Blue birds

I snapped this picture last week but didn't get the time to do a post with it.

This blue bird took advantage of a nice day we had and started gathering nesting supplies. you can see some grass in his beak. Last year they came home too late and the swallows had taken his favorite nesting box. (we have three) this year by golly, hes not letting it happen! I haven't been home nearly as much as i like to be so that i can watch this nest, and its much too soggy to wander out that way to see where the construction is at. But i will try to be more vigilant in my watching!

Mallards

The mallards have returned. The mallards come every years for the summer. Daddy used to watch for them every spring. one of the sure signs that winter was finally over.

See, Daddy raised mallards from eggs in his incubator one year while i was a teen, and then set the free. he was very careful to not make "pets" out of them. we never kept them in a cage, they just wandered the farm. then one day they stopped coming home for corn. then the next spring the came circled the farm and lit on the creek. (which we can see from the house)

now, the average lifespan of a mallard is 8-10 years. and its been longer than that since we raised that first pair of mallards. So i doubt that these are our mallards, BUT i don't doubt that these are the grandchildren of our ducks. because before we raised our ducks we never saw mallards here.

THE mallards or their descendants, its still a welcome site every spring.

with the rain we have had, they have all sorts of places to swim. they swam down the ditch in the pasture to the left of my house and this picture is next to the salt lick rock in the barn yard. it rains nearly every day right now. April has truly been a month of April showers. the years are mucky if you walk in them and you don't have an actual puddle, it is more like a over full sponge. no wonder the ducks are here!

weather confusion

I don't know if you can tell from this shot, but that haze on the mountain isn't fog, or smoke its SNOW!

Just yesterday, i was noticing daffodils that were up and budded at my moms (tulips are up too but not buds yet) and I knew if moms were budded, mine would be poking out of the ground.

sure enough they are, and we had a warm day yesterday, and thunder and lightening storm and BUCKETS of rain. BUT today? snow! this is crazy

More Snow?

I personally think an additional 13 inches of snow is a bit much! especially since we were supposed to have an early spring! Steve jsut came in from trying to shovel out, and he said the snow is 14 inches in the driveway and thats not althe way to the dirt, BUT with heavy wind we cant really say how much snow actually fell.

This is Steve's car, you can see the drift behind his car by the fence.

its a two foot deep drift.

This is my "nature window" that's way too much snow against that window!

This shot is for my mom, I know she can tell how much snow is piled up on this drift!

Spring!

Yea it is still cold, and there is still snow on the ground. But my blue birds are BACK!

If you remember, last year they were late returning, and the swallows took their box. So my blues never nested here.

well they are making CERTAIN that doesn't happen again aren't they? no nesting material but this is the second time i have seen them to this box. the last time was the day before the 12 inches of snow! but i was unable to get a snap of them. they were her and gone so quickly. but yesterday when i snapped these they were here for quite a while. :)

Glad to see they are back!

HOLY SNOW BATMAN!

I dont think ihave ever woken up to this much snow after a 50 degree day! at 4:30 this am we ahd 9 inches of snow! Steve was "trying to get my car out so that we could go to work today. (the snow was higher than the center of myhubs) But we opted to take advantage of a kind offer of a ride in a 4wheel drive. so off to work we go!

FYI when this picture was taken, we had 10.5 inches of snow!

Could be worse.... It could be raining!

Wait! IT is! wow it has POURED rain all night, and the forcast says 100% chance it will KEEP pouring!

I have a stream that behind the house, its not really big, most places you can wade across in capris and not get your pants wet. but today its UP! the furthest water in the picture is the actual creek bed. the rest of the water is where the feeder streams ( less than 12 inches across) have over flowed the tiny bed and run all over. and the main stream has broken its banks and have made an island around in a very old bed that at one time was occupied by a local beaver.

These storms never seem to affect my home, they just make the stream a bit deeper in spots. and well flood my basement. I amcertain that any one who has water in thier basement from time to time will need to get out the mops and such to dry the place out!

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another bug!

This one is a walking stick.... to see two odd bugs in the same month is wild! I thought this was clearer or i would have snapped another pic before removing it from my porch rail.

ALBINO Praying Mantis

Praying mantis's are pretty rare around here we may see one every two years or so, but my daughter was unloading her car the other day when she freaked out there was a big bug crawling from a pile of hay in our drive way up her leg.

Steve ran over to her to see what she was scared of, she said it was a "pink bug" he hollered back to say it was just a praying mantis. I dashed for the house to get my camera!!! Praying mantis are normally GREEN!!!!

How rare is this?! NEAT!

Nature Update

I just realized I havent posted anything about my nature in a while!

Baby Birds...
I checked on the babie birds a DAY after my picture and they were GONE! I saw NO flying lessons, no babies in the grass, they were just GONE.... guess i had missed warm ups? We now have a wren building in another box. I have seen the blue birds, but no nest looking over just yet.


Mr and Mrs Fluffytail...
They are still here, They love our peanuts, and they dont mind sharing them. They have encouraged chipmunks and red squirrels to enjoy the bounty of our home as well.

this is our porch rail, and that is a feed dish i set out,
peanuts and an inch of water.
Cute little bugger cracked the peanuts and
hid them UNDER the dish

He also like climbing on our expand gate that we keep for kids/dogs that may be at our house visiting.

