Plenty of woods and plenty of critters. Wishing they'd eat more chipmunks. Not that often we hear them. Of course with the warm weather the doors are open so we can hear them.
Saw this gold finch this morning. They're pretty common to see around here in the earlier part of the day.
Im making my coffee this morning and out of the corner of my eye I see a big hawk (or bird of prey) land and take off real quick. Dunno what it got (if anything) as feeder was empty. No loose feathers on the ground. Wouldn't mind if a chipmunk or five disappeared. Squirrels too.
Pup and I have enjoyed our morning bird time, Well he's the ground critter watcher. Seeing the parents feed their fledglings and watching the fledglings trying to land on the feeders is a bit comical. Some crashes and mishaps are the norm. All the nest boxes are full, So we added another for the bluebirds. Hope they move in before the wrens get it. 3 of the boxes we have out are filled by house wrens. 1 has the tree swallows and the last 2 have house sparrows. We also have a small wren house on a tree, but no one has use that in 2 years. I'm tempted to remove it from the tree and add another T-post for it. 7 boxes total now, May still add another. Last thursday we had Mr bear visit and he got one of the hummingbird feeders before Brodie and I could get out to shoe him away. Sad watching them come to where the feeder was, So we went and bought another for them. We have 2 cottontails, One out in the field and the other lives under our roto tree. Well seems the one under the roto has found a girl friend. Saw them playing out there Tuesday before dusk, Maybe we will have some baby bunnies??
As well as all the other visitors to our feeders, we have also had some cottontails show up recently. They seem to like to hang with the birds and squirrels for a while every morning. We have also noticed some bunny hanky panky going on. Most everybody is welcome in the yard except moles, crows and raccoons! They are just a bunch of troublemakers! No bears here to worry about.
Just watched this flicker foraging for ants. Didn't think I could get the camera in time. See them every now and then in the yard. Maybe 1-2 times in the cold on the suet feeder.
We got flickers this year, to the suet block. 1st time they were noticed. They were around in early spring g for a few weeks. Haven't noticed one recently.
Not often. I had one a couple of years ago helping with the ants. But I've been in NH over 35 years and only seen them during 2 of those summers.
Raccoons are regulars here. Somehow they managed to unlock the lid on the garbage can and made a mess with the trash. I had a single screw holding it on which held but they pried it open. Cleaned the mess up and put a second screw in it.
I don't poison my yard for insects because it's effect on songbirds (thin eggshells as well as killing off their food). This means that there are lots of bugs, grubs and earthworms that the raccoons like as well as the birds. Consequently the raccoons are always tearing up the sod to get to the goodies. I guess being nice to the birds is a two edged sword!
I have an old Daisy BB gun that I use on the raccoons. When all the motion detector lights come on at 2:15 in the AM and the raccoons are digging I run down and whip the curtains to the side and throw the sliding glass door open and start plinking them in the fanny to chase them off. The BBs sting them but I don't imagine that hurts as bad as seeing a fat, old man in skivies dancing around with the curtains and trying to simultaneously shoot the BB gun and turn off the blaring security alarm that he forgot to turn off first! This was all well and good when we lived next to a meadow and orchard. Now, a couple of houses have gone in. The youngish neighbors were very pleasant at first but I notice that after a succession of night lights, alarms and dancing and shooting events, they have been acting strange and duck away when I wave or try to approach them. This new generation is so strange!
Wouldn't consider myself a 'watcher', but I do like to look at interesting birds. Pretty sure there was an owl sitting atop a fence post out back this morning. Foggy, but the silhouette had to be an owl. Not enough light yet for a hawk.
