When you’re used to walking through an area of dark barked
trees, a patch of white on the tree trunk is highly noticeable. Something has obviously been stripping the
bark from this cedar. The challenge is
to find the reason for the missing bark.
It’s not unusual for large cedars to shed long strips of
outer bark. When this happens naturally,
the exposed surface is normally a grayish color. When yellows and reds show through, it means
that some animal has been forcibly removing the bark. A variety of birds and mammals use cedar bark
strips as nesting material. The number
of strips taken from this tree would make a pretty bulky nest.
I began searching the surrounding tree tops for nests. I found a couple of old squirrel nests before
I spotted this new construction about 40 feet up in a neighboring cedar. The nest is tucked up close to the tree trunk
and is supported by several stout branches.
There are some old cedar branches and miscellaneous other twigs topped
by a mass of fresh cedar bark.
The nest tree is not far from the collection site. Based on my experience of nests built in this
fashion, I would guess the builder to be either a Gray Squirrel or a Cooper’s
Hawk. Squirrels mate in late winter, so
young could be expected in late February or early March. This could be the beginning of a nest to be
used for a new litter of squirrels.
I searched the ground route as well as all possible aerial
routes that might be taken by a squirrel transporting nest material. I figured that if it was a squirrel carrying
the bark, a few scraps should be evident somewhere between the two trees. I found nothing.
The nest is too flat topped and thin to be that of a
squirrel, unless there’s going to be additional material added. I’ve seen Cooper’s Hawks nesting on
structures like this, but I’m not sure if they did the building or if they just
built on top of an old squirrel nest. It
also fits the description of a Crow’s nest, but I’ve never seen a Crow nesting
at Blue Jay Barrens. I guess I’ll have
to watch and see what develops.
