castor canadensis
July 20, 1982 — 7:15 am
Oneida County, Wisconsin — Cross Country Road
My wife and I saw this Beaver standing where the road we were driving on crossed a creek. We stopped the car to look, but the beaver ran off the road and dove into the creek.
lutra canadensis
July 19, 1982 — 2:00 pm
Oneida County, Wisconsin — Rainbow Flowage
A friend and I saw an otter swimming approximately 50 yards offshore in the main part of the lake. It dove under, remained out of view for about three minutes, reappeared for a short time, then dove again. We didn’t see it again for about 10 minutes. It then waded onto a mudflat along the shore of a bay, about 20 yards from where we stood. It was eating a 10-inch fish and looking about. It then dove into the water, swam further into the bay, and disappeared.
Twelve years later, in 1994, I happened upon an adult Otter with two pups on the other side of the Flowage. I stood and watched them for half an hour from about 30 yards away. Other than the initial look at me (top photo), they paid no attention to me whatsoever. I only left when they did — they took a swim out across the bay.
euphagus (to eat well) cyanocephalus (from kyanos, blue, and kephale, head)
Saturday, June 19, 1982 — 9:00 am
Illinois Beach State Park, Illinois
I heard about these Brewer’s Blackbirds on the Audubon hot line. I found a male perched in a dead tree in the prairie on the far south end of the park about 100 yards from Lake Michigan. It was preening and looking around. A female flew in and landed on another branch for a short time. Both birds then flew off to the north. I later saw a male perched in dead scrub by the pine woods on the north end of the prairie and another one on the beach near a flock of gulls.
sylvilagus floridanus
June 1, 1982 — 5:30 pm
Des Plaines, Illinois — home
This cottontail was hunched motionlessly on the lawn in the side yard. As I approached, it hopped up, went about 10 feet and crouched still again.
parus (titmouse) hudsonicus (Hudsonian)
Sunday, May 30, 1982 — 11:15 am
Three Lakes, Wisconsin — off C.T.H. A, near town
After I saw the Alder Flycatcher, I started back through the bog toward the car. I hadn’t gone too far when I spotted the Boreal Chickadee I’d come to see. It was foraging three to four feet off the ground in a straggly spruce, moving around fairly rapidly I heard a few high-pitched nasal notes unlike those of a Black-capped Chickadee. It soon disappeared into a very thick patch of spruce through which I was not about to try and follow.
