![]() ![]() The smell emanating from under the stairs may be your first clue that you’ve got a wild neighbor, but their tracks can be useful for identification as well. However, if natural denning sites are not available, skunks are more than willing to hunker down for the winter under decks and porches. ![]() They will also use stumps and rock or brush piles as den sites. Skunks use abandoned woodchuck, muskrat, fox, or badger burrows and often rest above ground during the warmer months. While winter roads can be treacherous for skunks to cross, it may not be along a roadway that you encounter the first skunk of the season but in your own yard. As to their size, striped skunks average 22 to 26 inches in total length and weigh 3 to 12 pounds, with males typically being larger than the females. Striped skunks also usually have a small white streak extending from just above the nose to the forehead. On some individuals the white stripes do not extend all the way down the back, or the stripes may be absent completely. With their black fur, pointed faces, bushy tails, and those two white stripes extending down their backs, striped skunks are one of the most easily identified mammals in Illinois. If the smell alone weren’t enough to identify the victim, their distinctive look surely seals the case. ![]() Long before the first blush of springtime green covers the land, before the first of the male red-winged blackbirds arrive to claim their stake, it is the musky smell of the striped skunk that first announces that spring is on its way.Īt this time of year, you may notice more skunks on the roadsides. While we know that the harbingers of spring are just around the corner, there is already a pungent odor in the air that proclaims wintertime is almost over. Winter certainly has its charms, but by February many of them have worn off and the longing for spring begins in earnest. ![]()
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