This tree is decorated for Halloween

Balsam fir displays Witches Broom

Porcupine welcomed us home

Porcupine, a slow-moving Boreal Forest creature, armed with quills

Porky gnawed the same tree years ago

We were down South visiting relatives for a few weeks and when we got back home last night and let Cork out of the car he found a porcupine right under the front steps. Talk about a surprise!
To my relief Cork obeyed my command to "leave it," and came into the house unscathed.
Then we went for a walk around the "back 40" this morning and Cork found the porky again, this time near the woodshed. Again he left it alone after an initial ferocious barking.
It was about 30 yards from where it was last night. That is a typical day's travel for these unique creatures. They are the Boreal Forest's version of a sloth.
At the back of the property we found where the big rodent, or one of his brethren, gnawed away the bark at the base of a white birch. The same tree had been chewed by another porky years ago.
Porcupines are indigenous to this area but are not plentiful.

A wildlife management idea that flopped

Clearing

Drumming log I placed for ruffed grouse years ago

We have lived on our 65 acres in Nolalu for 34 years now and during that period I have tried a few experiments to see if I could improve the land for wildlife. Here is one that flopped.
I had heard that one of the limitations on ruffed grouse populations was the number of drumming logs. Male grouse attract hens in the spring by rapidly beating their wings while sitting on a log. The birds are said to have rigid requirements for the logs. For instance, they prefer sizeable logs that have a tree growing at one end (presumably for cover from hawks and owls) and like these logs to be near a clearing.
So I made a few clearings on our acreage and whenever a big tree blew down, carted sections of it to the edge. You can tell if the logs are being used because the birds will leave a pile of droppings on it.
To date, not a single one of my logs has been used.
Each year we hear a grouse, aka partridge, drumming at the edge of our field but there only seems to be one such bird on the whole property. The spot this bird does his drumming is not a log at all but just a hump of land. He apparently always finds mates because there are a few young grouse seen each year.
Although I can't seem to increase the overall grouse population on our land I have found a way to feed them. I plant dwarf white clover in areas that I have opened up, mostly from firewood harvesting. These places always have grouse feeding in them until the clover is covered by snow.
The same clover also feeds deer, bear and snowshoe hares.

I discover new tree after 34 years

Blue-coloured berries ID the Alternate Leaved Dogwood

Just when you think you know a thing or two, something like this happens: I identify a tree, a shrub actually, that I never thought existed on our land. It's an Alternate-Leaved Dogwood.
There are a dozen or more of these 12-foot-tall, spindly shrubs that grow right on the edge of a ridge behind our house in Nolalu. I've been perplexed at what they were because they have the leaf shape of a dogwood but their flower umbrels never seemed to produce any berries. This year a few did and the berries are blue, not white like Redosier Dogwood. The plants are also twice the height of Redosier. Despite its name, I swear the leaves are opposite, not alternate. Anyway, the blue berries, and the size of the plants are clinchers. Redosier has white berries and is about half as tall.

Bolete

Cork and I found some other interesting things to photograph on a recent walk. Our Red Maples had not only turned colour but also had lost about half their leaves. Mushrooms are nearing their season end.

Scarlet Hood Waxcap

Red Maple

Late Garter snake. Time to hibernate.