allow us but a fleeting glimpse — and then only if we’re exceptionally fortunately — before dissolving into their immediate surroundings. What does remain from that blog post is a poetic pull that I excerpted elsewhere.
Crepuscular is a cool (but decidedly un-onomatopoetic) word for the gloaming. Twilight. Cocktail hour… And this, neighbors, might have something to do with the bobcat’s invisibility. Although cocktail hour also seems to be the most oft reported Champy sightings, so maybe my logic is off! Maybe the peripatetic… behavior of Lynx rufus is a more likely explanation for infrequent sightings. Always on the move. Sly. Stealthy. (Source: Lynx rufus (Bobcat) Sighting in Essex)
Perhaps it’s the bobcat’s wandering ways that accounts for the fine reward when we’re actually able to set eyes upon this miniature housing of the mountain lion.
In March of 2016 I encouraged John to amplify our understanding of Lynx rufus, and he obliged with a pair of posts on the Essex blog that are well worth a read. Here’s a compelling introduction to the first post.
Imagine your housecat at her finest, add fifteen pounds of muscle and brain, make her even more symmetrical and athletic, shorten her tail, enhance her beauty, and you have the basic image of a Bobcat. — John Davis (Source: Lynx rufus: Our Resilient Bobcat)
John offered a more concerned perspective and context in his second post.
Many of the once great wildcats of North America have been persecuted to extinction or have had their numbers dramatically decreased. In my previous post, “Lynx rufus: Our Resilient Bobcat,” I explained how the Bobcat has persevered in our region; however, some are pushing to begin or extend killing seasons on this predator who plays an important role in the wild. — John Davis (Source: Why Bobcats Should Be Protected)
Now’s a perfect point to abbreviate this post, but to balance the bobcat blurring above, I’ll remind you of a few other recent wildlife photos that I’ve shared on Instagram over the last couple of years. Enjoy these majestic cats, starting with this March 3, 2021 post.
One small takeaway from this series of bobcat images captured in Rosslyn’s fields and forests is that the best bobcat images are captured when the environment is snowy. Perhaps the cameras trigger better? Certainly the cats’ coats stand out better when photographed against a snowy backdrop. And this, of course, is good news as we head into snowier and snowier months along the Adirondack Coast. I will hope to have some new images to share with you soon.
Swapping December for January signals that we’re four months into Rosslyn’s icehouse rehabilitation which, in turn, means that I’m four months overdue for a look at (or perhaps the first of several looks at) my love of barns. Truth be told, I’m a bit of a barnophile. And, given my weakness for wabi-sabi, I’m especially keen on bygone barns.
Backcountry Bygone Barns (Source: Geo Davis)
By “bygone barns” I’m conjuring an entire class of rural farm and utility buildings belonging to an earlier time. Think of a barn vernacular with classic lines, practical design, form following function, wearing age and even obsolescence with pride,… I’m even smitten with buildings so dilapidated that they’ve been reduced to their skeletal essence by the forces of nature. Sunlight, moonlight, weather, wildlife, and vegetation permeate these carcasses. The sparse assembly of materials — beaten by the elements for more years than anyone alive can definitively claim to know — endure erect, monumental, lavishly adorned with forgotten functions and the patina of passing time.
My romantic heart and my wabi-sabi aesthetic cling conspiratorially to the possibility of resuscitating, reimagining, and repurposing. Meanwhile the rights of rewilding attempt to discipline my disposition; I ache for the victory of natural forces over human will, the return of these materials to the earth. This tension between between revitalizing and rewilding winds my wonder and perpetuates my desire.
Backcountry Barns Haiku
Time torn, weatherworn
byways by backcountry barns.
Watercolor skies.
(Source: Backcountry Barns)
It’s not uncommon for me to interrupt a bike ride in sight of a bygone barn, ostensibly to make a photograph (which I do), but often I’m still standing ten minutes, fifteen minutes later, still observing, often lost in a sort of contemplative gaze.
