Crayfish Chimney

I was out hiking with Hyperion between a cattail marsh and a little stream when he spied something before I did, as usual.

"Hey, it's a crawfish chimney," he said.  I was excited to see it.  It was only the second time I've ever seen them.

The crayfish, or crawfish as they are sometimes called, excavate these chimneys and dwell below. 

Here is a link to another post I wrote about such crustacean constructions, describing how the builder's work:

 http://foundonthetrail.blogspot.com/2012/06/crawfish-chimney.html

Crawfish Chimney

"What is that?!" I asked myself, when I came across this little structure out in the woods, a couple hundred yards from a marshy pond.  It stood about 3-4 inches high, and was made up of little chunks of mud piled up on top of each, forming a chimney.  I had never seen anything like it before.

Hyperion knew, of course.  He always does.  When I showed him my photos, he said, "That's a crawfish chimney."  And so it is.

Crawfish carry each individual wad of mud up to the top of their burrow, one by one, as they excavate - thus creating the chimney, and their home, sweet home.

Crawfish are also known as crayfish, crawdads, and colloquially - mud bugs.  Crayfish comes from an old French word - "escrevisse".  The "visse" part sounded similar to fish, and so the word morphed into crayfish.  The "craw" part was a further mutation of the word.  Escrevisse came from an old Frankish word (who knew?!) - "krebitja", meaning crab.  I just love following these sorts of word trails!

Evidence of Wild Animals

I am a scouter, and one of my favorite requirements to help the scouts with is to identify evidence of at least 10 kinds of wild animals.  I love seeing the boys out in the woods, noticing things they've never noticed before, and getting excited about how much they can deduce on their own.

The first morning started off well right at the campsite.  The boys found this torpid amphibian, and some deer guard hairs.  We also heard several bird calls and saw evidence of squirrels having feasted on nuts.

Next we went out on a hike.  We took to the miles of woods and fields on our scout camp property.  We had 2 adults and 22 scouts.  It seemed like everyone was noticing everything - tracks, scat, calls, and animal homes.

The rank requirement says to find evidence of animal life, including birds,

mammals,

reptiles,

fish, and mollusks.

The most exciting find of the day was a deer carcass.  The boys swarmed it like bees - "Wow!" - "Cool!!!"  We guessed at what might have brought it down.  Disease?  Bow hunters?  Coyotes?  We had heard them (the coyotes that is) yipping and wailing in the night.  They might have done the deed earlier in the year.

It seemed like everywhere we looked, we found some new critter, or part of one!

(Note:  No crawfish were injured in the production of this blog post.  This one, who lost his claw, was already dead before we found it.)

Photo credit:  Jason

All of the animals and evidence were left where they had been found, even though this practice was a hard sell for some of the scouts.

My personal favorite on this hike was evidence left behind by a yellow-bellied sapsucker (isn't that just fun to say?), as seen on this tree trunk, where it "drilled" these holes to get at the sap.  Pretty cool.

We got caught in the rain near the end of the hike, and had to shelter for a while under a fortuitously nearby structure, but it was still a wonderful hike.  I think we all had our interest in the outdoor world rekindled.