My wife put a new suet cake in the feeder in our back yard. So far the grackles love it and it is getting attention from the brown thrashers, sparrows, blue jays. The squirrels are also eyeing it.
The grackles are not mobbing it, yet. The sparrows are being fairly aggressive and the thrashers are just watching.
I’m loving watching all the interplay between the various species.
I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters by Eileen. Go check it out!
I set my trailcam up on the back porch the other day. At 1 am we had a visitor.
I don’t know whether these are the same bandits or not. I think it is the reason we have had two bird feeders destroyed.
I took the camera down to Beavers Bend and set it up hoping to capture some deer but all I got was this ghostly image of a raccoon. At least I think it is a raccoon.
We have a hummingbird feeder. I have had the camera at it for multiple hours over multiple days and have captured exactly zero hummingbirds. We got a lot of critters in the background though.
Our bird feeders have lots of visitors.
I like the candid shots of them taking off or landing.
It would seem taking off or landing would be harder than flying.
I was hiking on Turkey Mountain the other day. I always keep a sharp eye out for copperheads. I didn’t see any that day but I saw this tiny critter hopping across the trail. At first I though it was a bug but I think it is the world’s smallest frog. Talk about good camo, when he quit moving, I couldn’t see him!
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Earlier this week I spent the morning at Oxley Nature Center here in Tulsa. I was hoping to see some deer but I went too late for that I think. I did find some mosquitos, or rather they they found me!! Thanks to slathering on my 40% DEET repellant and I emerged unscathed from them but they followed me everywhere.
While still on the boardwalk off the visitor center I spotted this gray squirrel and their friend. They are very shy.
Just off the boardwalk I found these. INaturalist says they may be a wild iris. I loved the color.
I walked on down to Coal Creek and stopped at this swampy area. There was a guy there with a huge camera and one of those gigantic grey colored lens on it. He said there was a green heron. He told me where to go to see it which was just a few steps from where I was standing. So I went over and looked and looked, he eventually wandered back and tried to help me find it but he couldn’t find it either. He showed me one of photos he captured and then left. So I stayed for a while and two other people showed up making lots of noise and then the heron sprang up from right where I had been looking and went into the tree canopy and I lost sight of it. I just got a glimpse of it. I’d never seen one before.
And then I walked along Coal Creek hoping to see the otters that live there but again, too late in the day. These turtles were all over the place.
I was walking along one of the muddy trails and saw this snake wriggling its way along the same trail. It slithered into the brush so I went and found it. I think it is a rat snake. Lots of them at Oxley.
And here is a Relive Video of my first hike at Oxley.
I went back to the Visitor Center and drove to a remote section of Oxley called the North Woods and hiked their loop. I saw no wildlife at all except the mosquitos were really out. I was hiking along and I heard this sound like some critter was really in distress. What in the world I thought and I came up on this group of four guys with big huge cameras and they had an electronic device that was making very loud bird calls. All the birds in the area were responding to it and the guys were scoping the trees with binoculars. When they saw me they acted a little sheepish, and told me they were trying to call warblers. I said okay and walked on and they took their device and moved on elsewhere. Anyway I enjoyed the rest of my hike without the racket they were making.
Here is the Relive Video of my second hike.
On the home front, we put out a hummingbird feeder and within a day we saw a hummingbird feeding at it. I put up my trailcam and no hummingbird’s on it yet. We got this squirrel checking it out.
The only bird I’ve captured is this hawk (I think it’s a hawk) high in the air.
Speaking of squirrels, here is an action shot of me mowing the yard.
I’m linking Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Check it out!
Last night we had a couple visitors.
A raccoon showed up and later…
A possum!
Something big toppled over my trail camera after that.
The creatures of the night!
Linking with Eileen’s Saturday Critters. Come check it out!
I put my trailcam out last night for the first time in a long time. I checked it this morning and we had a mystery cat snooping around at 1:30 in the morning.
I haven’t been able to go hiking in the woods for a while because of all the rain we’ve had so I have been walking around Lafortune Park here in Tulsa a lot. I followed this squirrel down the trail for a 25 yards or so and he finally climbed up this pole and was looking at me chattering and flagging his tail. It was like he was saying “What!!”
I am linking with Shadow Shot Sunday and Saturdays’ Critters. Come join in the fun!!
We lost our beloved Abby (right) to lymphoma on Wednesday. She was a bright, energetic, highly engaged dog almost up to the end. She was the straw that stirred the drink, so to speak, among the pets in our house. On the left is her cat buddy Lizzy.
