Birds in the back yard

[Dotch]

Buddy of mine has a pond across the driveway from his house. Has Canada geese nest there every year. Said this morning the geese were sitting on the ice, perhaps waiting for it thaw out. They might be waiting a while the rate things are going.

[glenn57]

seen 2 swans and a few geese yesterday!!!   a little surprised to see the swans already...

with the sauk river open......i see swans all winter around here.

[Dotch]

Well, the skunk saga continues or does it? Last nite I caught our big white tomcat in the live trap. He's a PITA so was very lucky I decided to let him out. This time of year (breeding season) he shows up only sporadically and every time he does, he pisses all over. I hate taking a jacket off, laying it down, bringing it in the house only to have it smell like tomcat piss!!!!

Fast forward to tonite's chores: Picked up the feed pans, emptied water buckets and stuffed a dumb@$$ ewe back in her pen. She'd jumped into another ewe's pen apparently convinced her neighbor had more hay. She didn't. I was not amused. Walked down to the main barn, opened the walk-in door, turned on the lights, and saw the cats wanting to be fed. Except there was an extra black cat in the dark corner, with a big white stripe down its back! I shut the door quickly and ran back to the house as fast as my gimpy left leg would carry me. Grabbed my loaded 20 ga. SXS and went back to the barn. Tactical maneuver, threw the door open, stepped in, skunk was still there, bam! 2 3/4 #6 shot modified choke at about 8'. Stepped out, slammed the door. Waited a few seconds, no smell, opened the door again, stepped in, skunk still moving, bam! 2nd barrel, full choke 2 3/4 #4 shot. Was taking no chances. Pretty well cut the SOB in half. Then it stunk. Sorry glenn, when I was boxing it up, I thought you could maybe still make a hat out of it but afraid you'll have to settle for a pair of ear muffs. 

Dotch 1, 🦨 0

 

[glenn57]

 

[mike89]

wait till his wife gets the mail!!!!   

[Dotch]

Night shift...

4 deer in the pic but ya really gotta look to see 2 of them. Judging by the growling & woofing, they really got Poppy's panties in a twist. 

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[HD]

A couple days late cause of the snow squall.....

[LPS]

That is so cool HD.  That's a lot of deer and turkeys.  Thanks for the video. 

[glenn57]

looks like ya missed a few deer!!!!!!!!!

just as i figured no skurrels!!!!!!!

[Scenic]

Cool video.  Fun to watch them critters.

[mike89]

seen something interesting this morning when I drove to LP about 8am...  usually see many pheasants along the way, about 8 miles...  well I only seen 2 or 3 of them, but fox squirrels  were every where along the way!!!   a good dozen of them in that drive...  interesting I thought...   

[roony]

Saw a morning dove under one of the feeders. Do they migrate? I haven't seen one for quite some time.

[mike89]

Saw a morning dove under one of the feeders. Do they migrate? I haven't seen one for quite some time.

according to my bird book they do migrate but not that far overall...  more about food for them...

[Dotch]

I see lots of roony's striped-tail buddies napping along side the roads lately. Wonder why they're all so tired? 

[roony]

They are really run down.

[glenn57]

I see lots of roony's striped-tail buddies napping along side the roads lately. Wonder why they're all so tired? 

thats a good place for them down there......i could maybe send ya a possum!!!!!!!!

[Dotch]

I see them lounging around a lot too. They look shot.

[Bobberineyes]

I bet they do,  dead tired. Not much going on the feeders,  last weekend we had lots of finches but not alot this week. I did see mornin dove a little bit ago so that's a positive!

[Dotch]

Robins bouncing around the yard today. glenn's red-winged blackbirds were cleaning up under the sunflower feeder. Poppy's deer haven't shown up tonite. That probably won't stop her from growling and barking at them anyway.

[LPS]

We like red wing blackbirds here.   

[Jerkbiat]

We like red wing blackbirds here.

It's the grackles that me completely crazy.

[glenn57]

They both suck!;

[roony]

The Starlings have been raiding our feeders. They rank down there with the wrens.

[LPS]

Grackles, starlings, and sparrows are target practice here normally.  I see a bird getting in a bird house that the nuthatches use.  Took a minute for my eyes to focus and it was an English Sparrow.  Target practice but with my cataract no way could I hit it so I yelled at it and threw a snowball at him.  LOL  I showed him.

[Dotch]

For whatever reason the grackle numbers seem to be declining here. Prolly have had more robins than grackles nesting for several years. I agree tho about the sparrows & starlings. Both are messy, nasty, disease carrying birds that can spread things like coccidiosis, salmonella, & bird flu. The outfits that own the turkeys barns in the area have low tolerance for either species. With the exception of wrens, they can also disrupt native birds when nesting such as bluebirds. One year, starlings even occupied one of my wood duck houses! I cleaned those eggs out and tossed them in the pond. Bastages anyway! 

[glenn57]

Dotch, I would suspect you'd have sparrows with the barn and feed . Once the blackbirds and grackles move off to nest I usually don't have them around.

One key I find in not having in wanted birds is don't put out cracked corn of and seed mix with millet in it. I feed sunflower seeds, safflower and thistle. They don't like that they can pound sand!

[Dotch]

Actually we keep the sparrow population under control fairly well here as long as the cats do their job. If they don't & I can get at the nest, it's toast. If I catch a female house sparrow in a bluebird house I dispose of her. If it's somewhere I can't get at the nest as easily like in the barn, I like letting the eggs hatch then tearing the nest down before they can fly. Cats take care of the rest. The repeating sparrow trap has also helped when we haven't had cats. We keep the feed covered so birds, vermin and insects can't get into it. Also keeps the cats from crapping in it which can create a whole 'nother set of disease issues. Our neighbors to the south not so much. Beef operation so there tends to be a lot of feed around. Their dog kills cats so there's little to prevent birds from getting into feed and nesting all over the place. As hard as I try to eliminate the little bastages, they just keep coming back.

No cracked corn or millet fed here either, just ear corn and they don't bother that. The sparrows here will eat sunflower seed and for a while, even ate suet as did the starlings of course. Went to horizontal type suet feeders a few years back which helped at first. They adapted to that too until I used an old bluebird house trick and suspended some bell sinkers on some thin florist wires from the corners of the feeders. The sparrows aren't crafty enough to fly up from the ground and around the wires, keeping them away. The starlings can if there are only wires on two corners on the wooden feeder as they can sit on top of it. Four wires are better for those jerks if they persist on being a PITA. Lead works too.        

[dakids]

This turkey likes teasing the puppy.

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[Dotch]

7 deer tonite. Poppy is having a comeapart too.

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[mike89]

This turkey likes teasing the puppy.

 looks like the dog was set up!!!  too funny!!!!!