I returned to a place I had just visited the previous day to
find that something had eaten a substantial meal of Mayapple plants. I know that all of the plants were untouched
the night before, so this was the result of a single night’s activity.
Other than loss of the fruit, I rarely see any damage done
to Mayapples. I was curious as to the
identity of the culprit. Three notorious
plant eaters came instantly to mind:
Cottontails, Groundhogs, Whitetail Deer.
The feast consisted of several plants.
The heights of the remaining stalks suggest that in some cases, very
little of the plant was actually consumed.
This doesn’t seem consistent with the feeding behavior of the
Cottontail. Cottontails bite a stalked
plant off at the base and then sit upright while eating their way up the
stalk. They rarely eat from the top down
to the ground. I imagine their feeding
method allows them to watch for predators while feeding.
Groundhogs have a feeding pattern that’s similar to that of
Cottontails. If they were not going to
consume the leaf, they would eat the stalk right up to the base of the leaf and
leave little or no stub. With an almost
machine like proficiency, a Groundhog would have left each leaf with the same
amount of stem attached.
The partially cut, partially torn stub makes me lean towards
deer. Deer are the most likely animal to
leave varying lengths of stem both on the leaves and standing from the
ground. I’ve also watched deer leave
this same type of bite signature on many different types of plants.
I still don’t know why an animal with constant access to
Mayapples would suddenly make this one time assault on the plants. Maybe the plant corrected some dietary
deficiency present in the animal. The
single meal may have brought the deer back into normal balance. I’ll probably never know for sure. Many discoveries just leave me with a lot of
unanswered questions.
Just up the hill from the Mayapples and in plain sight of my
location, a group of Wild Turkeys engaged in courtship activities. I saw them look in my direction, but they
never stopped what they were doing or attempted to move away. This bunch includes four Toms who are regular
visitors to my yard. They move out of
the yard when I’m around, but come right back when I leave. Now they seem to be getting used to my
presence where ever we happen to meet. I
guess they don’t realize that there are a few more days left of Turkey
Have you considered CCTV to identify culprits? ;)
ReplyDeleteHi Lois. I’m afraid that the budget doesn’t allow such extravagances.
ReplyDeleteWould you believe last summer when I visited out in California, I actuall saw Turkeys down in the lower deserts in native Mesquite Bosques ?
ReplyDeleteWho would have thought. Glad you didn't go away.
Kevin *smile*
Hi Kevin. Ohio biologists were surprised when turkeys in this state flourished in habitat far different than what was considered necessary. I think turkeys could live anywhere. I wouldn't be surprised to one day see them become an urban nuisance.
ReplyDeleteI realize this is a decade old, but I can add some data to the topic. I can confirm groundhogs at least will eat mayapple plants, not just ripe fruit. Here is what I found fascinating about this. I was observing the patch in spring to get an idea of how many females were in the patch, which wasn't a high ratio, and one day in early may I checked again and what I saw astonished me. A groundhog was eating in the patch. When I got close to the patch and on my knees to look for flowers what I noticed was EVERY single leaf was eaten off EVERY single female plant in the patch. The males were left alone and the females were left standing as abare stalk with flowers still attached. Anyways, I found this selective feeding fascinating and of note was the low ratio of females in the patches makes this animal foraging almost undetectable unless you really get down and look at specific plants.
ReplyDelete