Abby always liked to update her barkbook status first thing in the morning despite our efforts to shush her. We had a cranky neighbor who more than once came over to our front door and pointed at her and growled at me about the matter. Fortunately, he moved somewhere else. I miss Abby but I don’t miss our miserable neighbor.
Abby’s loss was proceeded by the death of our dachsund mix, Ginger last September. Ginger was the boss dog of the house and brooked no nonsense from either the dogs nor the cats and would give me an earful if I was late with her meals.
Abby loved barking at my drone, at the neighbor’s dogs, at dogs, cows, and horses on television. She was very verbal.
These are LJ and Lizzy, brother and sister. They play with each other a lot.
Our remaining dog is Rascal, a Pomeranian. He’s kind of our baby but he is old now and has lung, heart, and hip problems. We don’t know how long he is going to be around.
He and Abby loved to hang out together and loved to go on walks with each other to go bark and their friends in the neighborhood. Rascal I think wonders what happened to his buddy Abby.
But he still loves walking even though we have to pick him up and carry him home after he sees his friends.
You know our pets just don’t live long enough but we have them and love them anyway.
I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Go check it out!!
It’s the love season for dove. Here’s a couple doing some mixed bathing, almost concealed because the blend in so well with the fence.
Mr. Squirrel gets kind of thirsty also.
And we have another cat roaming the back yard at night.
We have lots of sparrows stopping by.
I love the cardinals.
I was walking at Lafortune Park the other day and saw this goose checking everybody out. As I approached it he started acting restless so I backed off so he could chill down.
Grackles everywhere. I run them off whenever I can.
And a brief kerfuffle between a sparrow and a cardinal.
And I completed another jigsaw puzzle on my ipad. I am really slowwwww on these. But they are fun.
I am linking with Saturday’s Critters hosted by Eileen.
I’ve been putting the trailcam out at night. Most nights I don’t get anything but I got this cat one time. I think it is somebody’s pet. It doesn’t have that lean hungry look of a feral cat.
I’ve caught him a few times stalking birds near our feeders during the day.
And we had a bunny one evening. I hope they don’t have a nest in the yard as it is quite sad when our dogs find the nest.
I captured this house finch the other day. I am thinking the bird right next to it is a sparrow.
And a dove scavenging seeds on the ground. They are not as skittish as other birds. They are not too smart with their nesting sites.
And our Lizzy chilling out with us in the living room.
Peace for Ukraine!
I am linking with Saturday’s Critters by Eileen
We are having it all this past week. We had 80 degree temps, then snow with well below freezing temperatures. Today we are having dry winds that are going to create a fire hazard. Oklahoma weather in the spring is always interesting.
We’ve kept our feeders full. The squirrels dominate the feeders so I’ve been checking the action underneath. Lots of birds play well with others, dove, juncos, sparrows, cardinals they all see to get along. Bluejays and Grackles are more aggressive.
Sorry about all the orange flagging. The telephone company had all the lines relocated.
Them grackles are like a group of noisy teenagers.
Here at the end of the ten second video a bunch of them fly up to the tree.
We got a finch feeder and guess what, finches showed up.
A little bird bath action
And Rascal, our Pomerania shows up to see what all the fuss is about.
Rascal’s thick warm coat comes in handy when it is snowing. Sorry about the bad photo.
We turned our fireplace on for a little bit. LJ loves the fire.
That’s it for this week. I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Check it out, lots of great posts there.
We’ve had a little weather here. Sleet, freezing rain, and snow. Not too bad, the main thing was that it was cold. We’ve kept our bird feeders going. Cardinals and squirrels are the main customers.
The back yard is cold, the patio got kind of slippery.
We had a blue jay show up for lunch. Sorry for the ugly orange flagging. Our internet provider put it up to mark other utility lines.
I love the female cardinals.
A video of the blue jay.
Cardinals and juncos co-existing.
A female cardinal video.
Lizzie the cat checking out the patio action. She doesn’t like outside at all. She is a rescue critter. When she was just a baby kitten somebody drove through a store parking lot and threw her the window.
Abby likes going outside but she burrows under a blanket afterwards.
I finished another jigsaw puzzle. I’m loving doing them on the ipad. I’m not very good at it. My wife just flies through them. We are not racing though, are we?
That’s the critter roundup this week. I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Lots of great posts there. Check it out.
I’m also praying in support of Ukraine as they bravely defend themselves from naked aggression by Russia.