We have a tennis ball in the back yard. He loves chasing it all over the place.
At night other critters come out. I have seen this bunny during the day.
The way the eyes light up is spooky!!
Lately we have this black and white cat checking things out. We still have people in the neighborhood who turn their cats loose and there are several feral cats outside as well.
Hey, a non-trailcam shot of some geese at a local park.
That’s all I got this week!! I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters
Last week I went to Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center. I went in search of otters. The staff reports that they are active on Coal Creek at 8 am in the morning. Well I got out there at 8:30 and I didn’t see them, I don’t think. Near the old beaver lodge which they reportedly have taken over I could see that something was moving under the water chasing fish. I didn’t know if they were otters doing the chasing or if it were bigger fish chasing the smaller fish. So another otter failure but for some reason I didn’t mind.
So I started hiking around looking at what I could see.
Oxley has nice wooded areas, lakes, ponds, streams, and swampy areas. All sorts of terrain and it is pretty flat and the trails are all in good shape so it is easy to move around the preserve.
I saw a great blue heron flying around.
And a closeup, sorry for the fuzziness.
I came upon a limpkin. A tropical wetland bird that has a large range in South America and in the USA in Florida. It is an apple snail eater but they can eat other snails. As apple snails have migrated into south Louisiana the Limpkins followed them. Nobody knows why they are in Oklahoma now. Supposedly Oklahoma has seven of them now, three of them at Oxley. They have been here a few years so I guess they like it. You can read the Cornell Labs writeup here.
And way off in a swampy area I saw these waterfowl feeding.
I saw several groups of deer in the preserve.
And a couple of ducks of some sort.
And more deer. I think I saw four small groups of them.
They were staying in the woods. They were being careful but not skittish like deer in hunting areas get.
They are beautiful animals.
I didn’t find the otters but you know the fun is in the looking for, right?
My backyard trailcam captured this image of a squirrel munching on an acorn. We have a bumper acorn crop this year. The squirrels can’t keep up with them. Our little dog Kodi has learned the trick of picking one up and bringing it inside where we give him a treat to trade.
We have a few little rabbits who romp around in our yard.
Young Kodi howls when my wife leaves. He’s inconsolable in his sorrow.
The howling kind of irritates our sweet cat Lizzie. I can just see her thinking, “Suck it up dog!”
I went hiking on Turkey Mountain earlier this week. I encountered, several times, a family of three or four deer. This was the best photo I got. Lots of trees made focusing difficult. I love seeing deer in the woods.
And I saw this butterfly. Google tells me that it is a Red Admiral.
And I was walking along and I heard a woodpecker up in the trees. I looked and looked and saw this one but he wouldn’t stay still very long. Sorry for the grainy cropped shot.
And here is our Pomeranian Kodi. He’s cute as all get out and likes me 95% of the time but watch out for the other 5%.
I woke Lizzy the cat up from a nap the other day. She was not amused.
And I captured the image of this little bunny in our backyard early Friday morning. We have a lot of hawks in the neighborhood and they feast on little bunnies.
And speaking of feasting we have a bunch of squirrels this season. Watch out little dudes!!
Kodi loves going places so we took him on a hike at Ray Harrall Nature center. He did two miles and never slowed down. His little feet were moving fast.
And that is my critter report this week. I am linking with Saturday’s Critters.
We are trying to socialize our Kodi, a one year old Pomeranian so yesterday we took him to an art show and he did really well. Heather held him because he is so small but he was really aware of everything and let several people pet him. Later on we took him to a local park where we got this photo.
Kodi really likes water. If he hides under the bed we can turn on the water to the bathtub and he comes out and pogos to be put in the tub. We got him his own little swimming pool for the back patio and he loves it as well.
He hops in and plays.
And hops out!!
Last week we took him to a local dog park on a play date with his brother Tucker. Tucker is owned by a breeder and she brought her four other Poms. Kodi had not seen them in a while and was a little bit scared but it in no time he was running around and playing with them. I wish I had taken photos of the rest of the herd. Tucker has a neurological issue is why the breeder is keeping him. She would give him to us but we don’t really want two male dogs.
So I had been taking photos of Kodi on our daily walks and posting them on Next Door. They had been really well received. I don’t know if you are familiar with Next Door but it is a social media app that is really useful if you lose a dog or if you see a loose dog runing around. Otherwise, in my opinion, there are lots of complainers out there whining about democrats, or republicans, or people who drive too fast or too slow, disrespectful kids, people of color walking through the neighborhood or that there are too many car washes being built or somebody at Walmart was rude to them, blah, blah, blah. Anyway Nextdoor sent me a message that they considered my photos of Kodi to be spam and if I didn’t quit they would suspend my account. So goodbye Nextdoor and your whining members.
