January Blahs

How's everyone doing (whoever may still be catching my random blogs)?  

It's been pretty blah here this past month.  Dark and dreary sums up January around our area.  I think we've had 3 days with some sort of sunshine and not a full day of it either.  Sure the spring like temperatures are nice in a way but the rain and cloudy skies just drain and depress me.  Our backyard has suffered with this mild weather.  Odd to hear male northern cardinals belt out their spring song just after Christmas, and the robins soon followed with theirs.  These "bird tunes" are usually a treat for me in mid-February as we are two thirds of the way out of the winter season.  They won't be nearly as special since I have heard a fair amount of them already.

Our visiting eastern screech owl has been MIA most of the month.  Through the end of 2022, he was here 25 of the last 53 days.  In the first 25 days of the new year, he has been here for 4 of them.  It is clear to me that we are his cold crappy weather day roost.  I've predicted his last 2 visits just by the weather.  We are supposed to get about 20 cms of snow this afternoon and through the night; so I am betting he will be back tomorrow.  Here he is late one afternoon watching the birds in the holly bush below.

Early in the winter our doghouse behind the shed was getting some tenants.  An opossum had been using the house and it would appear some days a skunk shared it with him.  Then as winter took a break from us, the animals stopped using the house.  I set the camera up down there some nights to keep up on the activity.

I just deleted a lot of the trail cam photos, which had both of the animals in the house on the same early morning, so you will have to take my word for this.

We're delighted to be seeing an eastern cottontail rabbit around the backyard some days.  It has been a couple years since we last saw one.

Here he is from this morning.  Great camouflage!  Maybe he has been around more and I've not been seeing him?  Can you spot him?

I haven't been out for many walks this past month.  The few I have been on have been void of anything cool and unique to share.  The owl sightings this winter have been nil.  All my usually good for a random sighting every winter haven't had any owls.  I recon I need to expand my searches elsewhere and probably will in February.

Snowy owl sightings on my way home from work really haven't been a thing either this winter.  I had a few encounters before Christmas and then nothing except for one night last week where I had 2 snowys about 500 ft from each other.  One was on a highway sign in between the east and west bound lanes; the other was on a service road off the highway and I made my way over to have a look at him since I hadn't seen one in over a month.  I wished I had my camera with me as the owl was rather relaxed about my presence down on the street below him and he just sat up on the lamp post,  mostly looking elsewhere, perhaps out to his friend on the highway or maybe the field across the highway.  I watched him for many minutes before getting out of the car to try and take a picture of him with my phone and even putting it up to my binoculars for a closer view.

Here is my view of the owl from the street.

And the owl with my phone up to my binoculars.  A cool ghostly out of focus effect.

Ripper still comes to visit.  What can I say other than he is awesome!

Gulliver too although her visits are very brief because of the hawk activity.

Maybe "January Blahs" isn't the best title for this blog?  I have much to be grateful for with the animals, don't I?

How has your January been?

One More for 2022

Hey there.  Lately I've been pondering doing a blog but with the holiday season quickly approaching, time just keeps getting away from me.  It's a very windy morning here in Toronto with some kind of storm rolling in that I will be glad to get through only because I am sooooooooooooooooooo tired of all the talk about it coming, be it on the television, the radio, people in my travels.  Funny how a potential of 10 centimetres snow can be such a conversation piece.  But enough about the weather though it may get one last mention in my first photo here that I took about 30 minutes ago, around 8 AM on December 15th...

I was just putting the coffee on when I spotted this Virginia opossum looking out from under our shed.  I've been seeing opossums fairly regularly this fall in our backyard.  Mostly through our trail cam but every few weeks I do seem to cross paths with one out there.

Hopefully he stays under our shed today.  It's rush hour as I key this and, *gasp*, there's a storm rolling in.  It's just starting to rain now.  His bare toes, tail and nose will surely feel the wrath of winter.  Poor guy.  The doghouse is packed with fresh straw if he chooses to use it.  UPDATE - 8:42 AM and he is still down there.  This blog may take me a little longer to do as I keep looking out the window, checking for him.

