Our Backyard

I thought you might like to see some of the visitors we have had this year.  Oddly, there are few frogs and toads this year which is beginning to alarm me.  When we first moved here, I would see half dozen or more at night.  But not now.  The groundhog is back, but no picture.  He is pretty shy and if he has any sense I am around he runs, his belly wobbling between his legs.  We have not seen the fox since the spring.  We always worry he has been run over by a car or something.  We can hear the owl but never see him.  I am very tempted to put out some meat and a night camera to see if I can get a sight of him.  There are deer everywhere and who cares?  Nuisances really.

I accidently killed the turtle that lived in our yard.  He got caught up in some netting I had put over my blueberry bush.  I cried long and hard about that and I gave him a proper burial while I sobbed.  That was hard.  It was heart breaking to find him.  I saw him every year hiding in the flowers and we would have a lovely talk.

Bluebirds are just beautiful.

Then there is the pileated woodpecker that is so much a dinosaur.

And my favorite, the sharp shinned hawk.  In this picture he is still young.  Now he soars over the house and his shadow crosses my window looking out from my desk to the backyard.    He hunts the bird feeder, which is okay by me.  There are red tailed hawks around too.  You can hear them and the birds chase after them in the sky.  But they don’t come to the feeders.