Not everything is happy sunshine with Kodi. He can get aggressive with me. He has bitten me a few times and really dislikes me picking him or holding him. He is not that way with Heather or our son Logan. 95% of the time he lets me play with him and pet him and all that but sometimes he just gets angry. So we have consulted our vet and a behavior specialist and are working with him. And no, don’t worry, we are not considering getting rid of him. He’s part of the family and just needs a little help right now. We’ll get through this.
Last week I worked this table (the guy there in the photo is not me) at the Monarchs on the Mountain event at Tulsa’s Chandler Park. There were no monarch butterflies around but we celebrated them anyway.
This critter showed up at the booth and stayed for a while crawling around and checking out our giveaways and information. I didn’t know what it was but iNaturalist tells me that it is a wheelbug. There were lots of enviromental type people at the event and they all said, don’t hurt it, it’s good. So I let it crawl and around and told people they could figure out what it was from iNaturalist or Google Lens. Kids got a big kick out of it. And so did I. What a learning opportunity.
A few days ago my wife and I attended an event on Turkey Mountain as guests of the Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area. We had a good time. The highlight was seeing this Red tailed hawk. She was very calm even though she was the hit of the party.
Friday I went on a hike on Turkey Mountain. I took my “good camera” even though it was hot and the middle of the day. For taking photos of critters, cell phones definitey have their limitations. I didn’t see too many critters but I go this dragon fly’s photo.
I also got this turtle on a log at Pepsi Lake. I have no idea how he crawled up the log to the top.
And I was able to pick out this photo out of some thick trees. I was so proud of myself for capturing the image of a rare bird. I ran the image though google lens and it turns out that it is a robin. You just can’t see the red breast but the eyes are a giveaway. It’s still a good photo though, right? Hey I like it. Real birders amaze me. They can find the birds and take photos of them. I can hear them and get glimpses of them but they are gone by the time I get my camera ready.
I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Check it out. Eileen is a real birder who can find the birds, ID them, and get the photos.
We went on our family vacation to Orange Beach, Alabama early in September. It was great because the crowds were gone and the weather was pleasant, but the water was still warm. It was perfect.
I spotted a squadron of pelicans skimming the waves in the Gulf of Mexico. I presume they were looking for something to eat.
We saw this lone wolf pelican at a nearby pass begging for food from the fishermen. We see these loners and I sense that most of them are juveniles and don’t quite know how to fend for themselves.
And near the pelican were some great blue herons. (At least I think that is what they are.)
I was on the balcony of our condo when I spotted this heron. I am thinking that he was looking for lizards.
We walked on the beach a lot. We saw lots of shorebirds standing and flying around.
Had a bunch of these birds
On a bicycle ride in nearby Gulf State Park we saw this alligator. We have been here before and there is almost always an alligator or two here.
And at the swimming pool one evening we spotted this lizard. He would puff his throat up to a bright red color. He’s lucky a heron didn’t see him is what I think.
As explained in my last post, recently I traveled up to South Dakota for a family reunion. It kind of goes on for several days with different things at different places. One of the things we did was we convened at a family member’s farm and he had arranged for his neighbors to come and give horse drawn wagon rides to everybody. You can bet that I was in the first group.
The horses are Belgian mares and furthermore they are both pregnant but they did a great job taking everybody on a ride. The neighbor takes his team to different events around the state and you can tell it is a labor of love for him. The wagon and the horses tack were perfect. He doesn’t pull reins to get them to go one way or another, he says “Haaa” and “Geee” and they respond.
Stuff like this is making memories especially for the little ones on the ride. Big smiles from them, and big smiles from everybody!
Last time I was at the reunion, four years ago, the same neighbor came over with a stage coach. Check it out here. That was also lots of fun.
We got to missing our little bunnies and wondered where they were so I put the trailcam on their favorite yarrow patch and one showed up the other day.
We are worried about our puppy Kodi getting them but so far he just half heartedly chases them.
Every once in a while he goes on the hunt for them and gets one to run but like I said his heart is not in it. WHICH IS FINE BY ME!!
I captured myself cutting the grass the other day. I am about the only person on the street that still mows their own yard.
And here is Lizzie. She never goes out in the back yard but she likes to check out the action through the window when she is not napping. She naps a lot.
