Wood County Park District had a Hunt for the Skunk winter walk on Sunday 2/23/14, and it turned out to be a great walk. Debbie Nofzinger was the leader. First thing we found was some coyote scat !!! Lots of hair in it. And of course, right in the middle of the path.
Next up was a big surprise. Debbie said there was carnage up ahead and she was right. There was a deer kill (again in the middle of the path). Hmm, maybe the coyote scat and the deer kill are related.
After the coyote scat and the deer kill, the only thing left was the skunk cabbage. Chris and I had spent Saturday at Oak Openings looking at skunk cabbage, and we did not see any really open. But there were several here that were open. Debbie said that they had opened more since her Saturday prewalk. And often I find that Bradner is just a few days ahead of Oak Opening in its flower season. I took both regular and infrared thermal images.
In the first set, you can see the skunk cabbage flower below the surface of the snow in a spot it has melted out for itself. You can see the redish hooded spathe around the yellow inside spadix (the actual flowers are the bumps on the spadix). The thermal images below show that it has a nice warm spot and is 60F there with the snow around it at about 29F.
Here is a more exposed specimen. It has also melted the snow around it and is showing a temperature inside at about 70F at the spadix.