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Raccoon in the Mulberry Tree
I was not sure what exactly I saw this between 6:30 and 7:00 this morning shaking the mulberry tree branches in our backyard. It seemed too big to be a squirrel and I dismissed the thought, telling myself that it was most likely the usual squirrel getting its mulberry breakfast. Just prior to this incident,…
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Terry Trueblood Birds Show Off in the Spring
Just about any time of year is a great opportunity to walk the Terry Trueblood Recreation Area. The birds are busy competing for mates and nesting spaces. The nest boxes for the tree swallows are up. Already, vacancies are few. Their iridescent feathers are dazzling. The music in the first part of the video is…
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Tom Turkey Flirts and Gets Rejected
Yesterday morning we saw a big wild tom turkey decked out in all his feathered glory strut his stuff in front of a likely hen. He was regal. He was graceful. He was proud. He was rejected. I read a little bit on the web about what happens when the tom scores. The tom and…
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Tufted Titmouse Playing Peekaboo
Once in a while when I’m filming wildlife, I get an odd feeling that the animal somehow knows it’s being watched. It looks up and seemingly right at the camera. I got that feeling while making a short video of a Tufted Titmouse the other day. It seemed to stare at me while I filmed…
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The Other Feral Tabby Catches Lunch
This is the companion to yesterday’s post about the gray Feral Tabby and its encounter with the whitetail deer. This cat is orange and white and it might be a litter mate to the gray one, just a guess. It does a great job of hunting for mice. And it caught one!
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Feral Tabby Cats On The Prowl!
Yesterday, we saw a gray cat with black stripes (one broad black stripe down its back) in the outlet in back of our house. It was about the size of a large housecat. It definitely was not big enough to be one of the large cats which can be seen in Iowa. It wasn’t a…
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Whitetail Deer Think Your Lawn is a Salad Bar
We have a small herd of whitetail deer who regularly visit our lawn because they think it’s a salad bar. They’re all over the neighborhood because the city apparently doesn’t have a consistent deer population management plan. I don’t know anything about the animals, other than what I care to look up on the internet.…
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A Day Without Glitches in the Matrix
Yesterday was the one of those days where everything seemed to happen for a reason. If we had arrived at Terry Trueblood Recreation Area a few minutes too early or too late, we would not have seen the mesmerizing rise and fall of the shore birds on Sand Lake. I thought of the word “murmuration,”…
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Backyard Animal Parade
I put together some video clips of animals we’ve seen in our back yard over the past year or so. They include deer with fawns, wild turkeys, and raccoons. I’m not a wildlife expert by any means. I searched the web for questions I had about the behavior of these creatures. Are raccoons always or…
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Nature Walk with Rare Broochaprankumus Species
The other day Sena and I went on a nature walk at the Terry Trueblood Recreation Area. There’s a lot of Mullein growing out there. It’s a pretty invasive prairie type plant. It’s said to have medicinal uses, but don’t eat it. The tree swallow chicks have all fledged. We didn’t see any water fowl…
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