Bechtel Park
Saturday, September 28, 2024
Our first outing this fall was to Bechtel Park in Waterloo.
We headed into the woods to look for scat and other signs of animals.
In the forest, we saw some acorns that we think were chewed by squirrels and beside the creek we saw some small tree stumps that were chewed by a beaver.
In an open field area, there was some deer scat and a deer bed as well as rabbit scat and a rabbit form. A form is a nest-like cavity on the surface of the ground made in dense cover like tall grass. A rabbit makes a form to hide in or as protection from rain or harsh weather.
We also found a bone that we identified using a bone chart, as a rat pelvic bone.
There were some deer hoof prints in the mud and some raccoon scat at the base of a tree.
The most exciting parts though were seeing a screech owl and bushwacking our way through phragmites to get back to the trail
We saw signs of the following animals:
Owl
Deer
Rabbit
Squirrel
Rat
Raccoon
Beaver
Reported by: Rachelle