Wildlife out our window

Today’s Critters

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Not a lot of photos today, as I made it in to church at the next town – the church of my childhood this time.

I don’t know that I’ll be going back.  I’m not surprised that things have changed after all these years, but some of it came off as rather creepy – and that was just with the announcements before service even started!  The weird birthday blessing with outreached hands is something I’ve never seen before, and the community greeting before service started, where everyone was expected to go around shaking hands, was another new one for me.  It was enough to make ME uncomfortable, and I’m the sort of person who will happily greet strangers I’m introduced to with a hug and a kiss on each cheek.

It didn’t help that I could understand the priest half the time.  I have an auditory processing disorder, which means that while my hearing is fine, the message gets sometimes gets scrambled.  Sometimes I, literally, hear gibberish.  Other times, I get gaps.  I know words were spoken; I know my ears heard the sound, but it just didn’t make it to my brain.  Most of the time, I hear enough that I can figure out what I missed, but if there are visual distractions, strong accents, or if a person doesn’t enunciate clearly, it can be a struggle.  This priest seems to have an aversion to moving his mouth when speaking.  Between that and how the responses have changed since I went here as a kid, it made it difficult to follow the service.

I’m really hoping we won’t have to go to the city for church!

At least I should be able to go there to get our Easter baskets blessed.

Anyhow.  Back to the critters!

2018-02-25-cheeky.bluejay

First up, we have another cheeky blue jay with a seed in its mouth.

2018-02-25-red.squirrel

The red squirrels were certainly enjoying the fact that the deer are too skittish to hang around.  Doesn’t this one look like the most polite little gentleman? :-D

2018-02-25-cat.in.snow

The Beep Beep came by and plunked himself into a pile of seeds, and for a while, only the brave little chickadees and redpolls were willing to dive bomb the seeds around him.

Shortly after I took this, I noticed he’d moved to another pile of seeds.

Except… there was something odd about the way he was sitting there.

Something very… tense…

That’s when I realized he wasn’t sitting at all.

He was taking a dump.

In the seeds.

Which he then buried with snow.

What a jerk!

Later on, the girls called to me from upstairs, telling me to get the camera and look at the top of the dead spruce tree.

I got this next shot from the second floor.

2018-02-25-cat.in.tree

That’s either Nasty Crime Boy or Trüllbus the Crime Eater.  Just hanging out, enjoying the view! :-D

Unlike Butterscotch, he had no issues getting back down again!

Too funny!

The Re-Farmer

Out Our Window this Morning

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Things got busy quite early this morning. :-)

After putting out more feed, the grosbeaks, redpolls and chickadees were in in full force.

Then they all disappeared, en masse.

Why?

Hmmm.  Could be the big orange Rolando Moon that came sauntering by.

Followed by Nasty Crime Boy.

Then Beep Beep.

Beep Beep

Beep Beep was kind enough to pose for a picture.

Butterscotch came by, too.  For a while, we had at least 3 or 4 cats, just hanging around.

It didn’t take much for the birds to come back.

Including this beauty.

Male Downy Woodpecker

Male Downy Woodpecker

male downy woodpecker

Male Downy Woodpecker

I finally got some good shots of the male downy woodpecker.  Look at those bright red spots!  And those fuzzy little bits at its beak.  So pretty.

He would be on the tree trunk (that tree is dead and among the ones we need to clear out out our spruce grove), drilling away, then he’d go down to the seeds, pick up a few, fly back to the tree trunk to peck away some more, then back to the seeds.

He was soon joined by the other birds.

Male pine grosbeak

Male pine grosbeak

It wasn’t long before the birds were chased away again, this time by Hungry Girl and Barbecue.

They are still really skittish, but have calmed down enough that I got a few good photos before they dashed off.

I think they have opinions about that.

white tail deer

Hungry Girl, sticking her tongue out at me again!

*giggle*

white tail deer

Barbecue, licking his chops

E tu, Barbecue?