[Bygone] barn architecture, especially minimalist barns, patinated with weather and time, speaks to something practically primordial in me. My earliest hope when looking for North Country properties was to convert an old barn into a home. I looked at lots of backcountry barns, but I never made a match. (Source: Backcountry Barns)
Inevitably this lead us to farms, mostly no longer actively being farmed, vestiges of an early time, and earlier lifestyle.
I began looking at forgotten farms, bygone barns, meandering stone walls hemming in overgrown fields… (Source: Leaping & Untethering)
Sagging Bygone Barn (Photo: Geo Davis)
It was a romantic errand that exposed Susan and me to many fascinating properties.
Susan… shared my dream of an old farmhouse surrounded by open meadows with views and sunlight. She liked barns and was even receptive to my occasional flights of fancy about converting an old barn into a home. (Source: The Hunt for a Perfect House)
But the bygone barns in my mind and those we visited were failing to align.
Although a farm on the lake (especially an old barn that could be reimagined as a home) was proving an impossible ambition, our imaginations were piqued on several occasions…
A handsome slate roofed barn, still square after a century or more standing at the crest of an immense field just south of Westport, beguiled me for a while. I imagined a lofty open plan; exposed, rough hewn beams; magnificent views in all directions. But the seller was unable or unwilling to subdivide the field and barn from a much larger farm which included additional fields, an immense dairy barn, various other building for hay and equipment storage, a “pond” for storing cow manure and a large square farmhouse with cupola. And in the end it was a relief to Susan, because, after all, this magnificent barn did not stand on the shores of Lake Champlain. (Source: The Hunt for a Perfect House)
Gradually our search evolved. And shifted.
Some day I still hope to explore the barn vernacular, perhaps in a modern and somewhat interpretive way. (Source: Backcountry Barns)
I wrote that last sentence about a year and a half ago. And, while it’s still 100% accurate, I’m also allowing this curious quest to inspire the icehouse rehab which is, after all, a bygone barn, albeit a diminutive one, purpose built for storing ice. Watching the building get stripped back to its oldest and boldest elements, honoring the legacy of a functionally perfect building that has outlived its functional utility, searching for the simplest and purest path forward, restraining the instinct to disguise the building’s age, and summoning the bygone barn’s story from the dusty darkness. It would not be absurd to compare this last four month’s endeavor to a protracted meditation.
In reworking my notes for this post — notes is too vague; perhaps field notes is closer, or travelogue — I come across a hastily jotted note.
Renovation or Story?!? (Photo: Geo Davis)
I’d written the question to myself as if posed by another, perhaps one of the many capable collaborators on this project. I don’t recall when or why I wrote this, nor am I certain why this seemingly frustrated inquiry was posed in this way. It’s as if I imagined Pam or Hroth or someone else, exasperated, almost pleading to simplify the journey, our journey, to focus fully (and exclusively) on rehabilitation of this bygone barn.
What’s more important, the renovation or your damned story?!?
I’m only about halfway through these notes, but this feels like the right place to pause. I’ll continue this reflection tomorrow, but for now I’ll prime the contemplative pump with an intriguing short film by Matt McFarling called “Bygone Barns” that the inimitable Katie Shepard discovered while helping me sort my jumbled thoughts.
It’s fair to call it midwinter, I think, and yet snow has been intermittent and sparse. But it’s plenty cold, so we’ll trust the calendar. The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) photographed by one of our wildlife cameras tells a different story. It could be autumn. Or spring.
