Wednesday’s Wanderings #16.

Posted on August 18, 2021 by

80 Comments

Good morning everyone! It’s a beautiful, sunny, summer morning once again. The number of forest fires has gone down again to just 101 now, 21 are either under control or being held, and 80 are not under control and most of those they are just letting burn since they pose no threat to people or property. We are supposed to get some substantial rain on the weekend, instead of just showers or thunderstorms, so that will help to dampen the forest fire problem. It will also end our present heat and basically it means the end of our summer as we now transition into autumn. Even now the yellow and orange is showing up in many trees, but not in a big way yet, just a reminder that fall is coming very soon.

This is Pocket, he lost part of his tail last year somehow.

evening there was another sign of fall coming, there were hundreds of ring-billed gulls flying around, something they do this time of year and then most of the older birds head out further onto the lake for a time. From there they head to Lake Superior where many will spend the winter. But ring-billed gulls will stay here too, mostly younger birds, until well into November some years. It just depends how early winter arrives. They stay late because the lake doesn’t freeze usually until mid November or later. That’s the nice thing about living next to a larger lake, it does make the area close to the lake a bit milder. Then there was another sign of fall approaching last evening as well. There were thousands of nighthawks flying, filling the sky above us as they were heading south.

Here is a picture of Skamper, you can get a look at his tail, how different it is. I’m not sure what happened to it.

It didn’t always look like they were going south, they flew around in every direction, but once nightfall hit they would be going south. They’re our first birds to head south. It’s quite something to watch all those birds. I even tried for some pictures, like I do every year, without any success. They fly too fast and too erratic to get pictures. I could have tried for a video I suppose, but I wanted an actual photo. They have one main day, or night really, that they all leave each year. This is in the normal time range for them to leave, sometimes they can be earlier or, rarely, later. Nighthawks are not hawks, but are insect eating birds and very nice to have around. They are about the last to arrive in late May or early June, and the first to leave in mid August. So they are only here about 2 and a half months. Well, I must go for now, have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2021 Steve McLeod.

Category: Beauty, Birds, Chipmunks, Country Pleasures, Fun, Happiness, Photos, Positive, Summer, UncategorizedTags: , , , , , , , ,

80 Comments on “Wednesday’s Wanderings #16.”

  3. That was really fast, hopefully you get some sunshine here and there to keep you tanned😉 Enjoy the summer you have summer try to get all vitamin D you wanted. Skamper must have gotten his tail stuck somewhere, a bad injury could have caused his tail that way or maybe he born that way 🧐 night hawks, did you capture them? 🤔I mean on camera😉 looking forward to see them 🤗 Have a lovely day🎉

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    • Skamper’s tail was normal earlier this summer, so something happened to him.🤔 Perhaps he got bit on his tail?😬 He won’t tell me, maybe he’s embarrassed about it.🤯 I didn’t get any pictures of the nighthawks, just too hard, they don’t fly in a straight line, they are all over the place, turning all the time and they fly so fast! Oh well, always next year.📷😁🙄 I say that every year though.😂😹📷

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      • 😂😅 it’s okay, night hawks will come on to your camera one day, and will give you different poses for you 😎. Skamper must be embarrassed to share it with you, that sounds more like me, I’m a shy person too 😜😁

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      • 🙄um 🤔I think 😮 I am a shy person 😁 99% introvert 😑 Less friends, never had a long call with any friends, I had once one person they are not available now 😉 that keeps me idle most of the time now.😁 except office calls, nobody calls me or TXT me 😅

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      • How nice, no texts, I hate texts,😒 everyone wants to text these days,🤨 not me, nope, not me,🙄 but everyone does and they keep sending me texts😬 and they wonder why I don’t answer right away.🤔 I’m busy doing other things,🙄 I’ll answer when I have time,😀 but no,😒 they want an answer right away and they keep texting until I answer!!🤣🤣🤣🤣😾😾

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      • Thats nice to have someone to text us, and notify us often 😅, you know, we have someone to disturb 😜😂 and doing it often? that annoys us 😵 but it’s okay, you don’t have to answer just because they disturb 😁

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      • Actually I hate texting.😒 My brother really enjoys it,🤭 he’s always texting.🙄🙄 Sigh. I’m not modern enough.😂😹

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  4. Looks like your chipmunks were in a fight ! Very smoky again altho’ not as bad as yesterday…another warm day…stay healthy and safe ! ☕️☕️🙂😺☕️☕️🐿🐿🥜🥜

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    • The chipmunks don’t fight, just chase each other around, and that’s not even serious most of the time. A beautiful day wasted indoors, sigh. Cool weather ahead.😳🌞☕☕😺

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  6. Do you know what species of chipmunk Skamper would be? He’s very cute.
    My local pet shop used to sell chipmunks but they were so hyperactive, it seems ridiculous to keep them in tiny cages. The poor things were literally running loop the loops the whole time they were awake. It’s now illegal to keep chipmunks as pets in the UK, not because of cruelty but because of invasive species possibilities.

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    • Chipmunks are extremely active animals, they don’t like to sit still. Yes, many chipmunks were let loose in parts of Europe years ago and managed to survive and start local populations, but they made it illegal back in the 1960s to sell or keep them as pets. I think they were the Siberian chipmunk which is the only species outside of N America. All 9 of the chipmunks that come here are the Eastern chipmunk,though we also have the Western chipmunk as well. That’s the only 2 species in this area. They love to crawl all over me, go in my pockets, they are very easy to tame.

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