On Christmas eve, I was tracking red fox and fisher in the woods behind
my house when I came across a pine log that had a semi-circular bowl
scratched out of it by a fisher. There was shredded wood everywhere,
and the snow was packed down in a bowl shape, as if the fisher had
carved out a backrest for a night's sleep in the cold.
I figured the fisher might come back, so I left a camera to watch the
spot. The fisher came back multiple times (12/24, 12/28, 12/31, 1/1).
Any guesses as to what the fisher was doing? I'll be posting photos
later this week showing the fisher at work, which should answer the
mystery. In the meantime, here are a few shots of the fisher just being
photogenic.
Fun! A guessing game! And you do know the answer to this, right? It's probably not something as simple as grub or insect hunting. Could it possibly have been creating a cache hole for future use? (The bigger question there would be if a fisher is capable of forethought.) You say the photos of it doing the work will answer the question. Was it fitting itself into its work somehow? Hmmm... Must continue pondering.
ReplyDelete...Or just a shelter for itself? Or trying to access a nest of fine animal edibles (a rodent nest), or a rodent's cache of nuts or berries, placed in the log by a smaller animal through a small hole?
ReplyDeleteSusan, I love the idea that it might be creating a hole for a future cache. Such a capacity of such forethought would be very, very interesting....Unless it already had a kill on hand that it was looking to hide.