Wildlife out our window

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

 

Watching Each Other

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We got visited by Hungry Girl and Barbecue today.  Having been out all day, I was glad I got to see them at least a little bit.

The cats and Hungry Girl were very interested in each other for a while!

20180213cats.watching.deer

Thankfully, mama cat has stopped growling at the deer through the window.  Instead, she joins her boy at the window, and watches them.  They get watched right back!

20180213two.whitetail.deer

They are so pretty!

The Re-Famer

Today’s pictures

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I happened to be around when the deer came to visit this morning.

Hungry Girl and Barbecue showed up first.

20180212.whitetail.two

Then Mama and the twins came by.

20180212.whitetail.mom.twins

I do miss our DSLR.  Zooming in with my phone’s camera just isn’t anywhere near as good!

It’s great for indoor shots that don’t need zoom, though!

20180212DaBoy

He is such a silly boy!

I love how his little front paws are tucked into his chest.

While in town earlier, my daughter and I took advantage of the trip to swing by the grocery store.  In a parking lot full of “winter parking” (where no one even tries to park in the lines, because you can’t see them!), I actually managed to park in a legitimate parking spot.  I could see just enough of the lines though the snow.  It was farther from the store, and there was plenty of room around me.

Or so I thought.

We came out to find this.

20180212tight.park

That’s our van to the right.

Now, being a woman of generous proportions, it’s still rare for me to not even be able to get to my door.

I also wonder how the driver of the white truck got out of their vehicle, because there is no way that door opened even half way.  My mirror would have blocked it.

My daughter had to squeeze between the vehicles, open our door, and jam herself in.

So she ended up driving home.  An opportunity to practice for her road test.

The sad thing is, the only reason the vehicle was so tightly parked was because they pulled forward from the other side.  Which means they drove through an empty parking spot, and placed themselves right next to my door.

With our previous vehicle, a Grand Caravan, we’ve had this happen a couple of times.  I was able to just go through the other door and clamber across to the driver’s seat.

With this van, the only keyhole is in the driver’s door.  We don’t have one of those keys that locks/unlocks the vehicle remotely.  The ONLY way into the van when it’s locked is through the door that got blocked.

Why do people do that?

Has this happened to you, too?

The Re-Farmer

 

They Came Back

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

After a brief visit by Hungry Girl and Barbecue this morning, things were quiet at the feeding station for a while.

Then it got real busy, all at once!

20180209.running.deer

Mama and the twins came over, then Hungry Girl and Barbecue came back.  Mama, the twins and Barbecue ate peacefully together for a while, then something happened, and Mama chased Barbecue off.

The feed hadn’t been topped up when the outside cat stuff got done, so with 5 deer hanging around, I decided I needed to get some out there.  I startled the remaining deer away in the process and, for a while, I thought I might have chased them off for the day.

I was wrong.

20180209.five.deer

There are actually 5 deer in this photo.  You can just see the 5th one through the trees in the back.

They all stayed for quite a while, and every now and then, they would chase each other. Even the twins got in on it!

In the end, I think they all got a share of the feed.

The Re-Farmer

Deer Drama

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It has been very busy at our feeding station!

I had a sleepless night last night and had gone into the living room at around 4 or 5 am, unintentionally startling some deer.  After I had a snack and turned the lights out, I saw one had returned.  The moon was incredibly bright, casting shadows so sharp, I thought I was seeing two deer instead of the one that was there!

My husband posted a video of Mama and her twins, taken a couple of hours later.

After that, Hungry Girl showed up.  I think she’s starting to look less hungry!  Then off in the distance, through the trees, I could see a couple more deer coming closer.  After a while, I couldn’t see them anymore, but it was Hungry Girl who showed me where they were.  One little guy was gingerly making its way through the bushes.  Much to my surprise, she actually defended her space and chased it back.  Another little one tried from another direction, and she stood her ground there, too.

Then Mama showed up and chased Hungry Girl off, so that her twins could eat.

For a short while, all for of them were there, but the presence of the Mama and twins made Hungry Girl very nervous, and she moved away.  Mama chased her off a couple of times, too.

The twins are looking so round and fuzzy!  And Mama is a big girl!  I’m sure she’s taller than Barbecue, and just as sleek, though not as round an meaty.

Unfortunately, our camera has started acting up again, the motors refusing to focus and the shutter sticking again.  I was only able to get a few photos.  Here are the better ones.  I will check the images I got on my phone later and see if any of them are worth uploading, too.

2018-02-01.pine.grosbeak

The birds were busy, too, but I was only able to get one decent photo of this pine grosbeak.

2018-02-01.whitetail.twins

Look at how fuzzy the twins are!  Their coats are so thick.  Even their faces look rounder.

2018-02-01.whitetail.mom.baby

Here is Mama with one of the twins.  You can see the burrs stuck under the baby’s chin.  They had burrs stuck in their tails, too.

Mama kept a very close watch on us in the window!

It think we should look into some sort of film coating for our window.  Partly so that the animals can’t see us inside, while we can still see out, and partly to reduce reflections, as birds are flying into the reflections of the trees on the glass.

Now, it’s time for me to go and start some sourdough bread baking.  My younger daughter had taken on the break baking role, but she’s not feeling well today, so I get to do it, this time! :-D

The Re-Farmer