What a difference between these male and female rose breasted grosbeaks!
(Click on the images to see them at full size)
Critters
Critter of the Day: brilliant
Last year, we saw some Baltimore Orioles now and then. Usually, just a flash of brilliant colour, and they were gone.
So we were pretty excited to see them showing up at the bird feeder in May, and being able to finally get some pictures!
They are now regular visitors, and we just love them! What amazing colours!
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Critter of the Day: spot the difference!
Yesterday, I posted a picture of a common grackle. I almost posted it together with this picture, but on closer inspection, I realized this was a different bird!
This is a brown headed cow bird. The body looks a lot like the grackle! The differences are in the beak (which is shorter on the cow bird) and the eye (which is yellow on the grackle).
I’ve never been much of a bird watcher, but I’ve been trying to make sure I accurately identify the birds we get out our window. In the process, I’m discovering that, for a lot of them, it’s really hard to be sure what I’m looking at! Some are so similar, it’s easy to miss the little details that separate them. Usually, I don’t see the differences until I’ve uploaded the pictures and started to process them for here!
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Critter of the Day: rosy
This was taken towards the middle of May, when the rose-breasted grosbeaks first started showing up.
From a single male and female pair, we now get whole bunches of them, visiting us.
This is another one of those birds local to our area that I’d never seen before until we moved back here.
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10
While doing the cat stuff this evening, kittens were getting into the old kitchen. When I put out wet cat food for them, I did a head count, to make sure all 9 kittens were accounted for.
I got to 10.
I counted again.
Still 10.
That means the orange kitten we thought was taken back by Rosencrantz or Guildenstern has been here with his sibling all this time, and we couldn’t tell it apart from the other orange ones.
Which also means all those times we did head counts for 9, we were missing a kitten and didn’t know it!
Well, I guess that means it’s eyes healed up fast, because none of the all-orange kittens have eye issues. Just the one tabby (whose eyes are much better today!).
That was rather surreal! 😄
The Re-Farmer
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Critter of the Day: dark eyes
Unexpected find
This evening, I was able to get the other side of the first half of the gate painted, while the second half has been set up, scrubbed and washed, needing only to dry before it can be painted. It was still quite went when I went out to do my evening rounds, so that will wait until tomorrow.
One of the things I had to consider, when setting the sun room up so the moms could leave, but the babies stayed, was that other cats could get in, too.
Which Doom Guy did.
When I came through the old kitchen to check on them, he immediately ran in, only to find himself trapped when he tried to leave!
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Bonus critters, and a kitty gate
We had some new, furry visitors to our feeding station this morning!
This is a first for us to see raccoons! :-)
They are so fuzzy!!! Like round little bears. :-D
This morning, I also figured out a way to let the mama cats out of the sun room, while keeping the babies in.
I noticed a whiteboard I had in storage, and gave it a try. The whiteboard is too slippery for the kittens to climb, and even if they managed to climb up the jugs I shoved against it to keep it from tipping, the marker ledge should keep them from being able to climb over. The remaining question was whether or not the moms would jump over it, and if they would knock it down when jumping back.
As my daughter and I were heading out to go to town, I heard a noise and saw that Beep Beep had jumped it, without knocking it down. When I came back later, however, it seemed the Butterscotch hadn’t figured it out yet. So I just lifted her over. You can actually see her in the photo, at the old dog house, where she promptly went to eat some grass! She has since returned to the sun room, and the kitten gate is still up, so it seems to be working.
The kittens, meanwhile, were content to ignore the set up.
They had all been sprawled on that blanket until they saw me moving around. A few came to check things out, then stayed to play.
This one, however, just luxuriated…
Cutest.
Thing.
Ever!!!!
In other things, we have not been able to work on painting the gate again, yet. We had a good rain during the night, so it was still wet when we went into town. I’m hoping to get some more done this evening, once it starts to cool down a bit. At least the area that’s already painted is no longer tacky to the touch! Tomorrow, I’ll be driving my mother to a medical appointment, so if I get some painting done today, that’ll give it plenty of time to cure tomorrow. No rain is predicted overnight, so that should help, too. We’ll see how it works out.
For now, we’re just staying out of the heat!
The Re-Farmer
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Critter of the Day: white throated sparrow
A couple of photos from the last day of April; by this time, we were seeing lots of white throated sparrows visiting the feeding station.
I just love the pattern the lifted feathers are making in the second shot.
The Re-Farmer 