The wildlife world is like any workplace: some keen workers get a reputation for being top performers. But is it truly warranted? Maybe beavers are so eager because they have no life outside of their dam building. Maybe bees are so busy because they have poor time management skills. They may not be stamped on Canadian currency or star in a series of cereal commercials, but these cottage-country creatures certainly deserve some acknowledgement for the excellent work they do. Praise and appreciation are more important than a pay increase. Allegedly.
The architects and builders
1) Muskrat (pictured)
Recognize their hard work The who-rat? This lodge-building, swimming rodent is the beaver’s less famous Canadian cousin. A muskrat uses its sharp teeth to cut roots, reeds, and cattails to build its structure. You’ll spot their homes—they’re about a metre above the water—in marshes or slow-moving streams. Given what they’re built from, muskrat lodges are smaller and less sturdy than beaver lodges. A hearty beaver home could support the weight of an adult human; a muskrat’s could only hold a three-month-old baby. (But for the love of all that is holy, please don’t put your baby on one to test this.)
A note in their file Although they have similar faces, if you saw a beaver and a muskrat side-by-side, you wouldn’t confuse them. Muskrats are much smaller—they only weigh a few pounds—and they have a thin, hairless tail, not a flat, scale-covered paddle. When swimming, beavers keep their tails hidden underwater. Muskrats don’t.
2) Orb-weaver spider
Recognize their hard work Everyone associates spiders with webs, but not all spiders spin them, and most of the ones that do don’t put as much hard work into these creations as orb-weavers do. An orb-weaver’s web is the kind you see glittering in the sunlight, covered in morning dew, not the janky things you find in ceiling corners on opening-up weekend. These spiders join strands of silk—stronger than steel, relative to its size—to a central point, then thread concentric rings of silk through it. The rings are sticky and meant to trap insects. Some orb-weavers include a thicker strand of silk, threaded in a zigzag pattern through the web. Experts believe the stabilementum, as it’s called, makes the web visible to large, clumsy animals and warns them away; another theory is that it attracts prey.
A note in their file Orb-weavers may be unusual in their web-spinning abilities, but even the non-web-making spiders produce silk. The exception is spiders that aren’t “true” spiders. The daddy longlegs, for example, doesn’t have silk glands. (The males do, however, have a penis. So there’s that.)
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3) Ovenbird (pictured)
Recognize their hard work In the avian world, nests come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of building effort, but birders sometimes overlook the ovenbird’s nursery. Probably because they can’t see it. Ovenbirds are ground-nesters, and they make for damn sure that their baby houses are well-disguised. But just because you can’t see something, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t amazing. An ovenbird’s nest is made of grass, leaves, moss, and needles, and is designed to render the structure near-invisible, camouflaged against the forest floor. The female ovenbird takes about five days to weave it together and lines it with deer or horse hair. The best part? It has a roof, which is clever—this is effective at hiding her eggs from predators. It’s also logical. Because what kind of contractor would build a house with no roof?
A note in their file Ovenbirds have no culinary or appliance-repair skills. Their name comes from the fact that their nest looks like an oven. An invisible oven.
The dedicated parents and childcare workers
4) Common merganser (pictured)
Recognize their hard work Female common mergansers, with their striking, spiky orange crests, are easy to spot on the lake. But what probably grabs your attention the most is the long line of dozens of ducklings bobbling behind what is apparently the most patient mother in the universe. Imagine having to care for that many children? Without the help of Paw Patrol, an iPad, jarred baby food, or somebody to co-parent? We don’t know how she does it. Actually, yes, we do: although mergansers lay about a dozen eggs, they’re capable of incubating more. Sometimes, mergansers will sneakily stash some of their own eggs in the nest of another merganser. It seems that Mama will also collect the abandoned ducklings of other ducks. Once a baby merganser has imprinted on its mother, it will automatically follow another random female merganser. So…congratulations, Mom! Now you have kabillion-tuplets.
A note in their file The record-huge brood for a merganser was likely set in 2018 on Lake Bemidji in Minnesota. A common merganser appeared to have 76 ducklings. (“I. Can’t. Even.”—The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.)
