These two young deer came by today to check out the birdseed. They are looking very healthy in their Winter fur. Despite the cold they must appreciate the reprieve from the deer fly that torment them leaving them looking ragged and unhealthy.
I’ve always known a group of eagles to be called a convocation but apparently, and almost more appropriately, they are also known as a soar of eagles. These are eight of twelve bald eagles cruising above our house today, much to the consternation of the local ravens. At this time of year the eagles are feeling less territorial so large ‘soars’ are a common sight.
In the past couple of days we have had close to 8 inches of rain. Very uncomfortable for deer and people!
Fortunately the sun came out today and this young doe took some time out to dry out.
Back in the mid 1970’s when we bought our acreage it was covered in second growth forest. We built our house and then started clearing small areas for gardens. I was working as a gardener at the time, mostly for seniors, and my clients would give me plants that I had divided or removed. Our family would also give us plants to help us establish the garden. It became a habit with my wife Sharron to make an index card record of each plant. She would document what the plant was, where it came from, where we planted it, what care it needed and what beneficial uses it might have. With the advent of more affordable digital photography I started taking photos of the plants. As time went on we started compiling the information together and printing it.
At some point we started looking farther afield and started documenting ALL the plants on the property and that stretched into all the wildlife, birds and bugs.
We have managed to put together a good collection of entries but we are aware of how much it still out there! Haven’t even started on the lichens, fungi and mushrooms yet though I have hundreds of photos still on my computer. Fortunately Sharron has taken up photography in the past few years so we have been able to speed up the process somewhat though admittedly we can’t foresee it being done in our lifetime.
The last bear of the season finishing off our walnuts
We have been helplessly watching a very industrious squirrel raiding our walnut tree but his greediness got the best of him. I noticed some unusual green at the base of our very old, damaged apple tree. On closer examination I found walnuts buried in the surrounding fir cone midden and more walnuts in the hollowed out tree. I gather about 15 pounds worth of nuts, leaving some for the squirrel.
This guy came crawling by the other day and was very impressive. At first I thought it might be a Luna Moth caterpillar but unfortunately I don’t think we have them this far north.
I took photos of this large, slightly damaged Polyphemus Moth in 2011. Incidentally, Polyphemus was the one-eyed son of Poseidon from the island of Cyclops in Greek mythology.
A beautiful butterfly attracted to our columbine
Hard-To-Come-By Lifestyle 