Morning visitors

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Two male pike escorting a larger female
View attachment 651734

A small pike (we call them “hammer handles”) lying in wait for dinner. People say pike are daytime fish but this guy was definitively waiting for a midnight snack.
View attachment 651733
Ever try NOODLING for them. Up in the grass like that you can just grab it by the tail and toss it on the barby. :)
 
I can tell autumn is approaching with all of the critters moving around more in the past week. Sorry that some of the pics are grainy.

I’ve had a hummingbird pair that likes to look into my screen tent. I’ve only been able to photograph the female.
765F5F87-6A87-4954-828D-CB1694B8B9D7.png

Mouse climbing a tree
D4F3709C-D4C4-423F-8995-3F16DF1B0AC0.jpeg

Whiskey jays showed up this morning for the first time since spring
43354B30-F255-4E67-8DFC-FC672C18C64E.jpeg

Multiple hatches of young chickadees around. Ironically I’ve had no luck getting them in my birdhouses
B987164E-D27A-47CF-BE53-0292C105B878.png

White admiral. These guys love to land on every piece of bear and wolf turd that I see on the trail which is kind of weird
84BA8276-690D-40D7-9F74-D1B250BB6673.jpeg

I’ve also seen tons of smaller birds of prey recently but they aren’t very photogenic.

Have had raccoon(s) visiting my food scrap pile as well. If I had a spare game camera I’d put one over it as the are fun to watch.
 
Went out to check the sauna last night and heard rustling and saw glowing eyes. Sounded like at least one other coon made an escape and this little guy treed in my yard. He was actually sleeping up there when I went out later.

Before this year I’d never seen coons or even tracks this far north. I’d seen tracks earlier in the year and several times I’d noticed the cat staring intently outside so I figured they were around.

17CEC763-0F5F-4827-946F-8C8B5E56930E.jpeg 41037DF4-74C8-4EE6-8233-1A17E3D4D18D.jpeg 21E98D97-7AD8-4643-9B26-DB70954B12B4.jpeg

There is very little of my stuff they can damage out here and as long as they don’t we shall coexist.
 
Went out to check the sauna last night and heard rustling and saw glowing eyes. Sounded like at least one other coon made an escape and this little guy treed in my yard. He was actually sleeping up there when I went out later.

Before this year I’d never seen coons or even tracks this far north. I’d seen tracks earlier in the year and several times I’d noticed the cat staring intently outside so I figured they were around.

View attachment 677704 View attachment 677705 View attachment 677706

There is very little of my stuff they can damage out here and as long as they don’t we shall coexist.

Had this lil fella and his kin around a few years back. Just passing thru I suppose as I never seen much else of em.
coon4.JPG
 
Feeding frenzy this morning. I need to get to the store and grab some black oil sunflower seeds. The birds much prefer that to the cheap blend of seeds. Need deer food too now that season is over.

8C9FF712-5859-4ED9-A607-472A257EB72C.png 49702585-B3ED-4BD3-84E5-BCD98DD707BD.png AA1CB7F3-8101-4BF2-A353-5C4AA57F936E.png
 
I love feeding and watching the birds in the winter months. I feed them year around but in the summer they forage much more so a feeder full will last a couple weeks. This time of year it's two days. I also put out four suet cakes about once a week. Haven't started feeding the deer yet but will soon. The turkey and deer keep the dropped sunflower seeds cleaned up pretty well. Fairly cheap entertainment for 6 months of the year.

SVK, what is your food of choice for deer? I usually feed corn or grain of some sort but i also toss out some bales of good clean alfalfa. I read that corn takes more energy to digest than it gives the deer so it's actually counterproductive to feed. They sure love the alfalfa bales but get a grass one or a moldy one and tgey wont touch it. Smart animals for sure
 
I give them whole corn. I’ve actually heard the opposite, that alfalfa takes more energy to process. I don’t know, but after feeding deer straight corn for many years, I’ve never seen one that didn’t look healthy. Up at our hunting cabin my neighbor does a $ pool with all the neighbors and puts out a huge bale of alfalfa and the deer love that stuff too!

