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It’s hard being a woodchuck.
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And if it’s not bad enough you have to battle your siblings for the daily buffet…
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Now you have to fight off a squadron of starlings when you’re trying to steal the fox food.
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Lots of little beaks make short work of the pile.
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Life is tough.
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Now that the apple tree (I didn’t plant but grows better than those I do) is spreading it’s branches we have more squirrels coming to visit our feeders.
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We have a wide open backyard and they prefer tree cover for safety. Like this hefty momma hanging out on the garden bed border.
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What a chonk!
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This my friend, is the perfect bowl of chowder. Found at the Freeport Cafe, an unassuming little place on Route 1.
Thick, rich, creamy and loaded with clammy goodness. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Driving along Maine’s back roads you never have to wonder where the rednecks live.
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They tend to leave their calling card.
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Smaller than the pileated, but still pretty.
He’s called the Red Bellied Woodpecker. Though I never have figured out why.
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If you care nothing for the feeding and rare sightings of our fine feathered friends please feel free to skip this post because I’m about to gush like a horny ornithologist.
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Yesterday evening at 7:41pm I walked by one of the windows that looks out over our backyard and saw this.
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We’ve lived in this home for over 20 years and I’ve only spied this elusive creature twice.
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They’re big, usually 20 inches long.
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They like deeply wooded areas and though we hear their jackhammer like drilling occasionally it’s rare to see them out in the open no less hanging on our suet nugget feeder having a nosh .
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To say I was thrilled is an understatement.
There was a female pileated woodpecker in our backyard!!!!
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The sexes can be distinguished by the amount of red feathers on their heads. Red halfway down the face to the eyes? Female. Red all the way down to the beak? Male.
River the bird nerd at your service.
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Not exactly a riveting video, I know.
But I had to share.
❤️
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I walked outside this morning to fill the bird feeders and found this.
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A pile of feathers.
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Having a hawk who uses our backyard as his personal hunting ground, this isn’t unusual… but seeing this around noon was.
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A young starling made numerous trips to the pile and gathered all the feathers in his (her?) beak.
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I’m sure they make wonderfully soft nest liners…
And are the perfect example of Mother Nature’s ability to recycle.
❤️
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You can’t use it, but I’m still putting it out there.
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Geese are territorial little buggers, and while I’ve never been personally attacked, I do tend to give them a wide berth.
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Good call Al. Neither do I….
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Maine’s state bird is the Chickadee… and you will pry him from our cold dead hands.
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Damn. My complaints about the red squirrel seem somewhat trivial now.
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It’s hard to watch, but alas… hawks get hungry too.
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And since mourning doves are plentiful in our backyard, not to mention slow….
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This is happening quite often.
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It’s the circle of life.
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Sharing some things that made me smile.
I saw the first Baltimore Oriole of the season yesterday and rushed to fill the feeder before they move on.
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They’re such glorious bursts of winged color I try to keep them around as long as I can.
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Perfect for that new Stephen King book.
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Because Lord Dudley Mountcatten always makes me smile.
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This would definitely make me smile.
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Bluebirds.
Always pretty, always look mean.
What have they got to be mad about?
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We live in Maine, ergo we watch (and love) the Red Sox.
But it seems like we’re not the only species to do so.
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This was the scene at a recent game. And in typical nothing bothers New Englanders fashion, play continued even though a pair of mallard ducks had landed right in the middle of Fenway Park.
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Being Boston fowl, they made themselves at home in the outfield, munching grass and doing what ducks are apt to do.
Poop.
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But hey, the Sox won the game… so no one was complaining.
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Because I was waiting for my husband (to please stop talking and get back in the damn car!) the other day… I scrolled through my cell phone’s photo album all the way back to the beginning to find the very first pic I took.
(As of today, I have 16,999 photos there. I love technology!)
April of 2013.
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Meet Little Cheeper, a baby robin we found on our lawn after a storm. No nest or mother in sight so we adopted and raised him until he was old enough to release.
Did that little bugger poop? You betcha!
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We kept him in a cat carrier overnight, but let him fly around during the say to strengthen his wings.
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I didn’t want to hand train him as the goal was to set him free…
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But he was a sweetie who followed me all around the house.
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And helped me blog.
He was an adorable little guy, even if he did occasionally resemble a Starship Storm Trooper.
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We fed him canned dog food per the vet’s instructions, supplemented with live worms and fruit.
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Blueberries were his favorite.
All too soon (for me) it was time to let him go, and though I cried… it was the right thing to do.
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He was hesitant at first, but when he felt the gentle June breeze? He took off for the apple trees and never looked back. I kept my eye on him for a few hours as he explored our property.. but he took to the air like a pro and was gone to do what robins do soon after.
❤️
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In Maine… you never what you’ll find around the next bend in the road.
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Yesterday it was a rather large flock of wild turkeys.
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Who were in absolutely no hurry to move out of my way.
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Since the husband chases every one of their brethren who show up under our bird feeders out of the yard due to prodigious amounts of poo….
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I was happy to stop and watch them amble by.
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