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.
My hiking friend and I went on a five mile hike on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain on Thursday. The weather was almost shirtsleeve warm. We saw this great blue heron fishing in one of the ponds. All I had was my cell phone so sorry about the graininess.
After almost a year together our two dogs, Kodi the Pom, and Sadie the Terrier have almost started playing together. I guess if this were human kids it would be called adjacent play. They seem to enjoy each other’s company now.
Kodi hides under this table when my wife is gone. He always has such a tragic expression.
Lizzie checking on the goings on out in front of the house.
This fiberglass penguin has its own geocache.
Winter Storm Fern came to northeast Oklahoma last night. This was the scene this morning. Not too bad. Not even an inch of snow. We are supposed to get more later on today and tonight.
And the backyard. Kodi the Pom got up this morning and went outside and did his business. He loves snow. Sadie is having a hard time. She wouldn’t do her business last night so she needed out at 3 am. I took her out and she peed and ran back into the house. She was in a world of hurt this morning. She needed to poop bad but wouldn’t go outside and wouldn’t go on a pad in the house. Finally I carried her out and plopped her in the middle of the yard and she saw a squirrel and she ran after it, completely forgetting about the snow, and then did her business. She felt so much better, she was running around the yard. (Sorry if this is TMI.)
We have a steady stream of visitors to the efeeder. Here is a short 12 second video of a male and female cardinal and a dark eyed junco taking advantage of the suet and seeds that I put out for them.
That’s it for now. We are staying home today and maybe tomorrow depending on road conditions. If you are in the winter storm, please stay safe.
I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Lots of great bloggers post there, check them out.
I was in the backyard playing fetch with one of our dogs and I saw on our property fence a dog sweater moving along the top of the pickets. I was like uh! I saw then it was a squirrel running with a small dog’s sweater. I ran in the house to get my wife and she come running out and the squirrel had already jumped onto a tree and was trying mightily to get it up to a nest close to the top of the tree. By the time I got my good camera out it looked the sweater was stuck good on the various twigs on the tree.
I left for a minute and came back out and the squirrel had the sweater unstuck and was stuffing it into the nest. I guess her babies are going to be nice and warm this winter. I have no idea where she go the sweater. Some years they attack our lawn furniture cushioning for nesting material.
And here is our queen B, Lizzie resting. Naps exhaust her so she has get up and rest every now and then.
Tulsa’s amazing Gilcrease Museum was shut down and demolished a few years ago and they built a new museum. The structure is complete but they are not going to open until 2027. They had a public input meeting concerning the landscaping around the immediate vicinity of the museum. They hired the same landscaper, Michael Van Valkengburgh Associates, that designed Tulsa’s Gathering Place and the Master Plan for the Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness area, and they were giving a presentation for their concept of the gardens at Gilcrease. It’s a treat just listening to these guys talk. They know their stuff and one of the big things they are interested in is getting public input on the concepts. Check their web site at the link above and see some of the projects they have been involved in. (Oops, I diverge).
I got so excited about their plans that I went down into the backwoods are of Gilcrease that has recently reopened to the public to check out some of the sculptures they talked about in the presentation. I had not seen them for years so it was kind of like seeing old friends again.
So the plan is they are taking these sculptures that are scattered in the back woods and bring them up close to the museum so more people can see them. I second that plan. It was a one mile hike to see these and lots of people will not do that, or cannot do that.
I was at the At Home Store and saw these Easter Bunnies for sale. I felt they were a family and couldn’t believe they were breaking the family up for money. I guess that I could have bought them to keep them together forever but I know that wouldn’t go over well at home. So I just took a photo. Photos are still free in most stores. Some stores have signs that say no photos, but that just encourages me.
And then I ran the photo through a filter and posted it on instagram. I post everything on instagram. If you want to join me my tag is @yogiab.
Last week I brought the ebird feeder out from the garage, cleaned it out put it back up again and restocked it with bird food. I’ve had quite a few customers so far. This is a short video.
I also fired up my trailcam in the backyard and got a few stills and videos in this video. It is very short also.
A few days ago it warmed up enough to go for a bike ride on the Arkansas River Parks Trails here in Tulsa. I took my superzoom camera with me and captured this pod of American White Pelicans in the river. They are a happy sight for me. They do not get very close to people.
I stopped for a rest and drink and I could hear this Northern Mockingbird singing but I really couldn’t see it against the glare. My cell phone was hopeless but by elderly Nikon superzoom got 85% of it.
A short and unremarkable video of our terrier rescue playing fetch. She lives to play fetch and I do it with her about four times a day or more. She never gets tired of it. She is so enthusiastic though that I don’t mind too much.
I’m linking up with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Check it out, animal lovers from all around post photos of all sorts of critters.
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