Frogbit vs. Duckweed, Barry beaver, Doe, Butch, #75!

 Things have been hopping in the news! Here is the Gordie Howe Bridge. A wonderful testament to progress, technology, and engineering. This is Howe's grandson, Gord and wife. They are the first ones to drive across the bridge. A grand gesture. They aren't public figures, but appreciated the opportunity. There was much lobbying, $ millions spent in petitions, by the private owners of the nearby Ambassador Bridge. They donated millions to the orange felon. This bridge is a much better, faster, smoother highway to highway drive. 

The bridge is beautiful! CBC.ca

🦫Barry's wetland is filling up. We had 12 mm Tuesday. Barry has lots of water. It is pouring even as I write!

This from the other side of his inlet.

Nov., 2009 Long Lake, in Bala, Muskoka

Our Barry Beaver has vastly different conditions than beavers in lakes and rivers↑.

Point of clarification! Frogbit vs. Duckweed We have both in the wetland! 

It's a busy yard. Cinnamon got himself breakfast. A fat, juicy vole.

Nutmeg took off.

Cinn back at it.

I won't bore you with the whole video, but here is a screenshot of Phoebe who is still in the yard and doing bug clean up!

Butch has been happy eating Serviceberries!

 

 The Cardinals have been busy foraging, as well. 

   

 The doe is foraging in the dawn. 

 

#75 seems to still be around.

Crumbly Acres Fruits and Critters

 Aw, cherry tomatoes! 

The zucchini is coming along. I tried to figure out what the insect was, but it was too fast for me.

As far as I can tell,  we've 3 or 4 Freds out and about. Auntie Fred is tolerating a kit near her burrow. There were two on the lower deck burrow.

🦷 Trust Joe Brian to make me laugh. Apparently, I'm not too old for a visit from the tooth fairy. I've an appointment Monday. We shall see. I chipped my cracked tooth eating salmon and salsa salad. Seriously. We knew it was cracked. The options were a crown, root canal, or pulling it. 

This helps me drink water. Tis painful when cold hits it.

Everyone watching for danger!

Cinnamon watching the Freds.

This is Barry's trailcam, #75 was here.

And Barry himself gnawing on the branch! I don't know when it switched to photos. I do like watching their behaviour.

We've had a Butch Raccoon with a blond colouring. Here she is. Cinnamon was in the grass, and leapt out with speed and vigour!

   

 Fred is ticking off the Phoebe family!

 

Saturday's Critters

 Fred incident June 6th

I figured out yesterday that it was Momma Fred who was taken by the coyote. She had a good run. We've four teenaged groundhog kits foraging, and looking out for predators. I feel responsible! 

Our 3 released rescue squirrels are having a fine time. We are to provide for for a week. Eventually they will forage on their own. The trailcam provides me some entertainment. They don't come out when we are there. Joe feeds them faithfully each morning. Until Monday!

They are so happy with freedom and climbing the tree.

 

 They come out at night while the pregnant doe cleans up the bird seed. You can see them on top of the nest box, agitated with the thefts! The sounds of the frogs at night is glorious!

We continue to see a variety of critters out and about.

Porcupine

   

 I moved this camera away to watch the Freds. Maybe a mistake. I've seen a bear, coyote, and these three bucks wandering on through.

   

 The pregnant doe has been ambling around. I know how she feels. My second child, Jesse, was 10 ½ lbs. at birth!

   

I caught the bear on a couple of cameras. It might have been two bears. One looks large, the other smaller. The large one ambled down the driveway.

   

Checking out the frog pond trailcam later, I noticed it was askew. 

 

Boo boo bear was about. The older one was on the driveway, but this one I have not seen near the house. 

For more critters: Saturday's Critters # 652 visit Eileen's blog.

Birds and deer

 I am ready! The hummingbird feeders are up.

#75 is cleaning up under the feeder. As I wrote yesterday, I will put away the sunflower seed feeder once I see the grosbeaks have returned! 

Evening grosbeak:

As a bonus, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak!

Maybe a little bit more time. I await the bears...

We haven't seen deer in weeks! A trio turned up Sunday morning. Can you see the Evening Grosbeak in the upper right corner on the feeder stand?!

She seems to have a round belly!

One was out in the backyard:

We had an adventure into Ottawa for Caitlin's concert. We had so much fun. More to come!

Trailcam Tails

 I am so behind on posting videos. We have stopped feeding deer. They have lots to eat now. 

 

 The turkeys have pretty much disappeared. In years past they would amble around with their harems, in full mating display.

   

 This tree sparrow was scrambling for bugs. The cats make this kind of move when we play! Maybe you aren't as keen as I, but I like seeing their little hop-scratch-search!

   

 The Skunk is still roaring up and back down the driveway. I am curious about the location of its home!

 

Lastly, a porcupine. It looks a bit smallish. Maybe a young one?!

 

#75, or rehabbed and released black squirrel, has been teasing cats!

The cats have had their tick/flea, etc., meds. 

I hope that helps with lots of horrific news out there. We had good news, in that we now have a majority government led by Mark Carney. We shall see what unfolds.  

Amazingly, the three new MPs are women, and 2 of them are women of colour. This is Canada.

Feed the birds!

I ordered a new topper for this feeder. It's supposed to be a squirrel baffle, but it works well for the tray feeder to keep rain and snow off.  The only issue is getting it hooked on properly! 

  

 The plastic hook doesn't hold well. It took me a half hour to MacGyver it! It has to hold tightly since the deer like to go after the tray feeder. 

There were squirrel issues on that spring-like day. With the warm temperatures, I think they were twitterpated. I didn't see any of them after the snowy day and cold temps. And since just the one.

This is the action shot! 

I counted 2 squirrels in front, went out back and counted 9! They are all Gray Squirrels (black morph).

I couldn't get them all in the one photo!

#75's nest box:

Even the red squirrel hung around!

 

I have to say that the foofoerah around gold, silver or bronze just doesn't matter  to me as a fan. The difference between 1, 2 or 3, in fact the top ten finishers, is so close, by mm or 1/100th of a second. I know all the participants gave it their all. I have American friends. I am happy for them. They are suffering from their president. The orange one is merciless.

At least average Americans can be happy about getting gold. I know many of them are shocked, angry, and terribly upset with what is going on in their country. I hope this gives them some joy. 

I think a better way to sort the medal list is by totals. I'd totalled our top 10 finishes, which is a feat unto itself. It's all a miracle.