Little Al the eastern screech owl is also quite regular this fall.  Last winter we would go a week or more at times without seeing him but so far this time around, it's a day or two without a sighting and then he is back.  Since I don't see him weekdays because of my work hours, I find myself glued to the kitchen window on the weekends at dusk.  Silly since he doesn't do anything for the most part, maybe watch the last birds of the day flutter around, or the cardinals chasing each other, and then as it is just about dark, he flies out of the box and heads to the nearby cedars.  I guess it is still just so cool to have a little owl hanging out during the day in our backyard, and gives us a bit of bragging rights.  LOL!

Thanks to Facebook memories, I learned the other week that Gulliver and I had just passed one year since she first came to my hand.  It sure seems a lot longer than that but now I know.  She's still a regular visitor although lately there's been some MIA spells most likely due to the hawk activity.  I've seen a few cooper's hawks flying in and there's also a red-tailed hawk hanging out on a tower near us, which has also come through here on occasion looking for a meal.  Here's Gulliver and I from a couple mornings ago, being all festive.

Ripper still comes around most days.  I remember last year around this time I was missing him as he had been gone since the summer.  What a gift it was when he suddenly reappeared over the Christmas break; or was it New Years?  Doesn't matter, all I know is my jaw dropped when he ran up to me after being gone for 5 months.  I spoil him every time I see him but we've not had many up close and personal moments.  Not sure why really.  I see him and set a big pile of food out for him.  But he's always willing to come to hand if I put it out.  The other week he scared the heck out of me as I was feeding Gulliver and he came up from behind, climbed part way up a nearby tree and then jumped from it onto my shoulder.  Gawd, give this older guy a heart attack why don'cha?  He's awesome.  Here's us a month or so ago also being festive.  I'm not sure what just happened with this paragraph after doing an edit here.  Oops...

Our rescue budgie Frankie is doing well.  He's adjusting to life with us and is slowly coming around to trusting me.  I an put my hand in his cage now and tend to his seed and water dishes without him freaking out now.  That's a big step forward.  He tweets much of the day and smooches his friend in the mirror.  He's seldom alone with me being home all morning and then Angie home later in the afternoon.  He gets table time at the back window which he really enjoys.  I've been leaving his cage door open at times but so far he has no desire to step out of it.  Back in mid-November we had a really warm morning and I took him out on the deck with me.  He got very quiet and seemed nervous about the whole thing.  Maybe he thought I was going to let him go?  Who knows how he ended up outside back in early October, what his former life with whoever was like?  He is quite happy and really loves being put to bed at the end of the day.  I still think he came from a breeder, like all those others that were flying around here this past summer.  Maybe they all lived in someone's shed or garage?  If only he could tell us all about it.

I'm starting to see snowy owls on my way home from work again.  The first one was 3 weeks ago and I have seen two this week.  They are a treat to spot even if I am just passing them doing 110 km/hr on the highway like many of my winter sightings but occasionally I will find a place to park where it is safe to do so and watch them, try for a picture.  I'm going to try and track how many sightings I have this season since it would be too hard to track individuals.

Well, I better stop this blog now and get my day started.  The opossum is still here an hour later.  I put some cat kibble out for him as he has been going to this spot which is under the bird feeder.  I keep that sheet of ply wood out so during the winter it is a spot that I can easily shovel for the ground feeding birds.  There's no grass in this spot anyway so it's all good.  I took this picture from the window as he is a very skittish animal and I don't want to spook him out of the backyard.  Not everyone in the neighbourhood would appreciate seeing an opossum wandering around.  Odd, despite all the promotion from so many wildlife organizations about all the good these animals are for us, some people are still really freaked out at the sight of one.

Okay, off I go.  Wishing you all a very merry Christmas, however you spend the holiday season, and all the best in 2023!  Cheers!

He's Back! Hoooo? Read On...

Yesterday morning I woke up to the sounds of angry birds in the backyard.  It started with the blue jays screaming away and soon they were joined by some northern cardinals, house sparrows and lastly a couple of red-breasted nuthatches.  My first thought was that there was a hawk in the yard.  Then I thought maybe a cat as we're having some problems with a few free roaming in the neighbourhood.  It was only when I saw the nuthatches going to the owl box, poking their head inside and still giving something proper s**t that I suspected an owl was within the box.  If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that we had an owl all through last winter.  Angie named him Little Al.

