Kieran's Critters: BLOG 15: CreepySnitch & Friends

“The world outside my window this afternoon is cold and hollow. Frozen tears plummet from the smoldering sky and a grey sorrow lies across the landscape and oozes into every cranny and crevice. The wind blows now, and the tears fall sideways and winter howls in misery. And as the lonely sun dissolves behind silver trees there in the dark corners of the forest floor ‘neath roots and leaves, along faint pathways hewn cross snow and ice, and in little places here and there through the bitter darkness the mice remain quick and busy and productive. These tiny wanderers of the woodlands are indomitable!”

--Nareik Legov (Days on the Mountain)

Some time ago I was spending the night at a friend’s house around Christmas in an apartment in Budd Lake NJ. The sliding glass doors were kept open just a crack to run some electrical wires outside for the satellite dish. That was all one adventurous mouse needed to slip into the warm abode where he proceeded to help himself to sunflower seeds set aside for the birdfeeders. A few of these snitched seeds I would imagine he carried off to some cozy borough on the outside but a goodly amount of them he stored in one of my friend’s expensive leather boots! He also braved drifts of synthetic snow and circumvented an obstacle course of porcelain ornaments so he could reach the base of the Christmas Tree and refresh himself! The tree’s stand was kept filled with water.

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring . . . um except for this mouse -- he was stirring a lot! (I don’t think Clement Clarke Moore knew much about mice!) Then sometime in the wee hours the door came slamming down on my Havahart trap and our culprit was caged!

Wild mice can carry all sorts of parasites and bacteria and I never recommend anyone collecting them and keeping them as pets. I’ve never been one to listen to good advice though…especially my own! I couldn’t bear the thought of turning this little gentleman loose just so he could infiltrate the building again at some other point and be killed by people less forgiving than myself or my friend. And so I set him up in small tank with a water bottle and a wheel and some cardboard real estate. Mr. CreepySnitch has resided there peacefully for a about four years now, with all the seeds and other goodies he could ever desire!

CreepySnitch at home

I was uncertain for a while whether Creepysnitch was a Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) or a White-Footed Mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) and I still go back and forth on the matter from time to time. Both species are widespread throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania along with the House Mouse (Mus musculus) which is a different looking sort of critter with darker more uniform coloration and smaller eyes and ears.

CreepySnitch ready for the big wheel!

In favor of the Deer Mouse ID is Creepy’s off white belly and his 2 tone tail (dark on top and very light on the bottom) and his tail’s overall length being as long or longer than the rest of his body. White-Footed mice have whiter bellies, a tail that’s nearly one-half their total body length and that isn’t distinctly bi-colored.

To confuse thing however (and what’s the fun of nature if it can’t ever confuse you?) in his “The Mammals of Northeastern Pennsylvania” John Serrao mentions that the Deer Mouse’s tail “ends in a tuft” and that the White-Footed mouse’s tail is “without [a] white tuft at [the] tip.” Creepy doesn’t have any "tuft" or maybe he just doesn’t to my untrained peepers!?

Also, subtle color variations according to age and geographic range can introduce variables into the mix that complicate the standard methods of on-site identifications.

Young Deer Mouse with darker pelage from Tannersville PA

Want to get even more mixed up? If you happen upon any natural history accounts pre-1920 you’re apt to hear about a creature called “Peromyscus americanus” the “white-footed deer mouse.” So, sometimes you never really know what the heck you’re reading about!

From "Wildlife of Orchard and Field" by Ernest Ingersoll (1902)

Hey, is there a mammalogist in the house that can clear all this up for us? I’d appreciate it! Thanks!

Another befuddling variation!

Deer mice are fully grown at a little over 8” and many people are surprised to learn that in addition to seeds, berries, nuts, acorns, plants and fruits they also eat small insects and centipedes! Makes me wonder why we never saw Jerry running around with a cricket or a big meal worm!?

WOW! That was alarming! I have a weird sense of humor...sorry about that!

Anyway, Deer mice stuff their cheeks with food the way hamsters do and carry provisions off to their home which could be in a hollow log or an abandoned bird’s nest or a log pile or even, unfortunately, the walls of your house! Seal those cracks in the foundation folks! In “A Field Guide to Your Own Back Yard” John Hanson Mitchell writes,

“The nests look very much like a ball of dry grass or feathers and twigs and, unless you know what to look for, will be overlooked by your average back-yard explorer...” "they will nest in the oddest sort of places…I once found [one] in the air conditioner of a small industry.”

Mouse nest found in Kinnelon NJ

And just one closing note; I have found several references that describe White-Footed mice and Deer Mice as “singing.” Robert Snedigar reported in 1939 that,

“Persons fortunate enough to witness and hear an exhibition of one of the celebrated ‘singing mice’ have sometimes assumed that the tiny songster was seeking by music to enter into lady’s affections. In these singing mice, different sorts of sounds have been described as the song, but ordinarily it is spoken of as a bird-like twitter, weak in volume, variable in pitch and intensity of tone.”

And while I’m normally loath to link my readers to other websites this recording “The Song of the Deer Mouse” made by filed-naturalist John Sankey from Ontario, Canada is worth 10 seconds of your time.

MOUSE SINGING

Sounds more like high pitch "clucking" but then again, so do a lot of modern singers! CreepySnitch has never sung but he does sometimes “buzz” rhythmically! It’s a rapid, vibrating of one of his back feet against his cardboard home that he sustains for a good 20 seconds, rests and then starts up again. I tried to record it for this blog but I was unsuccessful. As soon as I can capture a bit of it I’ll add it here. I’ll bet you just won’t be able to get to sleep now until the day arrives! (note the sarcasm)

Wild Deer Mouse from Stroudsburg PA

OK, my apologies! I’ve gone way long on this entry. Thank you for reading and, as always, I invite any questions or comments you may have about Deer Mice or White-Footed Mice or White-Footed Deer Mice or anything else I covered, or neglected to cover, in this installment of Kieran’s Critters!