A Natural History Mystery

[Eric Johnson]

Several years ago when I was trying to establish a lawn around my house, I had to give up on a couple hundred square feet. It was too moist and shady to grow grass. But it grew a fine cover of moss, and heck, it was green and didn't have to be mowed, so I let it be. Then several days ago, I discovered my velvety patch of moss had been shredded and torn up in swaths and bunches. Since bears frequent our property, I assumed a bear was looking for grubs or something and had been the perpetrator.

I was wrong. At dinner hour the other day, we watched a gray fox work its way through the shredded moss, and at one point it stopped and seemed to pull something up and ate it. I raked away the moss debris the next day, and discovered a series of holes in the soil about a half inch in diameter. My wife recalled reading that this is to be a year of irruption of the 17-year periodical cicadas, and things began to make sense, especially when she found an adult cicada on our deck.

During the last irruption in 2003, I had two young beagles, and recalled when I took them for a walk they gobbled up every cicada they came across. If dogs like them as treats, why not foxes?

Case solved!

Eric Johnson, Stuart

[Jan Wiley]

Interesting observation!

Jan

Sent from my iPod

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[Carol Rupprecht]

What a great story, even if your velvety patch of moss was shredded. Nice that you actually saw the culprit.

Carol Rupprecht,

Woolwine

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