Hard drinking rodents

This plastic liquor bottle was found at the base of an oak tree, in a staff-only section of the zoo, a good distance from the perimeter fence. Sometimes I'll find bottles near the fence--some drinker in the park decides to discard their container up and over. This one wasn't in throwing distance. My first thought was that some coworker was drinking bourbon on the clock; oh dear.


Then when I picked the bottle up, I noticed the cap had these markings on it. The cap was screwed on tightly, so some creature with very strong and sharp incisors had to chew through it to make this hole. It seems that this winter got to the wildlife as well as to the human population.

280 days of Urbpandemonium #5

This eastern chipmunk Tamias striatus is demonstrating its semi-arboreal habits. These small squirrels are primarily forest burrowers, but will escape to trees if a burrow is not available. Their burrows are also where they keep their caches of seeds, making them important in the ecology of forests as seed-disperser. They are broad omnivores, eating a variety of plant, animal, and fungal foods. Hamster-like cheek pouches allow them to transport food.

Eastern chipmunks do well in suburban habitats, as long as there are stone walls and shrubs to serve as refuges from their many predators. Chipmunks are an important vector for tick-borne illnesses, though much less so than Peromyscus mice.

Annual blue rabbit urine post

Finding blue rabbit urine in the snow is almost becoming routine. All you need are wild rabbits (in our case, eastern cottontails), snow (got plenty), and buckthorn--an invasive woody plant that rabbits resort to feeding on in the winter when food is scarce.

Not quite identified

These mushrooms are growing from a log in front of the (indoor) tapir exhibit. They probably were there when the log was brought indoors. Most likely this is Poronidulus conchifer, a species that has strikingly banded cuplike mushrooms when fresh but quickly fades to whitish.

3:00 snapshot #1940: Thursday

Barnacle geese and Baird's tapirs.


Yellow-billed stork and Baird's tapirs.

Don't worry