Sunday 31 March 2019

Hooper on ice

Friday morning (March 29) Hooper and I did a walk. It was spring-like, although over Saturday/Sunday we've had 40mm of rain. And now it is snowing!



I was right to clean out and refill the nesting boxes [Spring nesting season approaches!]. The ice is melting as it does from the shoreline into the middle of the pond!


The deer fur is still down there. It's a lot of fur!


The edge of the frogpond is slowly thawing in the sun, on the south facing side.

While we were out spotted my first gull overhead. The lakes aren't open, yet, and they are few and far between.


Just showing off!

Saturday 30 March 2019

Glorious spring days

Our driveway needs help. It's not in the budget, however. When you walk on it, bubbles come up to the surface. You'll notice I'm wearing my clogs. No socks, either! Yippee!

Hooper loves it. There has to be something under there! Daisy loved it, too. She liked the river of water as the driveway melted. She chased the bubbles, too.


A driveway appeared from under the ice rink.


Annabelle is being a Norwegian Forest Cat!


I sat on the front porch, and watched her disembark! (Get it?) It wasn't pretty and she went back and forth trying to get down elegantly.


Daisy knew how to do it. She'd always go down like a firefighter!

Hooper still wanted to figure out the mice friends under the driveway.


From my living room window, the black squirrel has seen the red squirrel inside the globe-shaped feeder. He cannot figure out how to get in, though!
black squirrel from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

For more critters, visit Eileen's Meme!

Saturday's Critters #276


Friday 29 March 2019

Spring creeps up the continent!

Yes, it surely does. My paperwhites are slowly growing. I had to have some flowers indoors.


The boats still wear coats. The Rideau is quite frozen in the middle ground.


You can see the melt in the yard, under the warmth of the trees.


On a walk, it looks like this tree is going to go over. It's a nanny tree, a tree growing out of the trunk of another. The first photo is Feb., 2016. The wood of the old stump is slowly falling off. The 2nd photo was yesterday. I think the birch will fall sometime.


On the trailcam, the fisher.
 

As I wrote, spring creeps in...
I could hear it and knew it was something I had not heard in awhile. Listen!


It flew from the cedar to another cedar. I thought I saw a familiar bird, creep UP the tree and believed it was the creeper. I went to All About Birds, and searched for their sounds. Sure enough!
This is an archive photo. Nuthatches creep down, head first. These begin at the bottom and work their way up!
March 6th, 2016
April 3, 2014
Four years ago, bird watching with Buster.
Brown creeper from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Thursday 28 March 2019

Spring nesting season approaches!

I'm pretending it is spring. I thought I heard Phoebe singing this morning, but I could be wrong.
They usually nest in the shed, in May Phoebe nesting 2018. Our nesting season is approaching. 

I went down and cleaned out the wood duck nesting boxes. You can see a shell remained in one pile of shavings. The mice have abandoned it.
I can expect wood ducks to nest at the end of April. Wood duck boxes 2018
JB went searching in town and found me a decent sized bag of wood shavings. He was having lunch in the city with a friend. I got out and puttered.


You can see the flaw in the design of this one. This is my oldest nesting box (#1 bought in 2014). I use pieces of bark to keep the wood shavings in the box. It is easier to clean out. Sadly, I managed to get covered in shavings, as I was both down wind and under the box reaching up to clean it.

The pond is quite frozen. I walked across it to get to the boxes.


This is box #2, put up in 2015. It has a lip, which holds in the shavings.


I thought I should do this now, before the pond melts, as I can reach the box standing on the ice.


Box #3 was duly cleaned out and refilled. Daisy liked this one! She helped me mount it on the tree.
This is the nesting box I had repaired, as it developed a crack in the front. This dates 2018.

Down in the forest, you can see how deep the snow remains. On the warm days, the deer sink up to their knee balls.


Annabelle sits on the bench, on the deck, in the sun.


Our mason bee house is occupied. Soon they will emerge. Most of them are wasps, though!


There is much snow on the shady middle deck. There are little raccoon tracks in the snow.



Later that afternoon, I read my book on Annie's bench in the sunshine. Hooper sat in his warm little house.



Later that night, the raccoon with the bad leg came back with two friends. They were under the bird feeder. We'll cross our fingers for this one.