Yesterday was perfect weather for tracking: a small amount of snow overnight, just below freezing during the day so that the tracks didn't melt and distort, and overcast so that photos of the snow didn't white out. Maggie is noticing something. What is it?

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Norway rat, Franklin Park, Boston.

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Pepperweed.

This is what I found when I got to work today: the deer enclosure pond, half covered by new ice.

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At my work, there is a recurring report from people tracking animals in the snow; a bizarre and lurid claim of blue rabbit urine. After six winters there, I have finally witnessed this first hand. Before seeing the blue stain on the snow myself, I was frankly skeptical, and assumed that people were seeing something else, and mistaking it for blue rabbit urine.

A quick search turns up one article on the phenomenon--posted by an "urban field ecologist," no less--from the previous winter. You can read it here: http://nuthatch.typepad.com/ba/2005/12/blue_smurf_pee_.html Another reference to this, with anecdotal experimental information is here: http://www.ont-woodlot-assoc.org/sw_nonfibre_redskies.html

The gist of it, is this: Our native rabbits (the eastern cottontail) have been browsing on an alien shrub (European buckthorn). The buckthorn contains a chemical that passes out with the urine, which comes out yellowish to brownish, but after exposure to sunlight, turns a lovely blue color. This effect is visible, of course, because the urine in question is suspended in snow. You would think that the cottontails are eating the berries of the buckthorn, because they are purplish, but according to the second reference above, the effect occurs after the rabbits eat other parts of the plant. Buckthorn holds its leaves long after most native deciduous plants, and in winter cottontails subsist largely on bark and twigs. The second reference also emphasizes that buckthorn is not a favored browse plant of North American herbivores, and that they have to be driven to feed on it out of desperation. I'm not sure about that; my workplace has enough Norway maple saplings to sustain a cottontail factory farm.

So, without further ado (okay, one doo) here is some blue rabbit urine:

We walked the dogs in the weird landscape of Franklin Park yesterday.

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A light snow made for a pretty landscape in Olmsted Park today. This is my favorite view of Ward's Pond.

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This is about as bleak as a clear day can look, but it's still rather beautiful. This is another one of those views that I repeatedly photograph.

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Raccoon and squirrel tracks on the snow on the ice on the pond in the deer enclosure.

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I'm starting to collect more photographs of Olmsted park than I can keep track of. I'm doing a wildlife survey there; I bring my camera in case it will help document something. Sometimes I just take pictures because something is cool or pretty.


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A trail of raccoon tracks led throught the freshly fallen slush, right to the platform where I get the train. I wonder what stop he got off at?