Antler hunt and forest walkies

 Joseph Brian had a banner day. He called me to the window a couple of times. One sighting was three robins on the birdbath, drinking a lovely drink. "But there are only two," you might comment. Honestly, there were three. By the time the camera was fetched and focused, one was up in the tree with the male  cardinal!

It may or may not be a sign of spring. Several, I've heard, have overwintered in the region. 

As Yam said, King Henry has lost half his crown! I went out on the back deck for a better look. He was curious. I wonder, too, how they feel when they lose one antler. I know that they shake their heads, feeling them loose. They still act as if they have antlers, and are king of the forest.
This was Tigger, back in the day, followed by Jake. 

One year, I found five antlers. It was a really cold winter, and 5 bucks hung around, which was unusual. I weighed the antler.

457 grams

Venturing out into the forest, I made it to the wetland. The walking, even in snowshoes, is horrid. I circled the perimeter of the forest, checking each path for blood spots. I was out about 50 minutes, and it is really difficult walking. 

First stop was to pick up the trailcam card. I was hopeful at first. There were fisher tracks all over. The mammals are hungry! I'd brought my backpack, the videocamera, a water bottle, and grabbed one trailcam, left the other.

The walking is terribly difficult in the wetland itself. Very deep snow, on top of bulrushes. The rabbit, fisher and coyotes traipsed along the top of the frozen snow. 

Rabbit tracks and poopies, but not a critter to be seen.

It is pretty. The sun warms, without wind. It is calming and quiet. You almost cannot hear the traffic on the highway. There is the odd bird, mostly chickadees.

This bird caught my attention, singing, and a partner joined it. This was the best I could do. I'm wondering if they were evening grosbeaks. I shall never know. They were just too far awy.

Lask week, there was remains of a rabbit. This week, evidence of a turkey kill. 

What I did was circle about half the property. I found one drop of blood. If I do a circle, crossing regular deer paths, I can check up and down the path for an antler or at least blood. The blood ceases to circulate in the antler due to lack of food and testosterone. Like a bone, the antler pops off, and sometimes it bleeds some, sometimes not.

I kept at it, but wore myself out. Having taken water, I stopped to catch my breath. The sun warmed the cockles of my heart!

Back up to the house, I was done, and happily tired.

I don't hold out much hope. I might venture out again today, covering the areas I thought likely. Thursday we are seeing likely seeing rain, followed by snow. Yuck.

It was a good bit of exercise. Bundled up, with heavy sweat pants, and layers, I'd had to zip and unzip and I warmed up during the walk. The shower afterwards was wonderful!