14 THE A'U,D U BON] BU Die ies 
and once saw a parent raccoon leading five youngsters about the size of a 
big kitten down to hunt along the edge of the ponds where frogs were 
particularly common. This was in the late afternoon on a cloudy day. 
While mapping the area northeast of Higgins Road, I saw a weasel catch 
a meadow mouse within a dozen feet of me. A quick spring, a single bite 
at the base of the skull, and the mouse was food. The weasel looked at 
me, picked up the mouse and bounded away, not at all frightened by my 
presence. On another day in the same area, while eating my lunch on a 
fallen log a very large mink suddenly appeared from nowhere, under a 
stump. I squeaked like a mouse. The mink stopped and sniffed the wind 
and looked all around. I squeaked again. The mink loped toward me, 
stopping when about six feet away to listen. I squeaked again. Now it 
saw me and moved toward me boldly. It smelled my boots, climbed up and 
smelled my lunch bucket, looked me over with its gleaming eyes, ran the 
length of the log and disappeared into the brush, showing no sign of fear. 
During July the ponds near the northern boundary became choked with 
frogs and crayfish, literally hundreds of them. In a few days I noticed 
paths worn in the tall grass along the shore and leading back to the woods. 
At first I thought that humans must be coming in to catch these frogs and 
crayfish. Then I noticed piles of scat of raccoon, mink and opossum all 
along these paths. They also had discovered the frogs and crayfish and 
were coming down to these ponds to gorge themselves, probably squabbling 
among themselves just like humans. I think that most of the mammals in 
this area are permanent residents with the exception of the bats. 
ia ii ff 
THE FARM RESIDENTS are wondering what new attraction is drawing the 
herons from the farm ponds into the cornfields. In the years that we’ve 
been watching the activities of the green herons and black-crowned night 
herons we’ve never seen them any place except around the farm ponds and 
marshes and in nearby trees. 
The other day, however, one of the farm residents saw a black-crowned 
night heron in a cornfield. Everybody on the place has been wondering 
why the critter would leave its natural haunts to visit an area so foreign 
to its nature. Seeing a heron in a cornfield is like finding a duck on 
Michigan avenue. Yet there it was, and the only assumption to be made 
is that it found some new food item between the rows. 
Our only guess is that it might have been consuming some of the 
grasshoppers which are so numerous this season. Herons are alert birds 
when it comes to feeding, being experts in the art of snatching twisting, 
darting fish under water and frogs and other hoppers on the shore. So 
the piston-like action of their long necks could account for grasshoppers 
if they decided on a change of diet. 
The unusual action of the night heron brings to mind the fact that 
there have been no reports of white egrets in northern Illinois this year. 
There seems to be no way of accounting for the former presence of these 
beautiful members of the heron family. Several years ago they could be 
seen feeding in hundreds of shallow ponds all over the Chicago area. 
