Category Archives: Saturday’s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – A visit from Rocky or Raquel

Big excitement this week is that my trailcam captured a raccoon very early Monday morning. I don’t know if it is a Rocky or a Racquel. If you have any clues let me know.

And a short ten second video. I haven’t seen him since so I guess he was not impressed with what we had on offer on the patio which was nothing.

Also exciting is that Rascal our pomeranian graduated from physical therapy. He got injured in November and has been getting acupuncture and PT since then. The progress really has been remarkable. I thought we would never be able to walk him again but now we do it every day. Just a mile or so because he is still building up strength and stamina. The staff posed him in a graduation cap and he loved it. He is such a diva.

I saw Lizzie grooming herself the other day and getting big mouthfuls of fur so Heather got out the grooming tool. Lizzie loved it. We are trying to avoid hairballs.

A robin all puffed up in this fuzzy shot to try and keep warm.

A bird in our birdbath.

A female cardinal at the feeder.

And a bright colored male.

And both of them in this ten second video.

That’s about it for critterworld in our neck of the woods. I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Come join in!!

Saturday’s Critters – Domesticity

Rascal, our Pomeranian (the black blob to the left” sufferred a hip and knee injury some months ago and has been getting therapy including acupuncture and it is really paying off. We have been walking him and Abby for a mile every day and they love it and pout when we can’t take them out. We have a one-mile route through our greenbelt that takes them by the backyards of several houses with dogs. The dogs give each a good barking.

Our lady of leisure, Lizzy, has taken over this tray on our coffee table. She has a number of favorite napping spots in the house.

Here’s an artsy shot of LJ in the shadows getting some sun. Sun is the next best thing to the fireplace for him.

All our multitude of birds have disappeared. I put out the trail cam one day and all I got was this female cardinal, all day long.

I love to capture the blurs of birds as they fly off, so this was a week and a half ago.

I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday Critters, come join the party!!

Weekend Critters – Around the House

It got cold here on Tuesday or so. Our Lizzy has discovered the fireplace. She toasts both sides evenly. She hasn’t quite figured out why sometimes it’s not warm there. She will lay in front of it when it is not on with a quizzical look on her face.

She also loves reclining on things like a Roman Empress. The foot of the bed, a stack of freshly laundered towels, she loves leaning on stuff.

And she hates being wakened up from a nap. Here she looks like an unmade bed. Talk about grumpy.

All LJ, Lizzie’s brother, cares about is treats. Greenies or deli turkey slices are his favorite. Here is on the back of the sofa standing watch at the refrigerator.

And here is Abby, our happy girl. She loves eating and giving other dogs a good barking.

And Rascal, our rescue Pomeranian (all our animals are rescues). He’s such a diva. He has a hip injury and gets acupuncture and physical therapy. The ladies that run the place love him and he knows it.

Our in the back yard we are continuing to feed flocks of birds. I love the cardinals especially.

Here is a male making a sideways jump. Male cardinals are divas also.

On the ground below the feeder we have a whole other group of birds including mourning doves and bluejays and tons of sparrows.

Squirrels eat more food than all the birds combined.

Some of them are getting very plump.

Lots of snow, ice and cold weather in the USA right now. I hope everybody is staying warm and safe. There is a burger place here in Tulsa that serves coffee in a cup and saucer. Something about that is warming in itself.

Take care everybody. I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday‘s Critters. Come join the party!!

January’s Critter Update

Here’s LJ our stately elderly, wild eyed cat. Surveying what is going on in the house.

And Lizzie, our plump little lady, has finally learned that the fire feels good. Took her a while. She’s still kind of confused. We don’t typically have the fire during the day but she goes and lays down in front of the fireplace with a look of not understanding why it’s not warm.

Here she is warming up her other side.

And LJ and Lizzie, cheek to cheek so to speak.

And poor Abby, she started licking her paws for some reason. Morning, noon, and night. We couldn’t figure it out, took her to the vet and they couldn’t figure it out either. We got her an inflatable cone of shame. I put it on her and she flopped over on her side for a few minutes, I guess out of shame. We kept it on her for a few days and took it off and no more paw licking.

My new trailcam, still messing with it. I have it set so that when it trips it takes a still photo and ten seconds of video. I ended up with hundreds of little videos. Wading through all of them is drudgery.

Most of them were of starlings fighting each other at the suit feeder. I got tired of that really quick.

So I’m still trying to figure it out. I think I’m going to do mainly photos. Lots faster to go through.

That’s about all on our animal front these days.

I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Go check it out!

New Trail Cam!

I have a new gadget to play with! A trail cam (GardePro A3) that I got this week and started “messing with.” Trying to figure out how it works.

So I have a couple tripods that I have been using, a short one, and a tall one to mount the thing on. All I have is a typical suburban lot, no trails nor woods. Just my back yard.

So what I have been capturing are squirrels, cardinals, blue jays, and lots of sparrows at our backyard feeders.

I’m really loving the cardinals.

Lots of seed spills on the ground so I have spent some time capturing that.

So far it has been lots of fun. I have it on motion sensing and it takes one still photo and ten seconds of video.

