I have forever regarded the muskrat as a gentle vegetarian, living on reeds and tubers found near its mounded lodges in shallow waters. Or, like the muskrat pictured, a shy visitor to a crab apple orchard. Now I learn that they eat ducks, among other birds. A friend called recently to report watching a muskrat attack a half-grown Canada Goose. The mammal really did try to bite off more than it could chew; the goose escaped. That sent me on a literature hunt, seeking more information on this new perspective. Evan Hazard’s “Mammals of Minnesota” mentions only the vegetarian portion of a muskrat’s diet, as did all but one of the sources I found on the Internet. The exception was a paper written in 1918 for the Massachusetts conservation department by ornithologist Edward Forbush. The paper discussed bird predators. And there was the cute muskrat, one of which swims in our pond, credited with dining on Green Herons and ducks as well as geese. This might be partial explanation for the continuing loss of baby Wood Ducks around here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Backyard birding, Bird biology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.