May 16, 2014

Another camera, another set of random pictures

 Jim was busy building blue bird boxes.  He ended up making 9 of them and we placed them around the 20 acre field next to our cabin.

This house and barn look like something from an old western movie.

A bittern that thinks I can't see him.  It really blends in though, doesn't it?

These two are my favorite neighborhood critters!  I don't know their names, but we call them Fjord and Dusty. The horse is a Fjord horse and the donkey always looks so dusty.  Real original, huh?

Some actual signs of spring!  Wildflowers and ferns.

 If you feed them, they will come.  These birds can't get enough grape jelly and orange halves.

This is a new visitor, it's a Cape May Warbler.

 A Gray Catbird and female Baltimore Oriole

A Rose Breasted Grosbeak and Gray Catbird.

And last but not least, this is still a very common sign around here.  Roads are closed because they're deep in mud, the culverts are plugged or a beaver has backed up some creek and now the road is under water.  Notice how little green there is in all of these pictures.  But one of these days spring will pop and we'll be complaining about bugs, heat and humidity!  

That's all for now!

May 14, 2014

Today I decided it was time to download the pictures on the camera that usually travels in the truck with me.  There's quite an assortment.  Here's a sampling of a weeks worth of pictures from around here.

Ummm. I'm thinking the weight of the snow was just a little too much for those supports.

This isn't the only structure around here with damage from heavy snow.

We've had quite a bit of rain lately and this road is now closed.

This hole has been repaired.

There was still some snow along the edge of the road and an opportunity for Jim to make a couple snowballs.

This one got to go for a ride with us. 

It was surprising how long it stuck to the hood before sliding off.

Jim pruned out a bunch of brush in front of my blind so I won't have a lot of pictures that look like the next one.

See that branch?  It's not going to be a problem any more.

Always good seeing deer that survived the horribly cold and snowy winter up here. 

Some of our favorite spring birds. Two Gray Catbirds and a Baltimore Oriole. This year I learned besides oranges, they'll also eat grapefruit.

Yesterday we took a walk between the "scattered showers" and I was in the right place at the right time when this train came along.  

Shortly after the sky looked like this and it was raining again even with the sun out.

About that new camera I mentioned…

Well, I got a new one, but I have to tell you the rest of the story.  We were about 3 hours from home when I remembered I never put my camera in the truck.  I did a frantic look-see in the glove box, hoping it was still in there, but it wasn’t.  I said “Oh sh*t, I forgot my camera!”  As it turned out, this was a perfect time for me to be forgetful, because in just 3 days was my birthday and guess who didn’t buy me anything?  So he says, “If you’d like, for your birthday present you can get yourself a new one”.  Hmmm, that sounds pretty good to me.  I knew I wanted to keep things simple and I didn’t want an expensive camera that requires expensive lenses.  So after some online research and shopping around, I decided this was the one I wanted.  A Nikon Coolpix P500.I’ve only had it since Wednesday, but so far, I really like it.  And I really like the color of it too!  I’m still learning the settings and other features.  I sure was glad I had it when we were driving along and saw this little cub along the edge of the road.  Such a cutie.  Mom and the rest of the kids crossed the road before we came along.  While we were watching it, Jim caught some motion in the review mirror and most likely, Mrs. Bear pushed this deer out of the woods.  The next day Little Doe brought her two fawns around.  Jim was stacking wood over on that side, so Little Doe had the kids hang around while she decided whether it was safe of not.  She decided to take them back from the direction they came from. I grabbed my camera and took some picture through the front window.   We’re finally seeing some pretty butterflies.  I just wish more of them would be on flowers and not on piles of poo.  I don’t know what kind of butterflies these are, but the small ones really blend with the sand, don’t they?This little bird was sitting in front of my blind, singing it’s heart out.  I got all excited and took a video of it.  After the fact I learned that unless you record your video in HD, there won’t be any audio.  Okay!  Won’t do that again. 

Another thing I’m learning is that HD videos take FOREVER to upload to YouTube.  I’ll have one for you in my next chapter.

So that’s my story and I’m very happy with my new camera. 

The Next Generation

We’re starting to see lots of fawns now as well as other little ones.  Here’s one of two little gray foxes that were denned near the road. This was the last day I saw the robins in the nest.  They’re out fending for themselves now.These turtles didn’t make it.  I know I’ve showed you lots of pictures of turtles laying eggs, but this is what happens to many of them.  Raccoons dig them up and all that’s left are the shells.Here is a mother grouse and if you look real close you can see a couple little ones.  Hint:  see the stick in the left corner?  To the right of it are dark spots that are the tail feathers of the little birds. We’ve driven by this nest many times and I just noticed it.  It’s some type of young hawk.And finally last night the little doe and her new fawn came to visit.  This picture is from the trail cam.  Much better than the ones I took through 3 panes of glass.  On the other cam, we saw this future “monster buck”.  He’ll need a few years, but they all start small.

What a Day !

…for seeing wildlife.  On our way into town this morning I noticed something really black along the edge of the road and sure enough, a bear!  Here’s a little video I made with pictures I took through the truck window.  That’s part of why it’s so hazy.

June 17, 2011

A little further down the same road were two turtles, laying eggs.  One on my side, one on Jim’s side.  The second one looks like she’s really working hard to push that egg out! 

We took a walk on the Brule Bog Boardwalk and it was like being in a fairyland with lots of ferns, flowers, mushrooms and moss.  Anyway, my friend Anna told me that was a good place to look for pink lady slippers.  I’d never seen one, so I didn’t know exactly what or where to look for them.  Well, I’ll be darned!  After finally spotting one we saw them were all over the place. This has to be the most beautiful flower in the bog. 

There were lots and lots of bugs, so it was take the pictures as fast as possible and get the heck out of there.

The wildlife spottings continued on our way back home.  We saw a gray fox run across the road in front of us and closer to home a doe with 2 little fawns did the same.  Then we see this big ol’ buzzard.  Most likely there’s a dead critter somewhere nearby and this turkey vulture wants to get back to it.  A face only a mother could love? 

Not always pretty

A few blogs down, I have a picture of a swallowtail butterfly that was sunning itself on a fern.  I thought it was very pretty.  Lately we’ve been seeing swarms of them in the road and today I had Jim slow down so I could get a picture before they all flew off.  Did you know butterflies get salts and minerals from animal poop?  These are really getting into a pile of fresh bear poop.  In my opinion, this isn’t pretty!Another not so pretty thing I saw the other day was a leach.  This one was in a puddle and I can’t help but wonder how it got there?  There’s a pond nearby, but it’s not connected to this puddle in any way. 

Mrs. Robin and Mrs. Phoebe both let me take their pictures this week.

They’re still sitting on their eggs.  The Bluebirds and tree swallows are busy flying in and out of their bird houses getting bugs for their babies. 

 

This morning I sat out in my blind again.  As usual the lighting was intense and of course that was the time a deer came out in the open.  I was looking for fawns, but didn’t see any.  It is nice to see they finally have their pretty summer coats on.Every week new wildflowers starts to bloom.  This one is an Indian Paintbrush.