Wildlife out our window

For the Birds

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Alas, no deer photos today.  None dared go past the snowman to get to the feed.

The birds, on the other hand, had no such issues.

I played around with the preset settings on the camera today and found that the landscape setting seems to address a problem I’ve had with some photos I’ve attempted.

Getting images of the birds when they are sitting in the lilac bush.

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This redpoll is on a branch that broke from the weight of our recent snowfall.  It is at the far side of the bush from our window, so there are twigs and tall grass in the way.  It’s pretty rare for the birds to perch somewhere that doesn’t have twigs or branches in the way of a clear shot. The camera will keep trying to focus on the things in front, and in the time it takes me to get it to focus past them, the birds are usually gone.  But on this setting, it seemed to ignore the things in the foreground and focus on the larger objects behind them.

I’m still at a loss about the purple that is in the photo.  It’s there in the original, unadjusted image.  When I lighten the images for these posts, it brings the purple out just like any other colour in the image.

It’s not in all of them, though.

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This is actually the first photo I took today.  The bluejay is perched lower down on the broken branch.  You can see the shadows of twigs in between the camera and the blue jay.

No purple in sight!

Any camera people who can explain it to me?

I also got a nice shot of a blue jay in the sun.

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Oh, those colours!

I think I could happily paint the entire house in that blue on its head, neck and shoulders.

Hopefully, tomorrow, the deer will be brave enough to emerge from the trees and I’ll be able to get some photos of them, too.

The Re-Farmer

In the snow

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The predicted snow finally arrived last night. While other parts of the province is storming, we have had a gentle snowfall.

The feed I left out this morning has been buried, but that is not stopping the critters from finding it. Like this squirrel.

Also, our satellite internet is having troubles due to the weather. My husband has been able to get enough signal for a wifi hotspot. Let’s see how long before I can upload and post this video! It’s already failed to upload twice as I’ve tapped this out on my phone.

The Re-Farmer

A few more steps forward.

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Well, I got a couple of things accomplished to move us forward today.  This morning, I had a consultation with my lawyer about the Co-op situation.  I’ve been consulting with a lawyer about their actions against me for some time, but I really thought that would be over with, now that we’re no longer living there.  *sigh*

The next thing was certainly more positive.  I had to go in to town for a prescription refill for my husband today and FINALLY remembered to grab the information the pharmacy needed to be able to transfer my prescriptions from our old pharmacy over.  I could have done it by phone, but just never remembered during business hours.  I haven’t been taking my meds since I ran out before Christmas.  Reduction in stress meant I was already reducing my doses, anyhow.  My goal is to get off them completely, but with the Co-op BS still hanging over my, that’s going to be a bit more difficult.  Still, any progress is better than no progress!

Today was baking day for the girls, and this time they made “piggies in a blanket” by wrapping ropes of our usual sourdough bread around hot dog wieners and baking them.  It works well for a treat every now and then. :-)

With how warm it’s going to be for the next while, the girls and I are planning on getting things moved out to the shed again soon.  Which means back to packing up more of my mother’s things that we’ve been ignoring until we could actually get them out.  If all goes well, we’ll finally get 3 more dressers out of the way (my parents seemed to collect dressers!), and once a weird little nook beside the old kitchen is clear, we can FINALLY move the cat litter out of the corner of the dining room and into its permanent spot!  We’ll be able to clear out some stuff that got shoved into the sunroom, too – it’ll be nice to be able to open the door all the way again, when we go in for the cat kibble and deer feed.  Once spring has reached a point that everything is dry outside – at least near the house – we will empty the entire room, clean it out and set it up to suit our own uses.  I have a few ideas the room can be used for, along with just enjoying the room itself.  My dad used to love sitting in there.  His walker is still there.  I’ll be hanging on to that, just in case.  There have been more than a few times when I’ve wished I’d had one handy for my own use, given how my knees and metatarsals tend to dislocate unexpectedly.  That’s always fun.  Not.

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, it’s the “bad” photos that are my favourites. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Today’s Critters

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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!

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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

And now for something more pleasant

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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

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

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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.

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Hungry Girl still looks hungry. :-(

Then Barbecue came running in.

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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.

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“Meh.”

She just moves on over to another pile of feed.

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Mmm… tasty!

Obligatory tongue shot.

These pictures make me giggle like a small child.

:-D

The Re-Farmer

Strange New Bird

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

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Can you see it?

Look closely…

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

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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.

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Redpoll.

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

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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

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

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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!

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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!

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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.

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Bleh!

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

I can’t help it. I love these shots!

The Re-Farmer

 

Noooo!!!

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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.

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Downy woodpecker

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

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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.

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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