*giggle*

I’m such a child.

The Re-Farmer

Daily Deer, and marking an achievement

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Getting any photos of Hungry Girl and Barbecue this morning was more difficult than usual.  They were extremely nervous today, but I couldn’t see why.

White Tail Deer

White Tail Deer

There was also the issue of glare on the window, which you can see some of in the picture.

Partly, I’m sure there must have been some cats going along the house.  Something was certainly there to catch their hoof stomping attention.

I also think the light hitting the window meant they could see us, and our movements, more, too.  I could barely get to the camera, take off the lens cap and turn it out before they’d dash off.  Even my husband raising his arm to reach for something seemed to startle them more than usual.

Very high strung and nervous.  It wasn’t long before they simply took off and, from the looks of the feed outside, they have not come back.

Perhaps later.

Meanwhile, some time during the night, this blog reached an achievement.  Fifty followers!  So I wanted to say thank you to those of you who have decided to follow our crazy lives through this blog!  It is much appreciated, and I hope you continue to enjoy visiting. :-)

And now, back to trying to figure out where to call to get a copy of my marriage certificate so I can finally get my ID.

The Re-Farmer

And now for something more pleasant

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Critter pictures.  Great for de-stressing.

I didn’t get any photos of deer today.  In fact, the only time I saw them was when I scared them off, returning from one of my outings today.  I just caught the sight of a flashing white tail, disappearing around the house.

My husband sees them more, when the pain has him up much earlier in the day.  At the very least, he saw Hungry Girl and Barbecue come by.  Not sure if it was them I chased off, or Mama and the twins, later on.  None came back while I was at home.

Here are some of the photos of other critters I got today.

Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

I haven’t been able to get many photos of the squirrels, but I got a couple of good ones today.

Red Squirrel and Chickadee

Bombs away!

Not the best of photos, quality wise, but catching the chickadee looking like like that is pure gold!

Female Redpoll

Female Redpoll

I love how the little birds are so light, they can sit on the very top of twigs and seed pods.

Male Redpoll

Male Redpoll

Focusing past the twigs is always a challenge.

I’m not sure why that purple is there, on the twigs.  It’s in the raw image, and not a side effect of post processing.

Any camera techies that can explain it to me?

The Re-Farmer

 

 

More Critter Pictures

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

As I write this, Butterscotch is still up in the spruce tree.

2018-02-20.cat.in.tree.2

Just chillin’

For a while, Beep Beep came up and joined her.  They were so adorable, snuggling up on the branch.  It was too dark to get good pictures, though.

Beep Beep has since come down, but not Butterscotch.

Meanwhile, Hungry Girl and Barbecue came out today.  Hungry Girl came dashing in first, and started eating right away.

2018-02-20.whitetail.deer.eating

Hungry Girl still looks hungry. :-(

Then Barbecue came running in.

2018-02-20.whitetail.deer.advancing

Look at him with his tail up in an aggressive stance!

What a bully!

These days, Hungry Girl doesn’t even wait for him to reach her.

2018-02-20.two.whitetail.deer

“Meh.”

She just moves on over to another pile of feed.

2018-02-20.whitetail.deer.tongue

Mmm… tasty!

Obligatory tongue shot.

These pictures make me giggle like a small child.

:-D

The Re-Farmer

Strange New Bird

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My husband called attention to a strange new bird in a spruce tree…

2018-02-20.cat.in.tree

Can you see it?

Look closely…

Can’t see it?  That’s okay.  She moved to a more visible spot.

2018-02-20.cat.in.tree.snoozing

Butterscotch, looking very comfortable.

Yes, that’s Butterscotch, up in the spruce tree.  Quite settled in!

Since this photo was taken, however, she has made like she wanted to get down, but seemed to be having difficulties.  So my daughters went out with a ladder to help her down, but she just went off out of reach and just sat there, looking at them.

They’ve left the ladder on the tree for now.

