Goodbye, 2023!
There were fun moments this year and I absolutely enjoyed the garden this year but I hope that next year will be a bit more exciting again when it comes to birds. The last four months of the year show a Chipmunk, a Chickadee, a Bluebird and a Junco. I hope for some snow in January, just for some fun photo opportunities, and would love a return of a Chickadee nest and of course the Blues.
I like
moving cams around when the weather isn’t muddy, it gives me insights into areas I can otherwise not watch. It’s not always exciting stuff but the different background and perspective is a nice change from the ordinary. Here are some of the visitors from yesterday, the furry ones are very happy 😆
I have tried
to get photos of the White-throated Sparrows that have been hanging around for about a week now and put a cam on the ground but to no avail. Squirrels and the groundhog were happy though. The first one here has also been nibbling on black walnuts, as you can tell by the darker ring around his mouth 😆
While I absolutely love
to have the Titmice back, them, Blue Jays and Mourning Doves continue to be the only birds visiting here currently. I do hear woodpeckers but they will not come down. There are mature Oaks as well as nut trees, Cedars and the like in the neighborhood, so I think many feast there while a huge group is still on the move too. This is a welcome break for my bird seed budget but I also really miss seeing birds. The critters are filling up as usual.
Where there's bird seed,
there will also be critters, and the Chipmunks are one of my favorite. They just make me laugh. They are tough to get good photos of with my setup because they move so fast, but I got lucky with this one 😆.
Putting a cam on the ground
can yield lots of fun photos but it also means the camera is not critter proof. Here are some from the last couple of days. A Chipmunk, a Groundhog (proudly holding a rock as if it was a potato in one pic and being expressive in the other), and another adorable squirrel. I love the Groundhog teeth 😆
The evenings are getting cooler
but the garden still thrives, and there are sill many many baby birds around. This is the time where I like to put a camera to the ground to try and capture some of the more camera-shy visitors. The Blue Jays are very entertaining and all over the yard, the Grackle youngster are getting teen feathers, the Redwinged Blackbirds are bringing their peachy-faced babies, there are still Grosbeaks around, and today, a teen Cardinal visited too. As always when a cam is on the ground, some furries have access too.
Video: The salad bar
I got a lettuce flower pot on sale this weekend, and made a little salad bar for the Groundhog family that lives under the shed. We still need to patch some parts of the veggie fence, and I hope that and the copious amounts of clover and dandelion on our lawn will keep them busy. Mom explored first, but the babies later came by themselves.
Critter cam!
I worked some more in the garden today, and when I do that, the birds are more shy because of my presence. So I used the opportunity to put a camera on the ground. These are not perfect photos but I found them hilarious. The adult Groundhog is a momma of four, and the second photo is one of them. So far they are staying in their condo under our shed away from the house but I hope they all move out and seek their own stomping grounds. They are super stinking adorable but as adults can be a destructive force. I had to reinforce the veggie garden fence because momma had found her way in.
Video: The tree cam setup
has proven to be the most entertaining during this rather drab time. I have gone through the videos from the last couple of weeks and made a little montage. I use peanut butter and bark butter on the tree. It is fun to see how many different birds came tocheck it out. Yesterday, there was also a hawk visitng, I was thinking a Sharp-shinned but it could just as well be a Cooper’s. The bird right after it is the banded American Tree Creeper that has been coming for a bit. Have a great Wednesday!
Happy 2023!
The new year is here, and while bird activity continues to be mega low, an Opossum has found its way back to the yard at night. I dearly love these creatures, so I am very happy about this. May 2023 provide us with lots of fun wildlife footage!
I feel a little bad
for not posting a lot of photos recently but I swear things have really slowed down here and gotten a bit boring. I am still chasing pics of the baby Cardis, there are several, but so far I have been unlucky. For that quest, I am putting a camera on the ground. The squirrels and the Groundhog are loving this 😆 I found it interesting to see how muddied the black ones look - you can really see that they are simply a grey squirrel morph. And one of them has an adorably flopsy ear.
Videos: Babies, babies, babies!
Apart from the Blue Jays and Grackles, there are also young Robins, Woodpeckers and Cardinals. They are still curious and will visit all the feeders to see what is offered. Sometimes, this results in little dominance fights, like with the Robin and Canado here. The Robin has particularly pretty markings too.
The last video is not a bird, but an Opossum mommy that regularly shows up at night. And it looks like her belly pouch is full of little ones! She has quite the waddle going on, and I hope the babies will soon climb out there to get on her back. Well, and that she comes for a visit then too.
As you know, I am using Birdsy cameras around my yard to record feeders and the bird bath. Their website birdsy.com is the headquarters of BirdsyTV, a platform where Birdsy users can share their videos and live cams from their accounts. I have several channels there too and you can also find these videos there. I love visiting the site to check out other people’s setups, get entertained and inspired. And it is fun to see birds from Europe too! Check it out if you have the time.
The furries
are also quite active, now that all the plants are lush and the flowers start to bloom. This weekend, we also saw a young Groundhog (the one here is Forrest, the big guy), as well as a bunny and some toads. There is a mole digging tunnels all over the backyard too.
Video: Surprise night visitor!
Yesterday in the evening, I decided to put some peanut butter on the branch to see if anybody would come to check it out during the night. We have several species of squirrels in Michigan, and this is one of them - a Flying squirrel. These guys look like straight out of an animation movie, and they are so elusive and fast that it is hard to spot them, let alone capture them on film or photo. This is not perfect but still a lot of fun to watch, and only the second time I saw one in my yard.
I hope
that you all had a Christmas that was as fun as the one I had. There was no snow, which was a bit sad, and it felt like the birds were all having their very own gatherings, bird traffic is slow right now. So today is another good day to introduce who is in the calendar. October is the “furry birb”, one of the resident groundhogs. They are not at our house and they make us laugh, so we tolerate them. Since the year is ending soon, I have added another promo in the shop that begins tomorrow and is good until January 1. Check it out here: https://www.createphotocalendars.com/Shop/ostdrossel
Another stormy day here
in Michigan, and I decided to not put out cameras on a tripod because of it. Instead, I put them on the ground. I would still love more Junco footage, and Cardinals too but the weather has been so weird and erratic that things are just super duper boring. However, here are a hilariously “shy” squirrel and a Goldfinch with lots of stuff blown towards him/ her. Come good into Friday!
Video: Last but not least,
Herr von Bödefeld finally made another showing too 😍 I always feel so bad for opossums in the winter and want to make them little possum mittens. By the way, if you find little compact pellets in your feeders in the mornings, you might have an opossum coming around to feed. They munch on the seeds and then make a compact pellet out of the hulls and spit that out. It is not poop!
Video: Thirsty bun
Good morning! The yard is still slim pickings when it comes to birds but there was a thirsty bunny at the pond last night that I thought people might enjoy. It is still very mild out and I think I will give the pond one more thorough cleaning before I close it for the season.
Two days ago, there were Bluebirds at the Gilbertson box, and I heard them yesterday in the morning too. This made me incredibly happy because they have been absent since the Wren destroyed their eggs earlier this summer. I hope they will start sticking around again, I miss seeing these lovelies. Have a wonderful Wednesday!
Video: Look who it is!
In the last weeks and months, I mostly saw skunks and raccoons in the night recordings, but look who was back last night, happily running into the frame 😁 Herr von Bödefeld! I love Opossums and always feel lucky to have them visiting my yard. And I hope this one returns for some more muncher videos.