Northern Cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis (Rosslyn wildlife camera)
The male Northern Cardinal is perhaps responsible for getting more people to open up a field guide than any other bird. They’re a perfect combination of familiarity, conspicuousness, and style: a shade of red you can’t take your eyes off. Even the brown females sport a sharp crest and warm red accents. Cardinals don’t migrate and they don’t molt into a dull plumage, so they’re still breathtaking in winter’s snowy backyards. In summer, their sweet whistles are one of the first sounds of the morning. (Source:Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
Well, this isn’t exactly “winter‘s snowy backyard”, but the handsome male Cardinal still stands out. After documenting the wildlife making its home in Rosslyn’s fields and forests, this is our first cardinal. In fact, we rarely capture images of songbirds. Too swift, perhaps. We document plenty of wild turkeys, and occasionally a grouse or pheasant. But not songbirds.
So, for good measure, here’s a zoomed in cameo!
Northern Cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis (Rosslyn wildlife camera)
It’s worth noting that many of the excellent wildlife photographs we have been documenting over the last couple of winters demonstrate that the trail work collaboration between our friend and wildlife steward, John Davis, and Jack-of-all-trades, Tony Foster, serves wildlife far more frequently than humans. It’s truly remarkable, not only how much wildlife is thriving in the sanctuary, but also how readily deer, turkeys, bobcats, coyotes, raccoons, porcupines, etc. adopt the trails as their byways of choice.
I conclude with a quick note of gratitude for Tony and John, whose passion and perseverance enrich Rosslyn in so many ways. I’ll be posting additional photos soon so that you may enjoy a virtual Rosslyn safari, a voyeuristic glimpse into this thriving wildlife sanctuary tucked into an historic town at the edge of the greatest of lakes. It’s almost too good to be true!
Gray Fox or Eastern Coyote? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
John Davis, our good friend and Rosslyn’s conscientious wildlife steward, contacted me this weekend with an excited update.
Good photos on your cell cam last few days, including a Gray Fox, I think, January 11. We rarely see those.
I’d just been reviewing recent images from the camera he referenced, a Reconyx, cellular-enabled camera that is tethered to my Verizon account, enabling real time oversight of our rewilding efforts at Rosslyn. I had paused on the three images John mentioned, but I had concluded they were an Eastern Coyote, a much more frequent subject for our wildlife cameras. Had I judged too hastily? When I told John that I was curious why he thought the handsome wild dog a Gray Fox rather than a Coyote he pointed what I’d overlooked.
I may be wrong, but that canid looks a bit small to me and has black top tail, as Gray Foxes oft do.
John confirmed that he thought he’d seen fox tracks in that same location on Sunday. Nevertheless nature’s narrative can be mysterious…
I offered to Photoshop the image to see if I could improve identification, and he suggested magnifying the image. The originals didn’t offer excellent data to work from, but here’s what I came up with after attempting to manipulate two separate photographs.
Gray Fox or Eastern Coyote? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
Gray Fox or Eastern Coyote? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
Although the two images are blurry and pixelated, offering little improvement over the orginals, the black tail marking is definitely evident. (If you’re wondering about the subtle difference in the second image, it was taken from this original.)
Gray Fox or Eastern Coyote? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
I admitted to John that I’m still uncertain. It seems to me that, given the diverse pelage (Thanks for teaching me that word, John!) of our native coyote population, it doesn’t seem to me impossible that the healthy canid in the photographs *could* be a smaller coyote. Of course, I sure hope that it’s a Gray Wolf.
John reached out to our friend and Adirondack neighbor, conservation biologist, and wildlife photographer extraordinaire, Larry Master, to see what he thinks.
Looks like a Gray Fox to me! Note dark dorsal side of its tail and relatively short legs. — Larry Master
For comparison, here’s a far more legible photograph captured by the inimitable Larry Master.
Northern Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) (Photo: Larry Master)
To really appreciate not only Larry’s breathtaking photography, but also this exceptional photo documentation of the Northern Gray Fox (and countless other species), visit that link and start clicking through his photographs. The hour hand on your clock will likely turn into a high speed fan!
Rosslyn’s wildlife sanctuary, an informal but earnest effort that has been evolving for well over a decade, is increasingly diverse, but we’ve not yet witnessed a Gray Fox. In other words, I’d really like for John’s and Larry’s assessments to be accurate. We’ll keep watching, and I’ll update this post if there’s news.