Meanwhile, we have some more familiar birds to look at.

2018-02-20.redpoll

Redpoll.

The redpolls were very co-operative today in posing for me in the bush.

2018-02-20.bluejay

Blue Jay

We had 4 blue jays, bullying each other for the piles of seeds.  This one looks like he’s mocking the ones he just chased off. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Out our Window, Today

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Some highlights of the activity out our living room window today – at least the ones I was there to take pictures of. :-)

2018-02-19.male.pine.grosbeak

Whenever I get photos of the male pine grosbeaks, my goal is to capture the incredible red as much as possible.  This one is very close!

20180219mom.twins.whitetail.deer

Mother white tail deer with her twins.

Mama and the twins came by today, and I quickly grabbed a group shot with my phone’s camera, since I would have to change the lens on the DSLR to get all three in one shot.

I was going through some of my older deer photos with my daughter, and saw some of the very first ones we took of Mama and her babies.  Seeing them, it struck me how much the twins have grown in the past couple of months!

2018-02-19.young.whitetail.deer

Young white tail deer.

The group was very active today, and very nervous about the cats hanging around.  It was cute watching them staring down whichever cat was there, stomping their hooves at them.  Which, for the most part, the cats ignored!

The above picture is one of the twins, after it had shied away from the feed because of a cat.

2018-02-19.whitetail.deer.tongue

Bleh!

“MooOOOoomm!  He’s sticking his tongue out at me again!”

I can’t help it. I love these shots!

The Re-Farmer

 

Critter Pictures

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I hope you have been able to take time out this first Sunday of Lent for focus and reflection.

With all the crud that accompanies a major move, I find it’s always a good thing to pause and look at WHY certain choices were made.

Unfortunately, in our case, the why of things is more a matter of “getting away from” rather than “going to.”  Such is life, of course, and we take the good with the bad and focus on the important things, rather than the things that threaten to drag us down.

At least, that’s the theory.  LOL  Reality is much messier.

However, among the things I do appreciate with this move is our daily critter visits outside the window.  As the stresses of the day begin to add up, there is something very healing about looking out our window and finding a deer looking back.

Or a cat.  Whatever. :-D

With that calming influence in mind, I will first share with you an image from yesterday.

2018-02-17.whitetail.deer

Hungry Girl, checking out… something.  I can never quite see what it is that they’re looking at when they stare down the length of the house.  There usually isn’t anything but birds.

Especially these guys…

2018-02-18.redpoll

I love getting accidental pictures!  This redpoll was flitting around among the twigs so much, I’m fortunate to have gotten any shots at all, but getting one in a fun position like this is always rewarding.

2018-02-18.chickadee

I finally had a chickadee stay still long enough to get a decent shot!  :-D

2018-02-18.two.whitetail.deer

Once again, something alongside the house has their full attention!

The physical differences between Hungry Girl in the foreground, and Barbecue in the back, are still quite striking.

2018-02-18.cute.whitetail.deer

I’m thinking that this time, there must have been a cat walking along the house that they were watching, because later on I saw…

2018-02-18.cat

… Trüllbus the Crime Eater.

He was in the bushes when I first spotted him.  Then he spotted me in the window, taking his picture.  He was accommodating enough to move out of the bushes and pose for me in the feeding area.

I love that intent gaze!

The Re-Farmer

 

 

 

Noooo!!!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, crap.

Yesterday, a few more photos were taken, so this morning I uploaded the last of the pictures on the camera.  As typical, I removed the old photos from the card completely, so that it would go back into the camera with maximum space on it.

As I was transferring the files, I got a pop up.  Did I want to replace files?

Sure, I thought. This typically means I’ve already uploaded some photos and didn’t want duplicates, so I usually just let it override the old files, so there are no duplicates.

I forgot two things.

One, I was uploading files from the camera card, not my phone, which I copy from, not remove completely.  So it’s not unusual for me to accidentally overlap and grab images I’d already uploaded.