I puttered about in the house like I do every morning with those few chores, finally getting the coffee on all throughout I kept some attention to the box outside both with my eyes and ears.

Finally, after X amount of time, the owl appeared at the entry hole and looking out to the backyards beyond.  I knew without any doubt that this grey morph eastern screech owl was the same bird that hung out with us last winter.  Man was I ever happy to see him!  I texted Angie and she too was beyond thrilled that he came back.

I stepped out onto the deck and took a few record photos of the moment and then let him be.  

I've got some great shots of the owl back in April so I really don't need to try for any more other than distant "look hoo's here" stuff for random social media bits.  One of my better photos back in the spring.

He made a couple more very brief appearances before I left work.  Then Angie saw him when she got home from work, just sitting there with the last light of the day.  She witnessed him fly out of the box at 5:13 PM for his evening hunt.  Lucky her to see him do things some evenings.

Project Feeder Watch just started up last week.  I'll be happy to add him to my count days.

Welcome back Little Al!

The Gate

This is a blog that I have been meaning to do for quite some time now.  There's not much story telling but some may enjoy seeing the action at our gate.  The gate is the entrance to our backyard.  I've found this to be one of the best spots to set up the trail camera at night as many of the animals enter our yard from here instead of climbing the fence or going through some breaks in an older part of it down at the back.  I tell you that even some nights I am surprised at how much action there is here, and the frequency too!  Check this out!

I'll start with a short amount of time in one night.  Less than half an hour and here is what happened.

In comes a raccoon.

The raccoon is soon joined by an opossum.

Both disappear but now in comes this cat.

This may be the same raccoon back at the water basin, now with a skunk.

I assume he knows what a skunk can do so he gives it some space.

Along comes an opossum again, probably the same one from earlier.

Okay, so it's only four animals in total; nonetheless, it is a busy spot.  If you aren't convinced yet, how about this from a few nights earlier?

Two opossums!  Neither are our female that we call mom who is missing her tail and now has a right eye injury; she still comes around.

Need another example?  I know we have a number of skunks in the neighbourhood and the camera caught three at once.  

For me, I can see even with single skunk photos that there are different ones visiting because of the stripe patterns, and some don't have stripes at all and just a white cap.  Some say I have too much time on my hands studying these captures but it's all very interesting to me.  Look at these two, very different patterns.

We've also got a rabbit coming around three or four nights a week.  I've yet to see him with my own eyes but it is nice to know he is out there.  I like this capture.  The rabbit sat out there for many minutes and Angie is in the bathroom, having no idea that he is there.  I could do a blog of early morning captures and title it "What Angie is Missing", showing all these creatures outside the bathroom window while she is in it during her waking moments or getting ready for work.

A few mornings later.  Angie is already gone for work and I am not awake yet.  That could be another blog one day, "What Rob is Missing", showing cam captures from the 30 to 45 minutes before I am out of bed.

The rabbit is most often coming through around three in the morning.  

A rainy night and he's here.

I'd like to know what it is eating.  I grew kale for him and it is still out in the garden, not even a nibble on it.  We put our carrot shavings out there some nights; sometimes lettuce, grapes, etc.  Perhaps I will set the cam up in the garden some nights when these things are left out there?

Before I go, here's a couple more from last night.

It's hard to track how many raccoons are around nowadays.  The young ones are quite big now and everyone has spread out.

I'd love to see something like this, a couple skunks waddling around together.

Ten minutes later they're still out there mingling.

And lastly, an opossum.  

I have a big soft spot for these animals especially as the weather gets colder and winter arrives.  They suffer during this season with their bare tail, toes, ears and nose.  We provide  a couple straw filled shelters for them but it is up to them if they will use them or not.  We try.  If nothing else, they can usually find some apple pieces as they wander around the yard.  Some of the raccoons have taken to the gala apples this year, and sometimes they get to them before the opossums.  I like our raccoons but anytime I see the opossum getting the apple, I am a little happier.

