Winter Walk

We went for a walk in the bluff of trees by our house and took a few pictures which we have included. We like to check out the various tracks of the different animals in the snow. We came across deer, mice, red squirrel and coyote tracks in the bluff. It is a very peaceful place as the the wind cannot get at you amongst the trees and the elevation drops into a ravine in the centre of the bluff. This is where the resident deer raises her fawn throughout the summer. The area is also home to many of the bird species that raise their young here. We came across lots of bird nests built in the trees throughout the yard.

Right now the only bird species we have residing here are the Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers and lots of chickadees. The Magpies and Ravens hang around the yard, scavenging for morsels of food or carrion. They like to frequent the compost bin, when the compost reaches near the top of the bin. Today we watched a magpie try to figure out a way to get at the Suet feeder. We have it suspended from a tree limb and first the Magpie would stand on the limb above the feeder, and try to reach the suet and then it would jump to the branch below the feeder , but could not reach the suet that way either. Eventually it gave up, but we will keep watching as you just never know what they will come up with to access food. We provide suet, nyjer seed and black oil sunflowers for winter feed for the birds. The woodpeckers love the suet, as do the chickadee's. The woodpeckers like the sunflowers that are out in the gardens. On our walk we inspected the sunflowers that are still standing in the gardens and it looks like they have all been eaten now. We thought they would at least last till January as there were plenty of sunflowers still standing.

The final sighting of recent was a male Whitetail Deer, with a large set of antlers. It came sauntering out of the bluff, in front of the house around noon one day. Was probably visiting the resident doe.