[music playing] Hi.

I'm Alex from Shaver's Creek.

Welcome to a season at Shaver's Creek.

This episode, we're going to be looking back at the wildlife that we saw around the nature center this winter.

Winter is a season that's known for its stillness, being a little bit more of a sleepy time for wildlife.

But you might be surprised at what we saw on the trail cams this season.

Let's take a look.

[music playing] This was a pretty unusual sighting of a porcupine swimming across Shaver's Creek.

It's not a common sighting seeing them swimming around.

And you can see how clumsy they look in the water.

But one thing that's pretty handy for them is their hollow quills give them a little bit of a personal flotation device, makes them pretty buoyant.

We had our first fox sighting on the trail cams just before the winter solstice.

This shot gives you a pretty good look at the flat tail that beavers have, which they slap on the water if they feel threatened by a potential predator to scare them off.

They also store fat in it to carry them through the winter.

Here we see that same beaver less than an hour later bringing that stick that it foraged back to its lodge.

These dams that they've built are pretty cool because they give wildlife a lot of different habitat to use.

We see a lot of mice using the dams.

We see a lot of minks using the dams and muskrat.

But it's also a great crossing point on streams for wildlife.

We saw this great blue heron in late December climbing the dam.

I really love this shot because it shows just how versatile their feet are and how good they are at climbing uneven surfaces.

[music playing] We saw our local mink a few times over the winter crossing the beaver dam.

It's a great spot for them to hunt, as its favorite prey, muskrats, use the dam just about daily.

I thought this was a really fun clip.

It really shows the playfulness of this mink as it's sledding down the dam in the snow.

[music playing] Now, these are likely members of the same raccoon family that we saw in the fall crossing the dam.

It looks like they might have grown a little bit since then.

They're strong swimmers, but it's definitely easier to cross the dam when the water is flowing so quickly after a storm.

As you can see, beaver dams are pretty well built.

They're pretty sturdy.

And they provide a nice crossing point for even larger creatures like deer, which help them stay dry in the colder weather.

[music playing] We usually catch our glimpses of these muskrats at night.

So I thought it was kind of neat to see them out and about during the day.

Here we see the muskrat carrying some foraged grasses.

They have been known to occasionally overwinter in beaver lodges.

So that could be where this one's headed.

Here we see a pair of mallards, a male with a green head and a female climbing up our beaver dam.

Now, they're not the most steady-footed, but you can see that they make do pretty well.

[music playing] Now, mallards are dabbling ducks, which means that they don't usually dive for their food.

As you can see here, what they do is they stick their head under water, tipping their rear end straight up out of it.

And in doing this, they can stick their head down.

And primarily, they're feeding on little plant material underneath.

But they might go for insects and other aquatic invertebrates under there as well.

[music playing] I wanted to include this group of American robins stopping for a drink at our beaver dam because it's often thought that they migrate elsewhere in the winter once it starts getting cold.

In reality, they tend to stick around.

We just don't really see them as often because it's a lot harder for them to forage our yards when it gets cold and the ground freezes.

[music playing] We also had a domestic house cat visit, which I thought was kind of an interesting sighting.

I mostly wanted to include it as a size comparison for our next visitor.

And here it is, our local bobcat, which comes through the area pretty frequently.

As you can see, they're really not that much bigger than a house cat, but they are just as graceful.

You'd be really lucky to see a bobcat out in the wild, as their combination of incredibly keen senses and their stealthy nature allows them to easily avoid contact with people.

We're pretty fortunate to be able to observe one so close to the center so often.

Thanks for joining us for this episode of the season at Shaver's Creek.

We hope you enjoyed this peek back at our wildlife through the winter.

We've got a lot of great current and upcoming programs over at Shaver's Creek.

Make sure you check out our website for more details.

And until next time, keep exploring.

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