The Mammals of Warren Woods, Berrien County, Michigan: Occasional Paper of the Museum of Zoology, Number 86Dice, Lee R. (Lee Raymond)
Science
The Mammals of Warren Woods, Berrien County, Michigan: Occasional Paper of the Museum of Zoology, Number 86
Dice, Lee R. (Lee Raymond)
Mammals -- Michigan -- Berrien County
Small trees and brush have grown up along the edges of many of the
ravines in the cleared fields in and surrounding the preserve. Many of
the trees are oaks, but beech and hard maple also occur, a few of them
being relics from the original forest. Considerable brush is present,
formed by a large variety of species. A few other small patches,
especially in ravine bottoms and on flood-plains have been allowed to
grow up to brush and small trees. In nearly every case these areas are
heavily pastured.
The conditions here included in the second-growth forest and scrub
habitat are not homogeneous, but differ in each different location
where the habitat is found, tree and shrub species abundant in one
situation not being present in another. The habitat is usually narrow
in extent, being often confined to the width of the steep ravine wall.
Owing to its poor development and uncertain characteristics no
intensive trapping was done in this type of habitat. A weasel was
trapped in open beech-maple-oak forest at the edge of a cleared
ravine, and a woodchuck was shot in the same type of habitat. Another
woodchuck and a skunk were trapped at different times in low willow
brush on the banks of the river just north of the woods. Northern
white-footed mice, Pennsylvania voles, and a house mouse were trapped
in thick oak brush and trees alongside a road north of the woods. A
red squirrel was shot in second-growth oak and aspen woods in the
north part of the preserve, and they were seen in open woods along
ravines. Cottontails were noted a few times in blackberry thickets,
in brush in ravines, in clearings along the river, and in
beech-maple-oak forest along ravines.
_Cleared-ravine sedge habitat_:
_Blarina brevicauda talpoides._ Short-tailed shrew. 1.
_Peromyscus leucopus noveboracensis._ Northern white-footed
mouse. 3.
_Microtus pennsylvanicus pennsylvanicus._ Pennsylvania vole. 5.
A large ravine south of the river had been cleared of trees evidently
several years previously, and it has now grown up mostly to sedges,
grass, and iris in its more moist parts. Along the little brook which
flows through the ravine there is a fringe of willows, and among the
sedges a number of shrubs and small trees occur, mostly thorns and a
few young sycamores and black walnuts.
Fifty mouse traps set in this habitat took on the first day, August
16, three northern white-footed mice and three Pennsylvania voles.
More voles and a short-tailed shrew were taken on later days.
_Cleared-upland rush habitat_:
_Mephitis nigra._ Eastern skunk. Den.
_Peromyscus maniculatus bairdii._ Prairie white-footed mouse. 1.
_Synaptomys cooperi._ Cooper lemming-vole. 1.
_Microtus pennsylvanicus pennsylvanicus._ Pennsylvania vole. 7.
_Microtus ochrogaster._ Prairie vole. 1.
_Citellus tridecemlineatus tridecemlineatus._ Thirteen-striped
ground squirrel. 2.
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