If someone had asked me, I would have said, without thinking about it too much, that wild visitors to Chez Gardener have been a bit sparse this year. I would blame the developers that cut down the woods behind us last year and built a house, though I might be just a little bit biased.
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the phenological patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on Follow.
After really thinking about it, though, and reviewing our photos, I’ve realized that we’ve actually had a rather exceptional year in wildlife sightings. Nothing earth-shaking or particularly unusual, but a lot of really neat encounters with common neighbors.
We started off with a squadron of turkeys back in May. Sadly, one of the males was killed in June but we still see the females and their flock of pullets once in a while.
In June, we were treated to a bird we hadn’t seen before, a female evening grosbeak. She stayed a few days then wandered off.
We had a bluebird visit our suet feeder, a first for us. We’ve hosted them in houses for years but they never visited the feeders till this year after they lost 2 nests to predators, possibly to house sparrows.
We even had some new mammals move in and make themselves known. Two red squirrels, maybe juveniles, started visiting and picking up peanuts and sunflower seeds at the feeders.
And, of course, we had all the usual suspects from the bird world, from the little black-capped chickadees to the big red-bellied woodpeckers and everything in between.
During July, while the bee-balm was in full bloom, a female ruby-throated hummingbird came by almost every day and we got some fantastic shots of her antics (thanks again, Darling Spouse, for picking out such a good camera!)
We even had a scary cardinal visit! He’s still bald as of yesterday but is eating like a champ. We call him Skeletor.
And last, but certainly not least, a few other mammals moved in to visit, these being somewhat larger than the squirrels. I was not there the first time they showed up but my Darling was and got some amazing photos. I did get to see them on Monday and they’re just as adorable in person as they were in photos.
So what’s been in your backyard this summer?
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