Henry, You Two, our deer friends

Here we are. A new day dawns. The sun was lovely, yesterday. 

I had a special delivery yesterday. Plus a really cute card!

As I was writing this, I heard a loud plane overhead. Still dark, Flight Radar was my best option. At first, there was no call sign. I rewound the radar timeline, and found out where it came from. I was really loud, even at 25,000'!

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I didn't mean to post these videos today, but you know how things go. I uploaded them last night, and it defaults to 'public' unless I change it to private until I am ready to post about them.  I konked out and went to bed early, forgetting what I had done. Ain't old age grand?! 

Someone commented on a couple of them, it doesn't happen often with Vimeo, with a lower profile than uTube. I don't get the awful spam and vulgar comments either. That is a bonus.

First up: dear aleaping. They are so quick, and leap so high.

There was partial success at the new location for the trailcams. There are two there. The other one missed any action, including bunnies. I could see tracks. 

No porcupines, despite the evidence of activity, but I did find You Two! I've left them there for two days, and must go check them today. deer in the forest :

 

You Two are happy in the front yard. Bird seed, when it is -20, is acceptable! Our feed supplier told us that a lot of people are feeding deer. They went through an actual ton of feed in one day on Saturday. front yard deer  

 

King Henry still has his antlers.  Henry the buck:  

 

Just as I was putting this together, JB called me to the window. Henry has lost one antler. I guess it's snowshoe time. I first look for small spots of blood, which gives me a trail to follow. They tend to follow heavily trodden paths, the snow is too difficult to walk on otherwise. It takes a lot of energy. I have a plan for today!

King Henry the buck, You Two and cats

It's warmed up a tad (-10 C.)! That has been nice. That said, I went for a snowshoe Friday to fetch trailcam videos. By this time, in the afternoon, it had warmed up to -17 C., which was better than -33 C.!  It was exhausting in the knee-deep snow, even with snowshoes. I had to rest after a dozen or so paces. The snow is so deep! 

It is lovely, the snow. It wraps the land in a blanket that moderates the ground temperature. I am somewhat sore, after my short trek. I may do a longer trip today. 

You Two were down there in the forest. Particularly the doe. She was watching something carefully. It was delightful. I wondered what she was staring at, and then she bolted.

This is the trailcam beside the house. It yielded little of excitement! Here I am wearing my old yard duty coat. I am sure I bought it when I first was teaching in Ottawa in the 80s. It's a lovely warm coat and great in double-digit negative temperatures. 

This is the new trailcamera. I am getting used to it. 

King Henry dominates the feeder. He is majestic. 

I've moved this trailcam to a path I'd found the deer using that led from the forest to a path through the wetland. It's a different perspective and gave up a lot of action. Just skip through if it bores you, but I love watching them without interfering.

You Two in snow:

Running for some reason. I spliced together several videos. I couldn't figure out why they were running. Running deer : 

King Henry frequents this path! Buck : 

 

The front deck has been busy. We've about a dozen American tree sparrows. The cats are more interested in the squirrels, though. King Henry came for bird seed then helped himself to some water.

It's a popular place to sit when it is cold! 

The bird bath

It's a ⛄SNOW DAY! Today, Monday, we are snowed in with a blizzard. I'm not even going to put out the garbage. Schools are closed, although they are just continuing online. 

Cinnamon spent a good 20 minutes outside in the early morning Saturday in the extreme cold. Eventually he came back in and hunkered down. They keep going door to door, hoping it is nicer out there. 

The day before, in the afternoon, I'd cleaned and topped up the water in the bird bath. Overnight, you can see how much evaporates in the cold. 

I had evidence to the contrary, though. King Henry the buck has a drink:

You Two deer munched on chestnuts and junior had a drink:

We are keeping busy indoors. JB had football on the go. I built him a fire to keep him cosy in the basement. There was tennis on TV, which we watched together, but in between we played curling! This was a birthday present 3 years ago, I think! With the train put away for the season, we have a place for it. curling

 

School, deer friends

Wednesday we drove into the city to return my inoperable Christmas/birthday present trailcamera. It was a gray day, but a nice 1-hour drive. It was a success. The camera is charging, more on that later! 

When we arrived home we watched news. 