The local mill sells whole corn for 12 bucks per hundred so it’s pretty cheap. I guess the fleet supply sells “deer food” for 9 bucks per 50 and does sale price of 7 bucks per 50 so I may have to try that out.
 
The deer were already up on the deck as of mid day yesterday which hastened my need to get them their own food LOL. I left the house at 2:30 and got home at 8:30. In that time they cleaned up all of the bird food I had put for them on the ground as well as licked everything out of the feeder.

0D3E3201-FBBA-4264-942C-CEB00A4C905F.jpeg B519DE1F-3842-4ECD-BADC-AB463B410E96.jpeg
 
I have a number feeders for the birds that are not yet put out as I don’t really want the deer to empty them every night. I think I’m going to have to do a larger hanging feeder that utilizes a pulley system so I can fill at chest level and then raise it high enough so momma deer can’t stand up and knock food out of it.

I have a couple of suet feeders as well. Need to hit the meat market to get a block of suet to put in there. Love watching the larger woodpeckers work away at that stuff.
 
I had a possum sitting on the ground under my bird feeder. A few shots with my SR22 scared it away. The wife didn't want me to dispatch it. If it gets to be a problem.........
 
The doe and fawn brought a friend. The blue jays have also multiplied. Also saw a downy woodpecker and a goldfinch today, the first for both this feeding season.

I don’t have any suet so I made a concoction with cooking oil and crushed crackers to put out for the woodpeckers. It’s solidifying in the freezer and I’ll put it onto an onion sack tomorrow and hang it from a tree.

6E51D7EE-062E-494F-B36A-A42509BD32FB.jpeg F3390D87-8B72-460D-8330-44E7C6C452CC.jpeg 90B8A682-B49A-49A4-BF8E-02FA35B044ED.jpeg 6752E8BA-6A4A-4798-BF09-898A77E9C998.jpeg 48D6B6B8-7072-4AE5-BF06-3008B96CE51C.jpeg 3519E699-3478-4496-B8F5-AC1F4448D7FC.jpeg 5863D8D9-7B0E-4636-BBCC-9103AE0D6739.jpeg 51AC6919-4322-4842-B2F2-B91A68C10F41.jpeg 7F5CBDBD-1B18-4CCC-9891-E36854F847A0.jpeg
 
Probably the coolest pic I’ve taken of my visitors. There was a second raccoon out in the woods too.
3439B163-E235-46B6-AFAE-BF781B369212.png

The doe and fawn visit 3-4 tines a day.
CF764A5A-EE2A-42ED-9102-56BA612F6A49.jpeg

The other raccoon was over by the fire pit
03BAA591-0096-479A-8719-1E574C340AC5.jpeg
 
I surely could keep this thread going with the menagerie that goes through my yard every day.

Put out a couple of bird feeders yesterday and had the first customers today. Chickadees were first followed by nuthatches, woodpeckers, and blue jays. Only the jays were interested in being photographed today.

Nobody has seen a bear in over two weeks so (knock on wood) they are gone for the season
51650AE9-60E3-47D0-A34D-45265F01603E.jpeg D6F05DCA-0ECB-4BB8-94D8-CAF52BF6DF1A.jpeg 4ECB29F5-1015-4004-831F-829BE4C17FC9.jpeg 2510CB61-98DE-48B3-8E23-EDAC81CA81D4.jpeg 33FCF6FA-522A-408A-AC1B-9F0533C6F05B.jpeg 76EB9D86-D5C3-472B-A896-62AD38AA51A7.jpeg FC4EF0B9-B41F-4AFA-A2AB-E964152B99B7.jpeg
 
A neighbor about a mile away was setting up a ground b lind for deer hunting when he saw a bear close by. He tried chasing it off an when he thought it was gone he headed back to his house to get his 4wheeler. The bear had followed him home and wouldn't leave. The neighbor had a loaded crossbow with him so feeling threatened, he shot the bear. He called the DNR to report it and they came and got the bear and were going to have it tested. They suspect something may have been wrong with the bear not to be afraid of humans. Makes me think I should be armed when working in the woods.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top