So I end up with lots and lots of images and video and I’m finding that it takes some time to wade through it to get unique captures.

This juvenile Coopers Hawk showed up and checked things out. I captured its image with a conventional camera through my living room window.. I’m sure they like the feeders also. We see bird and squirrel parts every once in a while. I think there is a nest close by. I have seen other hawks in our yard the last month or so.

The first evening I had the trail cam I set it on the back patio to see if any big critters showed up, and just me!!

So, you veteran trail camera people, do you have any good tips for me?

I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Come join the fun.

Closing Out 2021

I love the time between Christmas and New Years Day. The days leading up to Christmas are all in a rush especially if somebody in the family gets ill. Afterwards you can relax a little bit hopefully. I took advantage of one bright, sunny, day and went on a bike ride.

One of my favorite trails is alongside a turnpike on one side and fields and farms on the other. I ran into a mutt and jeff combination of horses.

You got the little one, all cute and fuzzy.

And the older one, both looking for something better to eat than the dry grass on offer.

I got to the end and rested a bit in the shadow of a billboard.

When I came home, this guy was waiting for me. iNaturalist tells me that this is a Coopers Hawk. He was using our mailbox as an observation perch. We have lots of squirrels and bunnies in the neighborhood and he was looking to eat one of those cute little critters.

Hey you know, cute little critters don’t live forever and hawks have to eat to right?

Are you on instagram? If so, are we following each other? My handle is @yogiab. These are my top nine posts for the year. I love instagram.

Do you live close to Tulsa? Come join in the First Day Hike and Scavenger Hunt on Turkey Mountain. It was supposed to be New Year’s Day but we postponed it until Saturday, January 8th from 8 am to 5 pm. Check out this facebook post for the details. We are hiding the above repurposed jewel boxes for people to find. They are going to have various Turkey Mountain stickers and key rings to find. There are also going to be a bunch of tee shirts hidden on the trails for people to find.

Do you like the cd cases. I repurposed them and designed and printed new covers and the liner notes are the Leave No Trace seven principles. I hope that I am not spoiling the surprise. The RiverParks Authority posted the photo on their website so I figured I can post my own photo on my site.

That’s about it for now. I wish everybody a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous 2022. Take Care!

I am linking with the following memes. They are all fun so check them out!!

Saturday’s Critters hosted by Eileen.

Shadow Shot Sunday 2 hosted by the Magical Mystery Teacher.

And Our World Tuesday hosted by Lady Fi

Lizzie Loves Christmas Trees

Our cat Lizzie has always liked Christmas. In particular the trees. She used to climb them but she is too fat do that now. Still when we put them up she shows up and gives them a good sniffing.

She has to check out fake evergreen closely.

My wife bought new cushions for the chairs in the front room where the big tree is. Lizzie loves them. She would rather lean on something than lay on it.

Time for a nap. I’m wondering if she is dreaming of sugar plums.

I am linking with Eileen’s Weekend Critters. Come join in!

Weekend Critters – Queen of the House

Our Lizzie thinks she is a queen. Whenever we fold towels, she always shows up and rests her elbows on them. Doesn’t take kindly to being told to move.

She is such a brat.

Abby likes pillows too.

We have been inundated with rabbits this year. This was followed by hawks. I’m not sure who is going to win. My money is on the hawks.

And a bonus. Here is our patio with the blue chairs from about 35 meters or so.

Also at the request of several fellow bloggers I got my web site security upgraded to the https protocol. I hope that helps. I know several bloggers that have that protocol who’s sights causes my security system to warn me. Just so much I don’t understand about all this.

I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday Critters

Hawk in the Neighborhood

This year we have lots of rabbits and squirrels in the neighborhood and now we have a predator. It likes to get on roof gables and powerlines and screech and then swoop. I took a partial differential equations class back in college and one of the problems they had us work on is the mathematical relationship between the numbers of prey and predators. Turns out there there is no happy equilibrium. It cycles, the number of prey increases which after a delay increases the number of predators, and then they gobble up all the little cute prey animals and then the predators starve and the cycle starts anew.

I think it is a red shouldered hawk but I am in no way a birder so if somebody has a better id then please let me know. I submitted the pics to inaturalist dot org and they are waiting for more community ids. So it saw something, screeched and went swooping into a neighbor’s yard for something.

I’m linking up with Eileen’s Saturday‘s Critters

Weekend Critters – Cottontails in the Back Yard

We found out this week that we have a Cottontail doe and at least two kits in our back yard. You can see one of the kits in the upper right corner of the photo above.

So that’s all great but we had a family earlier this spring and are two dogs got three of the four kits. I was pretty angry with them but dogs do what dogs do. We are keeping our dogs away from this latest family.

Which is fine but now we have a hawk hanging around the backyard now and we think it might have got one of the babies. Hawks have to eat, I get it, and they have babies that need fed also. Nature is kind of mean sometimes.

Here’s Lizzy. She doesn’t go outside. You can tell she is not missing too many meals. She is grumpy because I was trying to get a shot of her sleeping and it woke her up.

I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday Critters. Come join the fun!!

YogisDen.us

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