MARLBORO — The first warm days of spring are among the sweetest of the year. One does not stay indoors willingly.
Imagine how you'd feel about such a day if you had spent the winter in a dark hut of mud and cattails with a bunch of damp muskrats. If I were a muskrat, I'd certainly be ready to stretch my legs, have a little fun, and put as much distance between myself and my housemates as possible. Judging from the muskrat remains that sometimes appear on the roads in spring, they concur.
Such might have been the fate of a muskrat I met while out on the town one fine spring night.
I had just seen the early show at the Latchis Theatre and was starting to walk up Main Street in Brattleboro when I noticed a group of nervous, excited young people staring into the darkened entryway of a jewelry store. I investigated.
In the corner huddled a muskrat that seemed to have had an overdose of excitement. As tires sped by in ominous proximity, I knew this muskrat's chances of a safe return to the river were only fair.
Fortunately, I was wearing my brown tweed coat, a versatile garment that can serve as a small animal net and tranquilizer. The young people stepped back as I removed my coat and explained my intentions.
As the coat descended, however, the muskrat revived and took evasive action. Hugging the edge of the building, she scuttled down the street and turned in at the theater, where a long queue had formed for the next show.
Those in line were so distracted by the advance of the large tweed coat that they didn't notice the muskrat until its paws scrabbled over their feet. I was able to track her progress by the shrieks from the crowd. She finally took refuge under a bench in the lobby.
When the crowd dispersed and only a small group of curious people remained, I persuaded the muskrat to leave her refuge. I cornered her by the popcorn machine. The wool coat had the desired effect, and she relaxed for her transfer to a cardboard box.
One bystander lived near a wetland complex that sounded like muskrat heaven, and she offered to transport the muskrat there. I hope the muskrat found the habitat suitable and wasn't too disappointed to have missed the late show.
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My conversations with the people who gathered made it clear that most of them had never encountered a muskrat before. These good people may be excused for wondering if muskrats eat chickens or if they are, in fact, a type of rat; except when enjoying the delirium of spring fever, muskrats frequent habitats infiltrated by few humans.
Although less visible than beavers, muskrats have a great deal in common with them. Like beavers, muskrats have dense, lustrous, brown fur, large hind feet, and lips that can close behind their incisors so they can chop vegetation underwater. They also produce a pleasant-smelling musk that is used to convey information to other muskrats.
Like beavers, many muskrats build dome-shaped houses and excavate canals. Muskrats and beavers also excavate tunnels and dens in the banks of rivers.
The two species can be readily distinguished. Muskrats weigh between 2 and 5 pounds; an adult beaver weighs about 40 pounds. A muskrat's tail is more like that of a rat than a beaver, but it is slightly flattened laterally. The tail is visible even when the muskrats swim, cutting serpentine ripples behind them.
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The cattail is the plant most venerated by the muskrat, for it is palatable in its entirety, from its abundant starchy rhizomes to its flowers. The cattail can afford to spend so little energy on chemical defense against herbivores since it proliferates in an environment where very few plant-eaters dare to tread. There is no place a muskrat is more at home.
Cattails grow in saturated mucky soils and are well adapted to fluctuating water levels and standing water. In the right conditions, it takes only a seed or two or a raft of dislodged rhizomes from upstream to establish a dense colony of cattail clones.
When a muskrat takes up residence in a cattail marsh, it begins to make improvements. Although muskrats are perfectly capable of clambering through the vertical jungle of cattails, they create a maze of trails and canals for unimpeded travel.
A muskrat builds a home by constructing a platform of mud, cattail rhizomes, and whatever else it excavates from the surrounding marsh bottom. Once this platform is above the water level, the muskrats pile plant material into a dome on its surface. They then excavate entrances from below the water and nest chambers in the pile above.
Muskrat and Beaver are like the first two of the Three Little Pigs. While Beaver makes a house of sticks (moderately impenetrable), Muskrat makes a house of straw. It might take more than a huff and a puff to blow it down, but it would be a simple matter for a hungry coyote to dig its way in.
Fortunately, coyotes are deterred by the standing water, dense cattails, and deep muck that must be endured to reach a well-situated muskrat village. When winter freeze-up creates easy access to the marsh, the mud mixed with the plant materials in the muskrat lodge will have frozen as hard as stone.
In the process of creating platforms for building and feeding, muskrats create deeper open pools within the cattails. When freeze-up comes, the water must be deep enough that the muskrats will be able to swim and feed beneath the ice.
While that depth is clearly important if you happen to be one of the resident muskrats, it is also important if you happen to be a black duck or a water hyacinth. In the case of waterfowl, the pools provide a sheltered haven. In the case of emergent marsh plants, the muskrats keep the cattails under control and increase the herbaceous diversity of the marsh.
If the movie theater muskrat was female, she will likely spend her summer raising a couple of litters of kits. Such muskrat families seldom stray far from their lodge.
Mother muskrats will defend the surrounding territory vigorously. During a year with a high muskrat population, female muskrats will be quite visible and audible as they protect their family feeding ground.
All territorial animosity is forgotten when warmth becomes the priority. Ten to 15 muskrats have been found sharing a lodge in the winter.
Compared with the exposure many of our resident birds and mammals endure, the companionable winter quarters of a muskrat must be downright cozy.
Still, the arrival of spring must be welcome indeed.