Day 18.059: Nature; dead

I’ve always liked the French name for the art style we call “still life”: nature morte or literally: dead nature. Sadly, this post is a little more literal and if the discovery of a dead animal is likely to distress you, you may want to skip the second half. 

The first of our non-bird nature discoveries on Thursday were the tips of conifer branches strewn on the ground. 

Each one had been neatly chewed by squirrels and then dropped on the ground. After some searching I found the -at least believable - explanation that the squirrels want to get to the buds on the end of of the flimsy branches but can’t quite reach them so they gnaw the branch where it gets too thin to support them and then - having eaten the bud, discard the rest. 

Here is a picture of the meltwater run-off and the marsh and river shrouded in mist. It’s your last chance to turn away - you have been warned.  

At one point, one of the group excitedly reported that he’s seen a porcupine down in a small creek. We approached cautiously to avoid scaring it but we need not have worried. We discovered that it was dead but somehow appeared frozen mid-stride. There was another one - looking more obviously dead nearby. We speculated that maybe they had been there since before the snow started to melt and that maybe this one had been stuck in the snow when it died and had just now been freed from its icy grasp.