I hope you enjoyed visiting the gate here with me.  It's odd to me how many people don't believe there is another world out there after dark.  Not everything goes to sleep for the night; for many, the dark is their time.

Happy Halloween

Well here we are at the spookiest time of the year.  While Angie and I aren't the big party people like we once were so many years ago, we still enjoy this festivity.  It's bit of a hoopla on our little street with all the neighbours; the one time of the year that we see almost everyone outside at the same time.

One thing I enjoy is getting the pets involved even if it is only for a silly photo session for a few minutes.  Speaking of which, did any of you happen to see Merry and Molly on CTV news last night?  They had a few seconds of fame in their pet costumes spot at the end of the show.

Merry is a lot better about the whole dress up thing than what Molly is.  Merry purrs and loves to play along with her daddy.  Molly, I'm lucky if I can keep anything on her for more than 3 seconds.

What a face!  Believe me, she was purring here.

Silly girl...  or is it "silly Rob"?  You tell me.

Good Molly for a second.  I have to be fast with the camera.

Funny how Meadow would play along with me and these photo moments.  She too would purr away and take it all in stride.  Man we had a lot of fun over the years.

Pets are family too.  They should be a part of all the fun all throughout the year.

So, I want to wish you all a very happy and safe Halloween, no matter how you spend it.

Lastly, I recently discovered a great account on Instagram called Groundhog Hill.  They do single panel comics and frequently include some of our favourite yard critters.  Here's a couple examples from the other day just in time for Halloween.  If you are on Instagram, please check them out.

One more.  All I can say is "who wouldn't love to hang out with an opossum?"

Alrighty, off to get my day started and enjoy the weekend ahead.  Thanks for stopping in.  Cheers!

Budgie #5

If you read my last blog, you may recall how I wrote about how many budgies we had in the backyard this past summer.  Four was a ridiculously sad amount of "lost" birds.  I swear that I have jinxed myself as just days later after publishing that blog along came budgie number five.  I really think the jinx started earlier in the summer when talking to a neighbour about how many domestic birds I had seen in the 'hood over the years and that it had been quite a while since I last saw one.  Someone, somewhere heard this and said "hold my beer, you asked for it".

We had just gotten home early Sunday afternoon from a walk and I went out to the yard to see what was going on, looking for any migratory birds, check on my pigeon buds, etc.  I wasn't out there long when I heard a budgie tweeting.  I thought "oh no!"  I raced back to the house, grabbed a towel, our rescue cage and my camera.

It took me a bit of looking before I finally spotted the bird in the foliage along the fence.  It's a male as you can see by his blue cere (nostrils).

I made noises at the bird, clicking and silly squeaky sounds to get his attention.  He flew out of hiding, went right over my head and then landed on some wires across the yard.

The bird spent the afternoon out back, either on the ground looking for food with the other birds or flying about the trees, checking out some other backyards but always returning to ours.  It was a mild  and sunny October afternoon.

Wanna caption this photo?

I wish I took some video of the bird as he had no fear of the bigger birds, and none of the other birds gave him any grief for being out there.  I remember when Misfit was living out back that summer, the blue jays were constantly chasing her.  They knew she didn't belong out there.  Misfit always got away but she never had peace when they came in.  This boy though, it was like he belonged out there and always had been out there.

The budgie showed no interest in the cage, no matter where I set it over the next few hours.  I even put my bluetooth speaker inside, playing budgie calls, to try and lure him in.  No luck.  I couldn't throw a towel over him because all the other birds would flush at the sight of a towel in my hand, and when they flew, so did the budgie.  I gave up on any sort of chase as it got later in the day.  The temperature was going to drop down to 4 Celsius over night, so I really wanted him to have a good feed before it got dark.  

Most of the other birds were disappearing by 6:30 PM.  The budgie was still here. I watched him fly into our lilac tree a couple times before finally picking a branch to sleep on for the night.  He was about 12 ft off the ground, surrounded by branches and leaves.  There was no way I could grab him in there, or get a towel over him.

A crappy cell phone shot of him up in the tree.

