Bushy-tailed woodrats more commonly known as packrats

After crossing one of the bridges on the Copper Creek Falls trail this spring, I came across a  small dead animal that I didn’t recognize. I guessed it was a rat because of its size and long tail. 

The only woodrat that lives in North Idaho is the bushy-tailed woodrat and this animal fit the description. Large round ears, long whiskers, gray fur, white-topped feet and a bushy tail with white below characterize the bushy-tailed woodrat. Unlike house rats, bushy-tailed woodrats have a well-haired, bicolor tail. The woodrats are also more closely related to deer mice than the rats inhabiting big city sewers. 

The 14- to 18-inch bushy-tailed woodrat is prey for owls, bobcats, coyotes, foxes, badgers, raccoons, hawks and long-tailed weasels but the cause of death is unknown for this wet woodrat.

A more common name for the bushy-tailed woodrat is packrat. They are well-known for their urge to collect anything from sticks and stones to tinfoil and rifle shells. The bushy-tailed woodrat adds the collected items to its shelter. 

Polyphemus moth: One of our largest moths

Fluttering at the base of a bush caught my attention. I thought it was a butterfly but the antennae indicated it was a moth--a moth with a hairy body that resembled a tarantula. The moth was huge with a wingspan of nearly 5.5 inches. 

Male polyphemus moths have large, feathery, comb-like antennae to detect the female's pheromones

The polyphemus moth is unlikely to be confused with any other moth in the Pacific Northwest because of its size, tan color and translucent eyespots. I’ve never heard of the polyphemus moth before but I have heard of (but not seen) other giant silk moths--Luna and Cecropia (the largest moth in North America).

Not all eggs created equal

Many birds are dutifully sitting on a nest right now keeping eggs warm. Eggs come in all shapes, sizes and even the contents inside vary. 

An egg shell has thousands of pores to allow for air exchange but they are small enough to prevent bacteria from entering

Both the shape and size of the egg are determined by the internal structure of the female. Large birds lay large eggs and tiny birds lay tiny eggs. But when the size of the egg is compared to the size of the adult bird, small birds lay proportionally larger eggs.

For example, it would take 60 ostrich eggs to equal the weight of one ostrich but it would only take nine hummingbird eggs to equal the weight of one calliope hummingbird. Looking at percentages, an ostrich egg weighs 1.8 percent of the adult’s body weight, a robin egg eight percent and a wren egg 14 percent. 

More to ferns than fronds

Thalli. Sporangia. Sori. Pinnae. Frond. As foreign as these words may seem, they refer to a plant we see all the time--ferns. You won’t find a flower, seed or stem on a fern because they aren’t a flowering plant. 

Curled up young fronds are called fiddleheads and most are edible and taste like asparagus

Ferns are quite different from the plants and trees around them because they are a seedless vascular plant (vascular means they have circulatory system to move water and nutrients). Fern are larger than non-vascular mosses and don’t have the seeds of flowering vascular plants. Other seedless vascular plants are horsetails and club mosses.