In the mean time, here are some relevant insights that John published recently in a post for the Adirondack Council.
Gray foxes are the more arboreal of our two native foxes. Indeed, gray foxes can climb trees and sometimes den in trees. They can often be distinguished from red foxes, if not by color, by their shorter legs and thinner fur. Red foxes are the more likely to be seen in fields, where they often pounce on rodents.
[…]
Both red and gray foxes are masterful hunters of rodents, making them beneficial to limiting the spread of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases. –— John Davis (Source: Adirondack Council)
So what do you think? Do we have a verdict? Has the Rosslyn wildlife camera documented a Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) or an Eastern Coyote (Canis latrans var)?
I’ll close with the last of the three photos in the sequence above. If you squint you just might see that dark tail vanishing near top right of the photograph. Hopefully more soon!
Gray Fox or Eastern Coyote? (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
Bobcat Byway, December 30, 2022 (Note: camera date incorrectly states 2023) (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Kudos to John Davis (@wildwaystrekker), and Tony Foster (@anthonyfoster335) for mapping out and building Rosslyn’s newest nature trail. It’s become a bustling bobcat byway, well trafficked night and day by many wildlife including a population of wild felines. Hurrah!
Just over one month ago I acknowledged the scarcity of native wildcat images on our wildlife cameras.
It’s been a while since we’ve observed a bobcat blurring or otherwise, so this hind quarter, fleeting glance will have to do for now. (Source: Bobcat Blurring, December 23, 2022)
It’s as if my lament and gratitude for a much anticipated sighting found favor with the universe. Since then we’ve witnessed a bounty of wildlife including many cameos from bobcat (Lynx rufus). So it only seems appropriate to celebrate with an alliterative burst to showcase Rosslyn’s busy bobcat byway. And a photo essay so that you too can enjoy the wonders of this burgeoning wildlife sanctuary.
Bobcat Byway Gallery
Sometimes it’s best to get out of the way and let the photographs tell the story. Today’s bobcat photographs need no help from me, no commentary, no editorializing. Just a gallery of images downloaded from three wildlife cameras this morning. (If you’re interested in other posts about Lynx rufus check out Bobcat Sighting and More Bobcat Images from Trail Cam.) Enjoy!
Bobcat Byway, November 26, 2022 (Note: camera date incorrectly states 2023) (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, December 30, 2022 (Note: camera date incorrectly states 2023) (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, December 30, 2022 (Note: camera date incorrectly states 2023) (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, November 20, 2022 (Note: camera date incorrectly states 2023) (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, November 27, 2022 (Note: camera date incorrectly states 2023) (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, December 28, 2022 (Note: camera date incorrectly states 2023) (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, November 27, 2022 (Note: camera date incorrectly states 2023) (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, January 19, 2023 (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, January 19, 2023 (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, November 27, 2022 (Note: camera date incorrectly states 2023) (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, January 20, 2023 (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, January 19, 2023 (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Bobcat Byway, January 20, 2023 (Photo: Rosslyn wildlife camera)
Year End Yearling (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
This whitetail deer yearling (or a precocious fawn perhaps?) is as curious about one of our wildlife camera as the camera is about her. Okay, I’m not 100% confident this year-end yearling is a doe, but those eyes, those eyelashes, that movie star gaze. She’s beguiling for sure!
Whitetail Deer Yearling
Year End Yearling (Photo: Rosslyn Wildlife Camera)
A whitetail deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in its first year is considered a fawn, and until it turns two years old it is considered a yearling. A “year-end yearling”, if born in late May or early June as whitetail deer in the Adirondacks typically are, would be about eighteen months old.
She’s one of several adolescent and mature whitetails that have been mugging for the camera lately. And plenty of Eastern Coyotes too, so a year-end yearling like this beauty had best keep herself alert and energetic at all times!