I left him be and checked on him a couple times after dark before I went to bed.  He stayed put.  I think he had a better sleep than me despite the chill in the air.  I woke many times throughout the night thinking about him.  I was out of bed by 6:30 the next morning and setting my plan in motion.  I was going to try and trap him with a box, stick and long piece of rope.

As I stepped outside to set things up, I had to go back in and put a heavier coat on.  We haven't had a cool temperature like this in 6 months.  After I had the trap set, I sat in a chair and waited.  The budgie started to tweet around 7:20 AM.  By 7:30 he was out of the lilacs and down at the back.  He came to ground a few times looking for food.  I should add that during my set up of the trap, I cleaned the ground up of any spilled seed.  There was food out there but under the box that was raised on one end.  If I wanted a blue jay, I could have had one as this bird in the shot below spent a good 20 minutes or more under the box!

A few times he came so close...

I left the trap, as much as it pained me to do so, but I needed a coffee at one point, another time I needed a heavier coat, then I needed to get a bit of breakfast in me.  My absences were short and I kept thinking that this would be when he would go under the box.

Finally after almost 4 hours, he went under the box, I pulled the rope and he was trapped.  I brought out an old sheet from the shed, slid the box over the sheet, then wrapped the sheet around the box, and then brought it inside.  I then got the cage, bringing that in too.  He put up a fight with my hand as I tried to grab him.  He couldn't see nothing but my hand and when I had him, he bit me quite hard.  This wasn't my first budgie bite and I wanted this ordeal over with, so I held onto him, brought him out from the sheet and into the spare cage.  As soon as I let go of him in the cage, he hopped on a perch and totally relaxed.  What a good boy!

We've been debating on what to do with him.  Do we want another bird after over a year without?  Maybe.  How will Merry and Molly react to a bird in the house?  But before taking him in, we agreed to try and see if anyone is missing him.  I posted something on a lost bird page for Ontario.  All I got was 2 likes.  I was stunned at how many budgie posts were on this page, both for lost and found birds.  Unfortunately the found birds was greater than people posting about losing their bird(s).  Many of the found budgie posts were just people posting a photo of one they saw outside along with a location; not many were actually caught.  So sad especially as we move through fall and the nights are getting very cool.  These birds originate from Australia and don't do well in our cold Canadian climate.  I posted him in a couple other places.  I didn't care for some saying to leave him be, let him have a free life outdoors even if it is short instead of a life in prison.  I'd agree if this was a bird that could survive out there and not A) freeze to death and B) be so dependent on us humans to feed it from bird feeders.  I tried to explain this as much of a waste of time as it was and added that not every captive bird living in a house with humans has a terrible life of being ignored and locked up.  Drama everywhere, eh?  Doesn't matter where you go, what you do, someone is gonna stir shit, especially on the internet.

I've had a few offers to take him.  One I said "absolutely not" to as they are a breeder and wanted him to help make more budgies for the person to sell.  This is a huge part of the problem in the pet trade, people breeding animals for profit.  Budgies are sold quite cheap through private sales, hell even in pet stores they are inexpensive.  If the bird becomes a pain to someone because of the mess, or the squawking, then losing $15 or $30 is nothing to lose by opening the door and letting it fly out and having a budgie free home again.  I've seen adoption posts for these birds through the city, trying to home birds found, and the fee is a mere $7!

I can only imagine how many budgies are sleeping outside throughout Toronto right now.  Are they wishing they were in warm houses again with a seed dish all to themselves and not having to fight for supper?  Poor things.  They may be small but they have big personalities.

Okay, let's find joy in the rescue of this guy here.  One less stray bird on the street.  I will update soon on what became of him.  Will he become a Mueller?  

One last pretty shot of him in our holly bush.  This would be a lovely Christmas card, maybe in Australia.  What do you think?

Lastly, I read any comments left.  I reply to some but I don't think the person gets notice that I do.  Jennifer I learned about Muskoka from you.  Thank you.  Angie, unfortunately blogger has made a change where people who follow a blog no longer get notification on when a new blog has been published.  Why would someone think that change was a good idea?

Okay, it's 12:30 in the morning.  It has been a very long day.  I need sleep.  I hope this blog came across well.  I will probably read it over again tomorrow after my coffee.

Thanks for stopping in!