In mid-April, I got a call from Don at the Duck Pond Wildlife Rehab Center, asking if I still wanted to take pictures of a “little red.” I’m always up for a photo opportunity, especially of young critters, so I headed over expecting to see a baby red squirrel in one of the incubators. When Read More
Critter Chatter
Critter Chatter is published in the Town Line newspaper and reprinted on the Nature of Maine blog. This column is written by NRCM member Jayne Winters of South China and highlights the wildlife rehabilitation work of Donald Cote of Vassalboro, Maine, at the Duck Pond Wildlife Center.
Critter Chatter — Words of Wisdom
Even though most of us still have some patches of snow in our yards, it won’t be long before it melts and we have more constant warmer temperatures of spring. For wildlife rehabbers, spring brings an increase in phone calls from well-intentioned folks who are worried about young animals that appear to have been abandoned Read More
Critter Chatter – Spring Forward!
By the time you read this month’s column, we will have turned the clocks ahead an hour, and despite any late season snowstorms, we know that spring is right around the corner. In looking through some of Carleen Cote’s old articles (dating from the 1990s), I thought I’d share one that is still applicable all Read More
Critter Chatter — Flying Rodents? Part 2
As a follow-up to last month’s article about the flying squirrel at Duck Pond Wildlife Care Center, I wanted to share some information I found from my online research. January’s column included a general overview from articles written by Carleen Cote several years ago, but I was curious about their habitat, diet, family structure, etc. Read More
Critter Chatter – Flying Rodents? Part I
When I stopped by the other day to deliver some muffins to Don Cote at the Wildlife Care Center, I was interested in a recent admission: a flying squirrel that had probably been hit by a car. I was hoping to get a close-up peek at it, but flyers are nocturnal animals, so it remained Read More
Critter Chatter — Memory Lane
When visiting Don Cote at the Wildlife Care Center last week, I was curious about his “growing up years” and if he’d always had an interest in animals. As “they” say, it is indeed a small world: it turns out Don grew up on the same street in Augusta that I did, about 15 years Read More
Critter Chatter – Oh, Deer! What’s Up With That? Part 2
As a follow-up to last month’s article about the whitetail buck with three legs and only one horn, I’d be remiss not to write about the other permanent resident buck at the Wildlife Center. Rather than simply missing an antler, this deer has two, but they’re both deformed and remain in velvet. He’s the oldest Read More
Critter Chatter – Oh, Deer! What’s Up With That? Part 1
While visiting Don at the Wildlife Center the other day, awaiting the arrival of a family of six baby opossums whose mother had likely been the victim of a car accident, we got to talking about one of the white-tailed bucks that is a permanent resident at Duck Pond. I’d only seen him from a Read More
Critter Chatter – Fall Preparations
I stopped in to see Don at the Duck Pond Wildlife Rehab Center today and was surprised to find only one critter in the house: a young gray squirrel, which likely had been injured by a cat. It was able to move and used its front paws for eating from the food dish, so Don Read More