Two, my daughter had her camera set to restart files from 001 on an empty card.

Normally, it wouldn’t have been an issue, because I organize my photos in folders by date, but these were photos from yesterday, and they went into yesterday’s folder.

I didn’t realize it until I went to review the photos, but I overwrote the first dozen or so images I’d uploaded previously.

Crud.

Now, most of those first photos were the ones where I was using the 18-55mm lens, then switching the settings around, so they weren’t good photos to begin with.  The “ghost bird” photo was the very first one I took, so I do have the modified version of that one (cropped and resized for the blog).  But the rest are gone.

The settings have now been changed.  It won’t happen again!

*sigh*

Meanwhile…

Here are some photos from yesterday.

2018-02-16.downy.woodpecker

Downy woodpecker

My daughter got this one for me.  The downy woodpecker decided to check out the seeds. :-)

2018-02-16.white.tail.deer1

White Tail Deer

You see this?  THIS is why I asked to borrow my daughter’s camera.  There is no way I could have gotten this shot of Hungry Girl without that 70-300mm lens!  No amount of zooming in with my phone camera could have gotten this photo, even though she was so close to the house.

2018-02-16.white.tail.deer2

Barbecue, meanwhile, was even farther away, but I could still get a wonderful shot of him eating.

Even resized to 30% (my usual resizing on the DSLR photos; my phone camera photos get resized to 25%), you can see those little lips and that tongue, picking up seeds.

Details like that are why I love taking so many photos.  Once they are on the computer, I can see so much more than I could, looking out the window.  Those little details, frozen in time.

I love technology.

The Re-Farmer

 

Got a Camera

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Hungry Girl and Barbecue visited again this morning.  I didn’t even try and take photos with my phone.  Instead, I just enjoyed watching them.

After they left, the birds came back in full force, including a total of 5 blue jays!  Usually, it’s just two or three.  There were also the massive numbers of redpolls (which I’d mistakenly identified as chipping sparrows, previously), lots of pine grosbeaks, chickadees and nuthatches.  Squirrels made their appearance, too.

After a while, I broke down and finally asked my daughter if I could borrow her Nikon D80.

After a bit of maintenance (lens cleaning, battery checking, etc), I set it up and tested it, using the 18-55mm lens she had on already.

2018-02-16.ghost.bird

Ghost bird!

Then I took it off the manual setting. :-D

Though ghost birds are rather neat photo subjects.

I then switched from her 18-55 lens to the Nikkor 70-300mm lens we were using on the old camera.

2018-02-16.bluejay

Blue jay

Blue jays are one of my favourite birds.  I love their incredible colour!  It’s interesting to see how they try to pack so many seeds into their beaks at once.  I didn’t realize they did that until I started taking photos of them with the zoom lens.

2018-02-16.male.pine.grosbeak

Pine grosbeak, male

It’s a real challenge to get photos of the birds when they are in the bush nearby.  Usually, in the time it takes for me to notice them, then swing the camera around on the tripod, they are either gone, of have moved to another branch.  One of these days, I’m going to get a picture of a nuthatch perched upside down on a twig.

The grosbeaks tend to hang around on the branches a bit longer than the chickadees, nuthatches and redpolls – they’re too big to hop around the way the little guys do.  So I was able to get a pretty decent shot of a male grosbeak in the trees.

2018-02-16.female.pine.grosbeak

Pine grosbeak with redpoll

There tend to be a LOT more females than males among they seeds, but even they are usually outnumbered by the redpolls.

2018-02-16.woodpecker

Downy woodpecker

Getting any images of this downy woodpecker was a challenge, too!  It kept moving around, then went behind the branch in the foreground.

My daughter just swung by to let me know she got pictures of the woodpecker while I was posting this.  I’m glad I made sure the camera still had a memory card in it when I took out the one with the above photos to upload!

The Re-Farmer