7 female birds that look wildly different from their mates
5) Wolf (pictured)
Recognize their hard work Wolves get mad props for lots of skills: their speed, strength, and endurance, plus all that dramatic howling. But nobody acknowledges what good family members they make. If the question is, “Were you raised by wolves?” the answer is, “No. But I wish I was. It would have resulted in a much more enriching environment.” A wolf pack is typically made up of an alpha male and female pair, several generations of offspring, sometimes a few aunts and uncles, and occasionally, a lone wolf that joins the pack and becomes part of the family. Everyone helps raise the litter of pups—usually four to seven—and offers support for the new mom.
Sometimes pack members will bring her a meal if she’s not in a position to leave the den. (It’s not a casserole.) Once they start to eat regurgitated meat, wolf pups can get demanding. On occasion, a female wolf walks away from them in an effort to avoid the badgering because “Mommy needs some alone time right now.” That’s okay. Pack members help by babysitting and playing with the young’uns. Siblings of all ages tussle with each other. That’s how wolves learn to stalk and kill prey.
A note in their file By about two or three, wolves are old enough to leave home and find their own territories. But Mom and Dad don’t force them—they’re allowed to stay with the pack if they want to. (They’re expected to pay rent, we assume.)
6) Smallmouth bass
Recognize their hard work Plenty of dads help with childcare. But “Father of the Year” goes to the male smallmouth bass. He spends a couple of days preparing a nest in the lake bottom for his offspring, sweeping it out with his tail fin. The finished product is saucer-shaped and up to three feet in diameter. After his lady love has laid all her eggs and he has fertilized them, she leaves. Forever. He stays to guard the nest from predators, diligently caring for the eggs. He fans them with his fins, to keep silt off them and to create a constant current that supplies them with oxygen. Once the eggs hatch, he monitors the tiny fry—they’re about an inch long at this point. They follow him around in schools for several weeks, after which they scatter. School’s out, whoo-hoo!
A note in their file A male bass will bite if you get too close to its nest. These fish usually make them in shallow water—as little as one metre deep—and in spots where there’s a gravel bottom.
The clean-up crew
7) Wolverine (pictured)
Recognize their hard work Wolverines are known for being greedy. Their latin name, Gulo gulo, means “glutton.” But in reality, wolverines just aren’t picky—they’ll go for almost anything: rodents, insects, eggs, berries, plant roots, probably the flatbread “pizza” from Tim Hortons…they’re adventurous eaters. That said, in the winter, they make it their business to ingest the frozen carcasses of caribou, deer, and elk—the food that other meat-eaters may only turn to when desperate. They’ll travel up to 65 km per day looking for corpses that need removal (er, eating). They can even smell a carcass under the snow. Thanks to a special molar, evolved to rip flesh, combined with strong neck muscles, frozen meat is no obstacle for them. This big weasel efficiently takes care of the bones too; its jaws and teeth are powerful enough to crush them. (Plus, marrow is a culinary delicacy. Every foodie knows that.)
A note in their file A wolverine’s claws—they use them in part for climbing trees—don’t fully retract. You’re thinking of Hugh Jackman.
8) Turkey vulture (pictured)
Recognize their hard work Turkey vultures have one of the crummiest jobs around: getting rid of rotten, decaying flesh. By eating it, of course. Turkey vultures have a nose for—and the eyesight for—the job of finding carcasses. They can smell a corpse that’s hundreds of feet away or one that’s buried a foot deep in the ground. Their vision is eight times better than ours, so they can clock a body from about 6.5 km. Most importantly, they produce the most powerful gastric acid of any animal: it has a pH of around 0. That’s stronger than battery acid and 100 times stronger than human gut juice. This means that a turkey vulture can safely eat corpses riddled with infectious diseases, including anthrax. And yet, they never complain about having to do something so disgusting. Well, mostly. When threatened, they can spew chunks of rotten flesh that they’ve stored in their crops. For obvious reasons, this startles a predator. Getting barfed on is upsetting.
A note in their file Turkey vultures are known to pee on their legs to keep cool. It’s called urohidrosis, and other birds do it too, okay?
