Monday, April 02, 2007

Puzzler: Who was here?



While on my way back from the magical trout stream bedrock outcrop, I saw the above scene. I apologize for the picture quality, although it shows what i wanted it to show.

Notice the gray bark on most of the tamaracks, and the bright reddish brown bark on some of them. The question is, who did that?

A hint: they like woody habitat.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could it be Mr./Mrs. Porcupine??

Enjoy your blog. Thanks for it.

Anonymous said...

If the bark is chewed off, porcupine. If it's flicked off it's either a Northern Three-toed Woodpecker or a Black-backed Woodpecker.

R.Powers said...

arbordillos

Dan Trabue said...

Notice how high off the ground the damage is? Only one explanation: Jackalopes.

The real question is what is a southwestern desert jackalope doing in your neck of the woods?

Rurality said...

Really tall beavers?!

GreenmanTim said...

Porcupine. Pretty good bet with that kind of activity your Fisher population isn't that large. They're about the only thoing that really chows down on the porcupines.

Deb said...

Okay, I,m going to have to backpedal on this. Anonymous 2 gave the answer I was looking for, Blacked back or American three toed woodpecker, but I had totally forgotten about porkys. Will have to examine the trees a bit closer to see if the bark was flicked or chewed. The peckers don't generally dig beyond the cambium (the red stuff), and seeing some evidence of digging to the heartwood, I may have to give this one to the porkys. Will try to investigate further.

Extra credit to Floridacracker, Rurality, and Dan Trabue for creativity!