 School went well for our grandies in Ottawa. I assured Josephine on the weekend, we texted some back and forth, that she has this. (Izzy doesn't normally answer my texts!!!) Momma told me that they slid right back into virtual school. They miss their friends, but we've learned so much about this virus. It could be 2 - 4 weeks, Ottawa's Dr. Etches said, but we shall see.

Everyone I heard from said the first few days went well. We've learned lots about doing online schooling. The funny thing was (see below), this is the school I went to in Toronto. Of course, the reporters and journalists have to horribilize it, click bait and all. 

"Without horribilizing, we can rue the bad, but still enjoy the good." – Psychology Today

Cottingham Public School, inner city Toronto. 

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They are sitting chewing their cud. Waiting patiently for someone to come outside. 9 deer from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

 We had 11 deer the day following!

These two, You Two (AKA – 'the resident deer'), are quite comfortable around us. 

They've been around all summer eating my plants. I fed them, and brought the trailcam indoors. We don't need to feed them, but we enjoy it. Otherwise they stuff their bellies with dead weeds and branches, studies have shown. You Two deer from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

 

 🚁Air Traffic ✈

BTW – I emailed the company doing the airplane flyovers, and someone got back to me. It was a bit creepy until I figured them out. They did it on Dec. 24th, as well. 

Thanks for reaching out.  I am sorry that our flights made you uncomfortable.  We were conducting a magnetic survey for research purposes, which involved flying patterns at various altitudes, and it sounds like you were located near one of the patterns that was repeated several times...The aircraft you saw is equipped with magnetometers that measure the earth's naturally occurring magnetic field.  These sensors are completely passive and do not emit anything.

I emailed him back and thanked him for getting back to me. Puzzle solved. 

Narrows Locks: birds

Last night I looked out back and saw You Two. This is where I haven't cut the grass, and left it to grow where the spring bulbs are planted. Here they were in April! 

They are happy for any food, and are often seen eating the dead weeds. They fill their bellies with anything organic to get through the winter.

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Ontario is now in a stage 2 lockdown. Virtual school from Wednesday, Jan. 5th until, at least Jan. 17th. They are suggesting it might be 2 - 4 weeks shut down.  It'll be hard on the elementary kids. They are the ones less likely to be double vaxxed, as well. The high school kids can more easily flip to virtual school, but I'm not sure about the younger ones. The poor teachers have a day and a half to flip. Our public school kids were to go back the 3rd. It pleases no one, a day late and a dollar short, but it is done. 

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 Monday afternoon we took a drive. We thought we'd get out of the house. The car needed to get going in this cold weather. Sitting in the garage doesn't do it any good. 

As we drove, I spotted two hawks of one flavour or another. We didn't stop, a I was sure they'd take off anyway. This is one we had in the front yard! I found this old photo of a hawk on the feeder. I'd forgotten about it. It's amazing how they don't visit on a bird count day!

Narrows Lock was a nice choice. Here we came around the corner to see the Big Rideau Lake. 

There were a pair of Canada geese, a pair of swans, and one mallard.

JB pulled the car over for me. The one swan came over – maybe thinking I had food?  He was murping all the time. 

He decided to get up onto the ice.  He pulled himself up out of the water, but changed his mind.

All I had was my camera with the big zoom lens. The camera needs cleaning, but I've no way of getting that done. You can hear him murp at the end of the video. swan from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

 

After awhile, they all came headed back this way, and suddenly there was another mallard, just as we were about to leave. Three pairs of birds!

The ice looked cold but the texture was so pretty.

You Two!

 Ambling down to the trailcam Jan. 1st (which didn't have any critters on it!), I looked up and here were You Two. Well, the young male was closest to me. He sort of startled me!

If I'd had any food, I would have given it to you!

I explained that I'd go down to the trailcam, come back up and give him a handful of food. JB beat me to it, though. They were watching him. 

JB had an errand in town, and they didn't budge.

Nutmeg usually goes out, then hustles back in for breakfast. Nutmeg and the squirrels from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

You can see her eyeballs beside our sign. They fret over the cats, but not the bunnies!  Nutmeg and the doe from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

I was delayed this morning. It's a tad chilly putting out the garbage this morning. I felt sorry for the deer, as they followed me to the garage. You Two did, at least, the others hightailed it down to the meadow. 

We ended up with 9 friends. They all get a mouthful of MNR-recipe deer food.