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9) Burying beetle
Recognize their hard work Of the at least 350,000 species of beetle in the world—scientists estimate there could be as many as two million—this one doesn’t get much press. That’s an oversight. The burying beetle is as attractive as a ladybug (also a beetle) and as cottagey as a firefly (another beetle). But it has a much more important job. It’s an undertaker-gravedigger. Burying beetles can smell a mouse or bird corpse from several kilometres away. Once they’ve located the deceased, a male and female pair will hook up. They stick the corpse in a grave that they dug, and remove any fur or feathers from the body. They coat it in “embalming” fluids that they produce in their own bodies and then…they mate. (Don’t judge. Everyone has their turn-ons.) The female beetle lays her eggs on top of the corpse. Grubs hatch a few days later and move into the body cavity of the dead animal—it will become their food source. It’s like the Leonardo-DiCaprio-inside-the-horse-carcass scene in The Revenant. Except more disturbing, if that’s possible.
A note in their file Don’t confuse burying beetles with scavenger beetles, who eat decomposing organic matter in ponds, or diving beetles, who attack swimming prey. Two million beetles, people.
The brave adventurers
10) Woolly bear caterpillar (pictured)
Recognize their hard work You’re most likely to notice woollies in the fall as they travel across cottage roadways, headed for a sheltered place to overwinter. It’s a distance of up to two kilometres. By contracting their muscles in a wave, pushing themselves forward, they can move as fast as four feet per minute. Brake for woollies! Once they’ve reached their destination—in leaf litter, or under rocks—they bravely hunker down for the cold season. Thanks to a natural antifreeze, they can hibernate. When spring arrives, a woolly thaws out, scrounges for food for a few weeks—mostly low, leafy plants—and then spins a cocoon made, in part, from bristles of its own coat. (Imagine sleeping in a bed made of hair? Wait, don’t. That’s creepy.) Two weeks later, it’s time to adult. They emerge as the dull-looking Isabella tiger moth. And then probably get a job as a data entry clerk.
A note in their file Woolly bear caterpillars aren’t weather forecasters. The thickness of their orange bands are based on age, not the severity of the upcoming winter. These caterpillars are born black. Their rust-coloured midsections get larger as they grow.
11) Yellow-spotted salamander (pictured)
Recognize their hard work Cottagers fret about the wee baby snapping turtles who, after hatching with no mother to, you know, mother them, must make their way to water while avoiding predators. But nobody worries about spotted salamanders! These amphibians hatch underwater after their mothers and fathers are long gone. The tadpoles lose their external gills, grow lungs and legs, and clamber out of their birth ponds in late summer. Then, they go looking for a new place to live underground—an abandoned mouse tunnel, for example. You’ll rarely see spotties. They’re nocturnal. Plus, they’re called “mole” salamanders for a reason. They’ll spend as many as seven years in lonely, dark, isolation until, like a Chinook salmon but way cuter, they return to where they were born. It’s time to breed. Their birth pond might only be half a kilometre away, but for salamanders, that’s not nothing. They can’t hear, but they can sense vibrations. Some experts also believe that photoreceptors in their eyes can detect the earth’s magnetic field and this skill is what helps them navigate.
A note in their file The term “gerrymander” (to manipulate a situation to gain an advantage) is a portmanteau of “Elbridge Gerry” and “salamander.” Gerry was an American governor in the early 19th century. He changed electoral boundaries, creating a voting district that ended up shaped like a salamander, in an effort to win. (“I had nothing to do with that.”—Yellow-spotted salamander.)
Meet a few of Canada’s weird and wonderful salamander species
12) Hummingbird
Recognize their hard work Sure, migrating hummingbirds don’t fly nearly as far as Arctic terns. (A tern’s round trip is 80,467 km, enough to earn it a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for “Longest migration by a bird.”) But a ruby-throated hummingbird’s 800 km journey across the Gulf of Mexico is impressive given this bird can mostly only flutter. At one time, the idea that these three-gram avians migrated seemed so preposterous that people believed they rode on the backs of other migrating birds. Hummingbirds travel alone, during the daytime. When they arrive at their destination (for ruby-throats, that’s Central America and Mexico), they’ve lost half of their body weight. They immediately stuff their faces and gain it back, so they can immediately burn it off with all their zipping about.
A note in their file Hummingbirds are So! Damn! Perky! that you might think they only consume nectar or sugar-water solutions. Not true. Hummingbirds also eat insects. (We all need protein.)
This article was originally published in the May 2025 issue of Cottage Life.
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