Forest ranger Frans Kapteijns shares his knowledge of nature every week. Anyone can submit questions via [email protected]. This time Frans pays attention to, among other things, the print of a raccoon’s nails, a resin lump and holes and wood powder near a tree. Part two of this Stuifmail will be published on Sunday morning.
There is also a new episode of the Stuifmail podcast every weekend. Listen to the podcast here:
A strange print on a garden wall, who owned that print?
Henri and Jeanne Kox-Rijnen found a strange print on their garden wall in Eindhoven and they wanted to know who the perpetrator was. I think it’s a picture of a raccoon. You can immediately recognize these animals by their black and white facial mask and a sturdy, shaggy and black-ringed tail.
In addition, they have fairly long toes, which they can spread wide, and non-retractable nails, see picture. They are nocturnal animals, resting during the day, often in trees. Raccoons got this name because they wash their food.
They wash certain foods in water to clean the food, remove toxins or soften it. The animals do not originally occur here, but they do in North America.
They came to Europe through the American soldiers, because the raccoon is a mascot for many army units. In addition, they were kept as fur animals in Europe and many escaped. Raccoons are now on the European list of invasive alien species of concern. This means that Member States must take measures to limit the spread.
In our country, observations have already been made in all provinces, but Limburg has core areas, partly due to escapes from Germany. Raccoons are also becoming increasingly common in Brabant, so these animals must be reported if they are seen here.
Found something strange in the Maashorst nature reserve, is it a comb of bees or wasps?
Corry and Jan de Kruijf found a strange thing in the Maashorst nature reserve near Zevenbergen. They thought of a comb of wasps or bees, but I think it is a lump of resin from a pine tree or a spruce tree. Knowing the Maashorst a little, it is a lump of a pine tree.
Contenders are the Scots pine or the maritime pine. The resin is formed in the resin ducts of pine trees and these resin ducts are located in the bark, in the twigs and in the pine cones.
This resin is a natural protection of these trees. They can therefore protect sudden wounds, but also as a defense against attacks by fungi and insects. It is a very sticky liquid and is therefore also excreted when the bark and bark are damaged.
The goal is to seal that damage and also protect against moisture loss. With a minor injury to the bark, only a little resin is needed to help repair the damage, but with major damage, a lot of resin is needed.
Sometimes this can be a very large lump of resin. And sometimes the wound is too big and the damage is not completely covered and it is a very large resin lump that is on the tree.
Unfortunately, such a large lump becomes too heavy and falls from the tree. Presumably Corry and Jan encountered such a clot.
Spotted a bunch of birds in a garden, what’s the name?
Eugenie Boer saw a number of birds in her garden and she wondered which birds they were. It is December and a number of northern species from Scandinavia have come to our country. The most famous are two thrushes and the name is fieldfare and redwing. Eugenie’s photo shows two of the latter and there were redwings in her garden.
This thrush can be recognized by its copper-red armpits, which are striking even in flight. They mainly breed in the coniferous forests of Scandinavia, but they come to our country from September.
During such a migration period, millions of redwings can fly over the Netherlands, sometimes in a few days or even one day. Redwings are therefore transit migrants and winter visitors in our country. They are also leaving the Netherlands en masse in May.
During the period that they roam here, you mainly see them near berry-bearing shrubs. This can be in bushes or in meadows, but there must be hedges with bushes filled with berries nearby.
They can also be found in parks and gardens, but again only where there are berry-bearing shrubs. Redwings are slightly slimmer and smaller at 21 centimeters than the well-known song thrush, which grows to 23 centimeters.
The redwing’s menu mainly consists of berries in autumn and winter. Usually from hawthorn, rowan, elder, ivy, holly and blackberry. They also like fruit, such as apples and pears. Once back in their breeding grounds, the redwings feed on various invertebrates, such as earthworms and snails.
Seeing a lot of powder on a tree and also holes in the bark, what is going on?
On October 2, Conny Swalen saw several trees with holes and often also some kind of powder. She would like to know who or what is the cause of something like this. We call this powder wood powder, sometimes drilling dust, and it is left behind by insects such as woodworm or longhorn beetles, which bore through the wood of the trees.
By the way, it not only consists of wood flour, but the wood powder is also mixed with excrement from those boring insects. Boring insects include longhorn beetles, but only the larvae and not the adults or the images. Longhorn beetles belong to the large family of beetles, just like the woodworm.
By the way, woodworms are not worms, but larvae of beetle species, such as the woodworm beetle (see photo), also called the common woodworm beetle. In addition, the larva of the variegated rodent beetle or variegated knocker beetle is also called the large woodworm.
In the photo, see the first photo, that Conny sent me, you can see all kinds of holes in the bark, which were most likely caused by the great spotted woodpecker. In that photo you see chopped pieces of bark in what appears to be a living tree, so the great spotted woodpecker was there looking for food.
Woodpeckers search for food in living, weakened and dead trees, which consists of insects, larvae of, for example, woodworms or longhorn beetles, but also for spiders that are hidden under the bark or in the wood.
Woodpeckers are real specialists in that respect. They hack into living trees, where we think nothing is wrong, and yet they manage to find animals that are already damaging the trees.
You should indeed think of woodworms and longhorn beetles, which attack weakened trees, but also of bark beetles such as the typesetter.