It's fine weather for ducks!

The flooding has hit its peak in Ottawa. Algonquin Park, in Central Ontario, still has snow. They do not know if everything had crested for the last time in this spring melt. We shall see.

Things are just ducky on the pond. "Water? Bring it on," so say the ducks. You can read about them here, for the 2019 reports! 🐤WOOD DUCKS

At 27 seconds in you can see the female duck flying across the video. She left the box to feed, I guess. At 1:31 the is a run on the dock.



There was drama. With ~13 wood ducks, 3 male and 1 female mallard, and now a female merganser, it is busy. The video begins with the wood duck telling the crow off.
There was (I thought) a turtle under the dock. You can see it to the right of the video. Surprisingly, it's a merganser, a masterful swimmer.
Frog pond from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

We have two of our three boxes filled with eggs. There are at least 21 eggs. The one box is too high for me to reach in, so I'm not sure if there are more (box #1). The one duck hears me coming and she flees (box #3), but comes back. The other duck doesn't budge.

Even Hooper is getting into the act. The ducks looked hopeful that he might feed them, I think!
Ducky Hooper from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Hooper, sadly, has been crossing the highway. I put out the trailcam to prove it. I suspected it. We'll see how this goes. He is desperate to get outside. If he does it in the night, in the dark, it might be better than during the busy daytime. Our male cats tend to do this. We've lost three cats to the speeding cars. Daisy did, as well. She tended to stop as she got older. With 16 acres, you really wonder. We had a male cat we kept indoors. He went freaky with displaced anger. We want Hooper to be happy. Hopefully, he'll be smart.
Hooper May 3:4 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

 Butch was there in the night, as well. I was sure it'd fall in, but it hung on by its toes! They are determined.
Butch raccoon 1 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Oh, yes. The rose-breasted grosbeaks are back (May, 5th). I'm happy to see them. Those, and the purple finches.

Birds, frogpond, mice friends

Bird feeders are busy! I love them.
I think: downy and hairy woodpeckers, nuthatches, black-capped chickadees, purple finch, etc. The lovely yellow, black and white grosbeaks have gone.



The turkeys are funny. They amble by, in a row, weaving their way between the trees. The one approached the bird feeders, but saw the others moving up the hill to the shade of the tree (it was raining). I'm sure there was scattered seed under the feeder.
turkeys from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.


The frog pond continues to fill, with October (71mm) and November (28mm so far) rains. Snow tires next week!


 I check the wood duck nesting boxes periodically. Obviously, I didn't check this one enough! There were egg shells in it from the wood ducks.
  

I might just leave cleaning it until spring.

Snow, wind, freezing rain

I accidentally posted twice yesterday. I'd forgotten it was Earth Week –a moot point, as the ditches are full of another 15 cm of snow. We had Caitlin and the girls for the weekend. It was busy and I'd scheduled that post to post. In the meantime, it was a crazy weekend for weather, and still anticipating rain or freezing rain.

Today, Monday, the school busses are cancelled. Our snow blower I put away in the shed, so we must wait for the snow to melt! There is ice rain on the way, now.

 Back a few days. The deer didn't quite know what to make of the bunny.

It was a lovely day Friday! The grouse was having a feed in the snow.



Friday night, the girls came for dinner and a 2-night sleepover. Papa had gone to Copenhagen for the weekend.
One day we had crocus about to bloom, the next, 15 cm snow, then 6.5mm freezing rain.


The next day the snow plows were on the move across the province. There were 42,000 Ontarians without power.

Track my Plow!

April 15th

Crews face hazardous conditions and significant damage such as broken poles, downed lines & trees as they work to restore power to over 42,000 customers. Teams from our contact centre to lines, forestry and damage assessors are coming together to help with relief efforts #ONstorm pic.twitter.com/mZiBWTqzVr— Hydro One (@HydroOne) April 15, 2018

The birds feeders were BUSY. We had 9 common grackles, 3 non-breeding starlings, 2 hairy, 2 downy, chickadees, 3 red-winged blackbirds, Mr/Mrs. Cardinal, several blue jays, tree and song sparrows, purple finches, juncos.


The poor blue jay had freezing rain and ice pellets stuck on its feathers. It tried to shake it off, but that didn't work.


There was a huge flock of black birds. I think it was a group of red-winged blackbirds, as well as grackles and starlings. I counted about 75 in the tree. They were amazing.

Sometimes one simply must laugh about the weather!

RIGHT NOW: Heavy Traffic at Dufferin and Davenport. Buses can’t get up the hill because of the slick roads. Commuters have to find other ways around. If possible, try to avoid this area. #CityStorm #ONstorm #icestorm pic.twitter.com/JYfAC1yYAi

— Nitish Bissonauth (@NBissonauth) April 14, 2018

Critters galore, even creepy crawlies!

We were watching TV, Hooper on my lap. He's a good snuggle puss.


Later, I noticed a speck on my shoulder – it was moving. It is highly unusual to have ticks in February, but it's been so mild.


I keep track of the ticks, curiosity, as well as statistics! I loved math...


The flags I made on a dull late winter day last year. They keep the birds away from the window. They made a delightful shadow in the video (below).


What a boy! Hooper (7 mos.) likes to sit up above the dignified Miss Annie (age 5) and give her a hard time.  It was so nice to see the sun.

Here they are in action, if you are so inclined!
Hooper & Annabelle from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.