Chipmunk

Chipmunk

Chipmunks are a small type of squirrel. They can be found living all over the world and are very common. They are omnivores, and eat nuts, berries, insects, and at times, young mice. Various assortments of food are carried back to the nest using handy cheek pouches.

There are two types of chipmunk, the larder hoarders and the scatter hoarders. Larder hoarders tend to stay in their nest all winter, while scatter hoarders go out in the winter to gather food, as they tend to eat a lot throughout the winter.

Chipmunks usually breed in early spring, and then again in early summer. They manage to produce 2 litters of about 5 young each year. The young are able to leave the burrow when they are about 6 weeks old and go out on their own independently at about 8 weeks.

While the chipmunk serves as prey for many hawks and owls, it is also a predator. It eats a lot of birds eggs when it is able to, and also eats a lot of weeds, making it easier for new plants to grow. It also eats harmful fungi that grow in the woods and pollutes air.

Northern Cardinal

Male Cardinal

Female Cardinal

When you think of a cardinal, you think of a happy, friendly, and very red bird. This is a wrong vision. Only the males have a beautiful red coat to fluff about. Females are left with a disgusting brownish-red color. Males use their beautiful color to attract females on to their territory, where they then sing. Males are very terrotorial, and use their loud voice to warn animals and humans when they are coming too close.

Tests have been done showing that a cardinal gets its color from what it eats. When fed red food, it's glow increases, and when fed yellow food, it becomes pale. Cardinals are sadly endangered because of their eggs. The eggs are at high risk, with many predators stealing them to eat. Even chipmunks will go after eggs to eat in the winter.

Mostly, cardinals eat grain and seed and fruit, but on occasion it will eat beetles, and other small bugs. When a pair of cardinals become mates, they stay mates for life. Sometimes, during nesting, the male cardinal will bring food to the female cardinal to help her, as she has to guard her eggs. This is almost like the ways of a penguin, only backwards. The dad, instead of the mom, goes to find food.

Crane

Crane

Cranes are the tallest flying bird recorded in the world. The smallest measure to about 3 feet, while the largest can get over 5 feet. The heaviest crane known can get to over 20 pounds. Cranes are long legged and long necked, and while cranes do not typically differ in appearance, a male is mostly a little bigger than a female.

The way a crane behaves is determined by what time of season it is. If it is mating season, cranes are very territorial and stay on territory at almost all times, protecting breeding ground. However, as soon as mating season is over, they are very social birds that hang around in large flocks, almost always with each other.

A special and little known fact about the crane is that it is one of the five animals of Kenpo karate. It represents grace and balance, as it is graceful and balanced in real life. There is a form named after it, and it involves lots of balance. There are two types of karate cranes: Graceful Cranes ( Like myself, fluent, graceful, and rarely stumbling,) and Wrecking Cranes ( Much like my Dad, who has a blown out knee and can barely stand on one leg).

Cranes eat a large variety of food, much depending on whats available to them at the time. For the cranes that are on land, there is a large variety of bugs, small rodents, berries, plants, and fruit. For water dwelling cranes, their main food is fish, small amphibians, and marsh plants.

Blue Jay

Blue Jay

The blue jay can be found across the world, in various different ranges. It is seldom found in dense woods, as it prefers mixed trees, especially beeches and oaks. The blue jay's unique color, like other blue tinted birds, is due to the alignment of the feathers and light. If a feather was somehow crushed, it would no longer be blue.

Blue jays commonly look for shelled food, as it is easier to carry in their beaks and store for later. After collecting a nice store, a blue jay will peck at the shell of usually a nut or acorn until it cracks. Mating season take place from March to July, and usually a large tree or bush is the place for the nest. The nest consists of twigs, mosses, grasses, and bits of trash collected, usually clumped together with mud.

Baby blue jays are sometimes called fledglings. The family of blue jays will stick close by each other until the next winter comes, and then they will separate so as not to  fight over the hard to find winter food. A blue jay makes a large variety of sounds. Some blue jays, if around humans enough, learn to mimic human sounds.

The blue jays is the mascot of many colleges and schools, and even a sports team called the Toronto Bluejays. It is also the provincial bird of Prince Edward Island.

Bat

Bat

Bats take up 20% of all classified mammals in the world. The smallest bat on record is barely an inch long, while the largest bat on record can get up to over 1 foot. They are commonly mistaken as flying rodents, but are in fact mammals. Most bats are plant and bug eaters, while the only carnivorous one is the vampire bat.

Bats, while not blind, have very poor sight, and use sound waves to move. They have very thin wings, much lighter than those of birds, allowing them to move more fluently and more accurately than birds. ( Hence the reason that birds are more commonly known to crash into cars, yet you rarely hear of a tale where the bat has a crash landing.)

Many hawks and falcons hunt bats, and many are killed. In winter months, bats retreat to caves and hibernate for six months. They are also seldom known to fly in the rain, as it disrupts the sound waves and pushes them down due to their light wings.

While the female bats can have up to 3-4 litters a season, the bat population rate grows slowly due to slow advancement. Megabats leave their parents and become independent at the age of four months, while regular bats are independent at the age of 6 weeks.