Cool Universe

Take it Outside!

Big challenges for babes in the wood-park

Recent May mornings have provided all sorts of walk conditions, sun and rain, temperatures cool and unseasonably warm. However, just the fact that it is May makes everything fine. The trees are all leafed out, crab apple blossoms have faded away and sweet-smelling lily of the valley and bright, yellow buttercups are in bloom.

I was reassured to hear the basso blub-blub of bullfrogs near the water’s edge this week. Though I have already seen two frogs in the park, both were flat and stiff on the asphalt walk.

A pair of Canada geese sported in the pond with their six, maybe seven, fuzzy goslings. Good parents that they are, once the adults saw me watching, they took turns putting their bodies between me and their brood of young. Though, I’ve seen a pair of wood ducks and two mallard couples, I’ve seen no ducklings yet.

Most of my encounters with baby wild things are thrilling and heart warming, but other encounters are equally heart wrenching. This past Sunday morning, a woman jogger stopped me to ask if ferrets can live on their own outdoors. I told her that here in Massachusetts, ferrets are non-natives, domestic animals that are more likely to suffer and die than adapt to the wild. The woman told me she had passed a ferret twice, and it seemed to be looking for her to scratch its belly. She thought it might have been abandoned or lost.

I congratulated myself that I had thrown a blouse on over my sleeveless shirt. It would come in handy if I needed to carry a homeless ferret. As I approached the tree under which she told me I’d find it, I made kissing noises as I scanned the ground. The ‘ferret’ was in the open, at the bottom of a middling-sized maple tree. Its dark, quizzical gaze made it appear as if it were, indeed, seeking something from passersby, - but, to my surprise, this was no ferret. I had experience handling and caring for a ferret when I worked at the science museum and I recognized this was something else entirely, but what, I didn’t know.

The creature was weasel-like, but with a wider body than any ferret I’d ever seen. It was covered in brown, long fur and had impressively wide feet with long, black claws. When it didn’t move away as I approached, I was wary that it might be ill, except that it looked healthy. I suspected, rather, it was injured and had fallen out of the tree. I dropped to my knees to try to make a closer inspection.

The jogger had turned around and come back with me. Two women on bikes had stopped to watch. “It’s not a ferret,” I told them. “It’s something wild….maybe a raccoon…” It had no markings, no mask, but I was totally stumped. With those paws, it looked to me like a tree climber, and in this city, squirrels, opossums and raccoons were the only tree dwelling mammals I’d ever seen. (To learn what the critter was, read to the bottom of the page.)

The little thing made a move, several steps, toward the walkway and the onlookers, but it was awkward, unsteady. Then, without warning, it lurched sidewise and began screeching in blood curdling terror. Its cry made me feel horrible, like I was a terrible monster and I was unsure of what to do. Then, from up in the tree, I heard a sound and I saw another, bigger, brown…whatever-it-was. Its head stuck outward from the trunk, as it surveyed the scene below.

“It’s the mother!” I blurted out instinctively, “It’ll be okay.”

I knew that if there was a chance for this disoriented and, possibly, disabled, little one to survive this day in the park (with loose dogs and unsupervised kids), it would be that its mother could get it to safety. I also knew that this was a long-shot and that it might not be okay. This baby was not small and its home base looked to be twenty feet straight up.

The little crowd of women seemed to instinctively understand the situation and they dispersed instantly. As I hurried along my own way home, I believed that each witnesses to the drama was feeling the same thing that I was, - a mix of worry, sadness and hope.

***

When I arrived home, I grabbed my little Golden Guide to 218 Familiar American Mammals to help to identify the mystery, weasel-like animal. From the pictures, my wild thing looks like a Fisher. An e-mail from MassWildlife confirmed the fisher ID, an excerpt, “…how amazing you saw the young one and the adult!  …They are very common in Massachusetts.” – Common, but rarely seen by city folk, like me.

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