{"id":5603,"date":"2012-06-24T10:13:17","date_gmt":"2012-06-24T17:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=5603"},"modified":"2012-06-24T10:13:17","modified_gmt":"2012-06-24T17:13:17","slug":"forb-eating-pair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=5603","title":{"rendered":"Forb eating pair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Within a couple of days, I watched two mammals eating forbs. The striking thing about this pair is that they differed in mass by perhaps a factor of a hundred: The black bear was of modest size and may have weighed about 100 kg; A typical weight for a muskrat is only about 1 kg.<\/p>\n<p>Reputations to the contrary, the diet of each of these animals is primarily\u00a0herbaceous. Nevertheless, I admit to being unwilling to approach the bear as closely as the muskrat. Neither animal has particularly good eyesight, but the muskrat&#8217;s vision seems to be the poorer. I was able to (slowly) approach the muskrat within about 3 meters without it showing any\u00a0awareness.<\/p>\n<p>A black bear patrols a grassy field for\u00a0comestibles.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5613\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/blackbear120621bd.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It found what it sought: flower buds.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5612\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/blackbear120621as.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A muskrat has just climbed out of the Lake and has started to forage.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5610\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/muskrat120623bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It soon found what it wants. (Here, it reminds me of a koala.)<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5611\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/muskrat120623as.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5609\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/muskrat120623cs.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Within a couple of days, I watched two mammals eating forbs. The striking thing about this pair is that they differed in mass by perhaps a factor of a hundred: The black bear was of modest size and may &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=5603\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mammals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5603"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5623,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5603\/revisions\/5623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}