Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Coffee Time #94. I’m Being Watched.
Good morning everyone on this beautiful Tuesday! Grab yourself some coffee and relax while I tell about my morning. The raccoons have been out and running around for a while now, so I have to bring my hanging feeders inside at night. Now, there’s one I made which is a bit more awkward to bring in and I noticed the raccoons could barely reach it. So I put it out a bit farther and figured it would be safe, so I have been leaving in outside and just bringing in my hanging tube feeder. No problems lately. Good, it works. I go out this morning at 5:45 to put food out for the birds, it’s daylight and the birds are waking up.
When I got outside however, I got this feeling which happens sometimes. It’s like I’m being watched. I look around but there’s nothing out there except some small birds. I hung up the tube feeder, then noticed my other feeder was ripped apart. Crazy raccoons, now I have to fix it. The gulls showed up, so I went back inside and got food for them. Still had that weird feeling though. At 7 am there was a bunch of noise on the deck. Muffin jumped up to the window and was immediately scared. That means a bear.
Sure enough, a bear was out there and broke my tube feeder to pieces. Sigh. Now I have to buy another feeder. So much for bringing them inside to keep them safe at night. This is during the day. Sigh. Then what does he do? He lies down on my deck, kind of curled up and started to wash himself. On my deck. After breaking 2 of my feeders. It was obviously this critter that broke the other feeder, not the raccoons. And this bear is the reason for that weird feeling. He was out there earlier watching me, I just didn’t see him. Happens every time I get that feeling, either a bear or a wolf. Now this was too much, so out I went and chased him off my deck.
This wasn’t a large bear, just a smaller one, but any bear is dangerous, they are wild animals and should never be trusted. They will generally run from people, like this one did, which is amazing considering their size and strength. But that word “generally” is important, because they don’t always run from people. Bears do kill people, up in this area there were 2 people killed by black bears last year. Anyway, I got a few pics, but they are not very good as you can see. These are old windows and doing an angle shot just doesn’t work so good. Sorry for the messy deck too, haven’t done my spring cleaning yet! I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve’s Bird Of The Day #47.
Hi everyone and welcome back! Today’s bird is the white-breasted nuthatch, we saw his cousin a while back, the red-breasted nuthatch. These birds are bigger and prefer deciduous trees, but will live in areas with mixed forest, therefore they don’t go as far north as their smaller cousins. They don’t migrate, just stay where they are year round. And they stay with the same mate as well, but will take a new mate if one dies. They usually use old woodpecker nests for their nests since they nest inside trees only and are not really able to make their own cavity in the tree. The female builds the nest and will lay 5 to 9 eggs, a lot for a little bird. They eat mainly insects and nearly all are harmful insects. In winter they also eat seeds and nuts, and they are easily attracted to bird feeders. About 85% of these birds live in the US, 10% in Mexico and only 5% in Canada. They love hanging around upside down like their cousins and will start at the top of a tree and go head first down the tree looking for insects.
Have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
