My Favorite Faux Marten



Danika, Age 8 (Newfoundland)

 All this talk about martens reminded me that Danika dressed as a marten once. In 2004, Laura, Danika and I went to Newfoundland for our summer vacation. We flew to St. John's and camped in Terra Nova National Park. Danika was eight years old and we dropped her off at the kid's program at the visitor's center.The focus of the activity was "forest creatures" in general and the marten in particular. Martens are endangered in Newfoundland and the kids each made headbands with marten ears to wear. They learned about the adaptations that helped martens survive. Here is a photo of a slightly embarassed Danika Marten...

We saw many things on that trip, but one that stands out in particular was a bald eagle encounter. We took a tour in the bay and the captain brought along a cooler full of frozen fish. The eagles had become accustomed to taking the fish from the surface of the water and I was able to get some amazing pictures.



Captain Danika






















Bald eagle (Terra Nova National Park, Newfoundland, Canada, 2004)



0827: My Favorite Marten, Epsisode II

Danika and Laura snowshoe along a marten trail

Just a few more marten-related photos. Marten are members of the weasel family and as such often travel in what is a called a 2x lope. When they do that, the front feet land near each other and then the rear feet land in the same holes leaving a "2 by 2"pattern.



Another highlight for me was seeing some of the den entrances for 0827. Elaina showed us one entrance at the base of a birch tree. She inserted the antenna cord and we clearly heard the beep beep beep that told us 0827 was home. The fancy word for conducting business (moving, eating, sleeping, etc) under the snow is "subnivean". The marten's den was subnivean and perhaps also under ground as well. The two entrances we viewed were within 20 feet of each other and I assumed they were connected underground.

Marten den

A final photo below shows another entrance that 0827 used the night we were visiting. What I love about this photo is that it doesn't just show the tracks coming and going but also clearly shows strike marks in the snow from the antenna on 0827's collar. I am guessing that this marten was caching some of the bait I used in front of the camera, so this may be an unusual amount of traffic for a single night.

One of 0827's den entrances

0827: My Favorite Marten, Epsisode I



Elaina listening for signals from collared martens

 I am just a hair too young to have watched "My Favorite Martian" on TV, but not too old to enjoy 36 hours in the Adirondacks learning about marten and fisher with my family and another FLCC peer. Sasha arrived in our driveway at 7AM Wednesday morning and 20 minutes later we were heading to the Adirondack Ecological Center (AEC) near Newcomb, NY. Owned and operated by ESF, the AEC is home to classes and research projects. Our purpose was to meet up with one of our alums, Elaina Burns, who has been working as a field technician on a marten and fisher research project since December.

Laura, Danika and Sasha

The drive from Seneca Falls took about 4 hours. We settled into our cabins and had a leisurely lunch before strapping on our snowshoes and exploring our "backyard". We quickly found tracks of marten and coyote. After this much needed break, we got back in the car for the five minute drive to the interpretive center where we walked the Sucker Brook trail and found tracks of bobcat, marten, mouse, snowshoe hare and coyote. It was a picture perfect day with blue skies and a layer of powder over a thick crust of frozen snow.

When we returned to our cabins, we played euchre until Elaina came back from the field. She helped us set out the two trail cameras I brought in likely locations. Trimmings from our steak dinner were added to increase the chances that I would capture an image, given that I only had one night to work with. The steak did the trick and I ended up with several images of a collared marten, # 0827. 0827 is a male, lives right behind the cabins and is named after the frequency of his collar (these are the numbers after the decimal point). Check out the photos below:

Note antenna from VHF collar

In this first photo,0827's antenna is clearly visible over his left shoulder. Also check out the trail he made to get to this spot. He came down from the little rise behind him and you can see the drag marks of his body in the deep snow. Martens change color from winter to summer. In the winter, they appear to have black socks on.









Collar clearly visible. Martens have long nails for climbing trees



In this photo, you can clearly see the transmitter on the collar. Most of that bulk is battery. Check back soon for more posts about this trip.