New Visitors...

When you encourage Nature to come to your house, you sometimes get wild animals that should not be here....

I did not go outside to take this shot...
there were three two month old coons here yesterday AM
and they moved on shortly after these were taken

Ready to leave

well the babies are all but ready to leave the nest. fully feathered. they dont look like helpless birdies any more. The next shots I will take of them is trying to fly....

BABIES!

I snuck outside and peeked into the swallow nest, I figured there would be babies since there is alot of coming and going of the mommy and daddy. and sure enough we have babies! I think there is 4 babies, I was really suprised they didnt want fed when i stuck in the camera! maybe next time!

SQUIRREL

I love squirrels. Not only in a pan fried, but also playing in a tree. My Mom (who lives next door) has too many of them. But for the life of me I cant seem to get a squirrel one to come to my feeders. I have been trying for 10 years. I have put out a squirrel feeder, thrown peanuts in my yard, flat open feeders, you name it I have been on a quest to get a squirrel to come to my feeders.

Now its not like I live in town where there is lots of noise and commotion. heck the last place I lived was in town and you could nearly feed the squirrels by hand. But I am near TWO forests! one in front of me and one behind me. But yet Mr. Fluffy-tail was no where to be seen.

UNTIL YESTERDAY

Yesterday Morning during my normal
"whats going on outside the nature window" check I saw this!

and as an FYI when I did my check today in the rain, Mr. Fluffy-tail had brought along Mrs. Fluffy-tail for breakfast and a chase up the tree. Guess I will be watching for a video shoot!

Out the Nature Window

As you can see today was a misty morning due to the heavy rains last night. and just as the day is starting to wake up is when my nature "area" outside my bathroom window gets busy.

This morning was particularly busy, it has since slowed down ( if you miss the breakfast rush you missed it) Of course we had the swallows dive bombing everyone. But they themselves were a sight to watch, remember the HUGE feather in the nest? well apparently, they had it get in the way of the door, they pulled it out then put it back and pulled it out and put it back, finally they got it situated.

We also had a red bellied woodpecker. But this was the one who caught my eye, A rose breasted Grosbeak. they are only here in the spring, they kinda pass through my area, I was glad to see that i did not miss the migration this year.

I also caught a glimpse of a squirrel (could it be really?) eating sun flower seeds under a feeder that a group of obnoxious crows spilled last week. We will be watching more for him in the next week or so!

Swallow update

I had to snoop, but at least i took my camera so i could snoop for you as well!

I didnt see how many eggs there are, i am betting three or four. but by the time I quick snapped this shot they were swooping on me pretty good so i made tracks!

Swallow's Plight

This AM I was watching my swallows build their nest.

The male picked up a piece of straw in his mouth the long way <---------> and flew up to the nest and tried to get this piece in the hole without turning it.

IN FULL "husband mode" it was if he turned to her who was sitting on the wire, and said, "It wont fit"

she then turned and looked at him as if to say "Yes it will, bring it here"

So down he flew to her. She looked at him and said "yes it will, go try it again"

He flew back to the nest and slammed his head to the hole four more times. Trying to get this piece of straw into the hole. He then flew off, and she was close on his heels.

I could only imagine his saying "No it wont!" and she saying "you get back here and get this finished!"

Nesting!

We apparently the girl has made her decision. The third swallow is gone, and there is hay in the nest. I guess soon we will be having babies!

well they aint blue...

We have swallows... I haven't seen a trace of the blue birds yet but we have swallows. I guess we will just be happy to see babies! The blue birds didn't show up here last year until May 26th So I think we can rent this out for a month.... and if they are still here, I have yet to put out the two new boxes I received for christmas!

Pileated Woodpecker

When I was 14 or so, My mother and I were in the yard at her house and one of these Huge woodpecker landed on the tree next to us. It was about 16 inches long.... yes thats big. It was a truely once in a lifetime chance to see this bird. Mother and I had never seen it before and we both agreed if we would always remember seeing it. We live on the edge of a wood, but we have heavy traffic on our road so these woodland birds don't normally come out this far.

Today I found out it isnt a once in a lifetime kinda thing, its a once in twenty years kinda thing. He flew into the tree that holds my large flat feeder. (that came down this last winter) I just happened to see his beautiful white under wing band as he flew past my window. I ran for my camera, but it wasnt where I keep it so I missed the shot. :(

The picture here is from Wiki at least that was available for me to tell Steve and Michelle what I had found! If you would like to see more on this bird,

Click here to read more about the Pileated Woodpecker...

Click here to hear the Pileated Woodpecker...

When we listened to this file, we both agreed that we hear this A LOT for only seeing this bird twice in my lifetime. Steve has only seen it once.

Sugar snow

We have a light dusting of sugar snow. I would have a picture of it for you, but my camera is in my car. No I am not afraid of a little snow, but prior to the snow, it rained. So my camera is frozen in my car. Every car was frozen this AM and since I don't have to go anywhere today or at least until this afternoon, I'm just gonna skip the pic today :)

I ran some errands after noon, and when I got home at five I snapped this shot of what was left of our sugar snow.