Happy days birdwatching

Those poor old sumacs. I think the first home owners plowed them down to create more 'lawn.' It's been too dry for them, as they are on very shallow soil. This is the same with our other sumac patch in the backyard. They are lovely bushes.

Oct. 8th, 2016

The meadow with a touch of snow left:

The frogpond has gone to bed, the native phragmites bending over in the frost. 

The goldfish pond get a touch of ice overnight, and melts in the daytime.

The snow on the roof melted and filled the goldfish pond.

I emptied the water barrel, as we are below zero at night.

I've set up my bird feeder camera, again. I had 4 mourning doves here, at one point. 

Both cardinals have been around.

Rainy Crumbly Acres

💉JB took off for his quarterly PSA blood test. The poor man had to come home. They did not have a butterfly needle. He schedules the appointment first thing in the morning to get it over with.

He was told to come back after lunch. At 13:00 hours, off he went. He had to stand in line, along with drop ins and people with appointments. His leg was getting sore.  They should have had 3 staff working, and there was only one. One nurse was on lunch. The one nurse would do intake for a couple of people, and then do the lab work, and see to another two people. Slow as molasses. At least it is free for us, despite the company being a for-profit. 

Yes, Red, I heard gunshots. It sounded like someone practicing. This is what I thought. This is the country, and it is what some people do. I loathe it, but there you go!

☔While I complain about the rain, it cleared up Tuesday morning, and I did some weeding. I put the bird feeders away. I don't want to risk bear coming back. We are back to rain today, Wednesday. The Ottawa River is quite high, and we could do with some sunshine! 

The storm is still moving counterclockwise!

You can't even see us on the radar today!

The Periwinkle is blooming!

Cinnamon must miss Percy! This is a fish with batteries. He slept there for a couple of hours and every time he rolled over, the fish would wiggle.

Three 🐣ROBIN eggs, and 3 🐣PHOEBE  eggs in the shed! This is my handy paint roller/mirror I Macgyvered to watch over the eggs. 

The phoebe nest looks great. I just cannot quite see into it. The eggs are teeny. This egg is from 2013.

We seem to just have one red squirrel, but barring name tags... The little twerp was eating the new leaf shoots on the horse chestnut tree. Next, he is cleaning up under the bird feeder.

Ah, bright yellow tulips!

Monday, I needed to get out and during a break in the rain, off I went. I fetched the SD Cards, and wondered what was dropping onto the surface of the frogpond. Yes, you may laugh. Yes, it was rain. How could I be so slow?!

Across the pond, you can see the trees beginning to grow leaves.

The large white pine at the other end of the meadow. There is a puddle in the middle of the meadow. 

It is beginning to go green.

The water is quite high, nearly up to the dock.

You can see the height of the water just 4 days ago.

Butch from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Critters caught on camera

There is more action on the trailcams, now that the bugs have lessened, and it's not so hot in the sun. The raccoons have appeared more often. Suddenly, 6 raccoons, although we lost kit one up the highway.

 When I went down to the meadow, I spotted a leopard frog and a wood frog. meadow frogs 

 

Butch hopping after the frogs in the meadow! This makes me laugh so much! Butch raccoon hopping  

The birdbath has been a hit with all. 

The birdbath in the dark is lovely to see in the night. This video took two tries! birdbath  

There was a bird at the pond  who showed that not all the bugs have gone. 

Doe and fawn  "Wait for me!"  

Meadow frolics

I've saved these videos till today, since there were 23 videos on the meadow trailcam. For good reason. The fawns were frolicking! The fawns are almost like puppies. They were there nearly an hour!

I've curated them, and boiled it down to these videos. The action was so fun!

 

meadow play 1 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

The one fawn reminds me of Tigger, bouncing around! They were there for a good long time, if you check the time stamps. In this video another doe and fawn show up. I imagine the does are sisters. If you watch it, you'll get a giggle!

 

meadow play 2 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

By now, it's 7:20 and they are still in the meadow. This time the doe chases the one fawn.

meadow play 3 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

I wasn't sure if I should include this video with the turkey videos from yesterday, but the fawn features more in this video. At 49 seconds in, the fawn nudges the trailcam.

 

meadow selfies 5 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Black squirrels, red squirrels

Off I went to the forest. A red squirrel greeted me. They are such a hoot.

There was a lot of action around this group of trees. I'm wondering if the squirrels have nested in the saw-whet owl nesting box.



I finally counted 7 of them!




So, I'm wondering, when I step into my tracks, and the springtails (AKA snow fleas) are gathered there, do I hurt them when I step on them? There must be billions of them!



The meadow



Trailcam tails...



The fisher was back


Butch raccoon was up and about. Just one.
Butch from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

First snow: Nov 7th

We knew it was coming. At first they predicted more rain than snow, but that switched over as the day progressed.

I thought this would be a good time to do a black and white. AC always does a good job on that, but my wee petunias... We have a bit of a microclimate on the front porch. It faces south. They are hanging in.



Off JB went for his daily walkies. You see our shed on the right? That's where the shovels lie. It's not sticking, so this is just a warm up. I knew I should have made a list of things to do.



On Lot #2, the grasses fell over in disgust.



The meadow. It was wet snow, and the branches are heavily laden.



The frog pond was frozen, just a tad.



Back on up to the house. I am reminded about that story about the weight of snowflake.s..



These berries are gone. (Happy birdies!)



These berries are waiting for unsuspecting raccoons.

It was fun in Ottawa. Drivers fail to respect driving conditions. The poor cops!

And so another winter driving season begins...sigh... I can’t stress this enough: SLOW DOWN. There is no reason for you to end up in the ditch like this. Please, please adjust your driving for this kind of weather. 🚔🚔 @OPP_ER @OPP_COMM_ER @OttawaPolice @Ottawa_Traffic pic.twitter.com/Djt4bt65jo

— QueenswayCop (@QueenswayCop) November 7, 2019