I got a new camera bird feeder and fired it up. Seems to be working great so far. The squirrels have not chewed through any wires mainly because there are no external wires to chew through.
Male Cardinal
Female Cardinal
House finch
Another house finch
I’m still using hot sauce laced bird food and the squirrels hate it but still they hop on just to check it out. I put a half handful of peanuts in the cup this one is checking out. The cardinals love the peanuts and the squirrels do as well.
A few critters I have taken photos of on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area
A turtle on a stick at a pond.
A beetle on a rock
A robin on the ground. Robins are the only birds polite enough to show themselves and pose until I can get them in focus and snap a photo. The other little buggers flit here and there in the brush, never stay in place very long. They are aggravating.
A butterfly. Google lens tells me it is a “Question Mark Butterfly.” I have never heard of such a thing.
Google Lens tells me this is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly.
This turtle was on the edge of a trail trying to climb that rock in front of it. I decided to help the little bugger out and lift it up and over the rock. After I did that it acted all kind of perturbed like it didn’t need my help. Deal with it is what I told him.
I loved my old bird feeder but it finally gave up on my a week or so ago. It’s weakness was that it had a separate solar collector from the feeder. The squirrels like to chew through the power cable between the two and birds liked to perch on it. I spliced the wires several times and took measures to protect it but it wasn’t enough. So I got a new model with an integrated solar collector on the roof of it. No exposed wire.
A female cardinal. The camera is a big hit. I get over 300 birds a day visiting it. I limit the food because I cannot feed them all.
A male cardinal.
A crow come to call and gave the camera the evil eye.
Lots and lots of mourning doves. They tend to eat a lot.
I rigged up my trail cam to keep an eye on the bird cam.
Lots of birds look right at the camera.
And an old guy with a funny hat mowing the weeds in the back yard.
And a 24 second short video compilation of some of the bird feeder videos. At the end there is a few second segment of a black swan chasing geese off the neighborhood pond. Special note, it is not 3026!
Saturday afternoon the family loaded up and drove to the Tulsa Botanic Gardens. The tulips are blooming plus they have a special exhibit of Lego Creatures by Sean Kinney we wanted to see. The tulips were great, maybe just a tad past prime, and enjoyed the Lego critters.
First up, a fox, including a tree shadow.
A gigantic butterfly
Little Lego Bunnies
And origami bunnies in the childrens’ area.
A snail on a mushroom
A frog on a lilly pad.
And a bird feeder with cardinals and a squirrel.
They also had a lawnmower and a rototiller and other things. Below is a video of all the lego creations we saw. It’s only a tad over a minute long.
Several days ago, Heather, my wife noticed that there were baby bunnies stashed in one of her unused pots. She checked on them a couple times and then I rigged up my trail cam to overlook the pot.
When I check the camera the next day, sure enough, a moma rabbit showed up at about 6:30 am. Heather had read that the mommas check and feed their kits right before dawn.
So the mom got up there and hopped around a little bit. I’m not showing ever pic. The one above is the next to last one in the sequence.
And then there is about a ten minute time where mom is checking and feeding her babies.
When I pulled the chip and saw what was happening, Heather went out and checked and the kits are still alive. She checked on them yesterday and this afternoon. They are still alive and growing. So that is kind of cool but we are concerned about their future. Which the future of rabbits is not a very happy subject under the best of circumstances.
A sparrow on my backyard efeeder. I’ve finally figured out how to not feed squirrels. Habanero flavored bird food and safflower seeds seem to do the trick.
A male cardinal getting a drink.
An Eastern Bluebird. So handsome!!
Another male cardinal singing at the top of a tree.
I went on a hike on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness the other day. I found this deer back in the brush. By the time I turned manual focus on, this deer and their two companions were gone.
Got a mile or so further and came up on some birds. I think they were tufted titmice. They were also hard to focus on but I got a few shots. They are extremely grainy because the birds are extremely small and even with my 300 mm lens I had to crop them a lot.
Merlin told me that it heard a northern flicker and a cardinal in the area as well. I spotted a northern cardinal and its mate but they were moving around too much for me.
And later at the far northern end of Turkey Mountain at Pepsi Lake I found these mallard ducks. It looks like two males were romancing a female. Today is Valentines day so I wonder what they got her.
I also saw a great blue heron.
At home a male cardinal visited the efeeder.
A dark eyed junco. I love these guys.
A house finch. Such loud voices from very small birds.
The other day I was outside with the dogs and I noticed this squirrel frozen in place on a branch.
I think it was worried about these crows who were on a wire in the green space behind our backyard. I had never thought of crows being a threat to squirrels, but what I read on the interwebs is that they sometimes will attack young squirrels but are hesitant about taking on grown squirrels because apparently grown squirrels will fight back.
