Category Archives: woodpeckers

Animals, birds, nature, woodpeckers

Everything is changing

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Hello to all,

When I last posted in March I was growing concerned with the severe increase in deforestation right here in my little spot and it has been drastic.

Woody and Momma did have a new baby I named JR6  I am not sure if they had a second which they usually do but the increase in predators here has really changed my environment . Currently as of yesterday JR6 is still here and his parents are gone and that is usually the opposite. We’ll have to wait and see if they return or if JR6 decides to make his home.

I shared Buster the Douglas squirrels three babies that made their entrance last year and it involved one of the three just not wanting to come out,  I named him Louie and as of now he has never left.  Louie made a home for himself directly above the shed in the tree and has staked a claim to the whole place, lol we put up a house in the trees for Woody to maybe move in but nope Louie has also staked a claim to that.

The predator issue is what I fight, since they decided a near by wet land was no longer protected here they literally paved nearly 100acres of land and in the 2 years since the entire forest surrounding it and us is drastically changing. Another 250 acres were cleared nearby followed by another 50 acre parcel.  You see we have completely displaced so many species that they literally have no place to go to rest, nest or eat and the results are scary.  My posts share a huge variety of visits in just a small avenue and this year they are not here. My visits were in the smallest groups if any and the ones that are coming in do not look very good.

We can provide and look after the environment directly in our own yards. We must remember to coexist with all of nature as we need them to survive , they do not need us to survive until now. Think about it,   a whale in Washington state carried her baby for 17 days for all of us to see,  She is telling humans in the only drastic way she can that they are dying. How can so many not see the many many stories around the world of the animals doing bizarre behaviors, well I believe they are attempting to show the gravity of what is happening to the entire world and I believe we can correct so much of it and are trying to but we need more and fast.

Mother Nature and Mother Earth are in desperate need of our assistance to stop the mass destruction like Fracking who could ever think that would be good other then a greedy individual, its killing everything it touches.

I thank anyone reading my thoughts and sharing my love of nature and its many critters.

p.s.

I have written previous about the deer eating my Hosta every year,  Well I was surprised to find out it was bambi all grown up,  He’s been here his whole life and the little sneak only crosses over to eat those blooms. And I blamed it on the Momma deer every year lol.

more soon…..

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Bambi
Animals, birds, nature, woodpeckers

Its already March 2019!!!

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Hello and wow it has been a long time.  The forest itself is changing so much and last summer was a hard one for sure with heat, smoke from fires and no rain.  My son has a medical issue that took front and center for most of last year but of course I always had time for my nature buddies.

During the summer was so hard on everyone, the smoke here was very bad for weeks. I would freeze water buckets and place them in the forest for the critters to have some relief. What was amazing was the variety again that came in daily in need. But that also includes the hierarchy of nature and I lost a lot of my Douglas squirrels. Buster is still here but I have a new crew.

The same thing has happened to Woody.  My pair currently are from what I think is my 4th season babies. But it is still amazing that they both come land next to me and allow me to fill the feeder without taking off, that I tell you is the coolest thing ever.

The forest surrounding my location is all but gone, and the movement of the animals is sad. I ask everyone this question. Where do you think they go when you destroy acres of forest and pave the ground for houses and business? Where would you go if the animals had the ability to move us out?  Its gotten to the point where so much is gone and can not get back that the animals Have to adapt to what we have left for them. Sadly it is not enough and we will all pay the price for this.

Food! It is something we need to help with to supplement what we have taken away, but have you seen the crap that is sold?  Its like introducing fast food to nature,  how gross is that! It has taken me awhile but I do find natural nuts and fruits that are not stuffed with crap they don’t eat and  we pay for that sprouts and rots.

Water! provide fresh water for visitors.  It tough to find for them with the erratic weather and climate changes. Help them out.

The current problem that I have in my little forest is a new visitor that will change the whole of my sanctuary if it’s what we think it is.  I think I have a Fisher,  we found the tracks right here and the choice is either an Otter or Fisher.  I am having a hard time getting a picture of it and I am not sure it was just a walk thru, but they have been releasing them in the mountains within 50 miles from here and well see if it decides to stay.

The recent snows came and as you can see its very tough to find food in this, these are some of the stations I place in the forest to house and feed those in need.  We ended up with 18 inches which is a lot here.

So just remember we wont make it in this world without our nature buddies.  We have to make it together.

more later….

Animals, nature, woodpeckers

That Darn Rat

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Ok, here is a story that may not sit well with everyone but please understand that I tried my best to fix it 🙂

Its been going on for a couple of years now,  I have a Wood rat that is huge and she and I have been quarreling about where she intends to put her house. She apparently really wants to be close to the backdoor and no way am I gonna allow that. I cut down the trees next to the doors, stopped feeding this summer and moved the birdhouses that she was also using…….and then

It was another super hot day so we have been using the BBQ a lot. My husband went out to start the grill when he returned with a quick get out here!!……sure enough on the grill itself was a new nest that she had just apparently built.  It was too much for me to take and I have spent years attempting to move her back to the forest. But she pushed me to far.

It was comical for my neighbors I’m sure. All they could hear was OH MY GOD, GET IT , YUK, etc  I had the garden hose and my husband had the shovel. It happened fast as I blasted water into the BBQ and the rat jumps out to be cornered by my husband. I wont go into detail but she was deceased and put into the forest. I removed the nest from the BBQ and threw the BBQ away 😦  I felt so bad, who am I to do that when I try so hard to keep a happy balance, but darn it she just refused to listen. But wait….

Three days later as I was putting my food out again I seen something in the feeder. I was thinking oh buster why do you look so funny and then as I got closer I stopped and said OH MY GOD!!!! Is that the rat !!!!!!!!

I called my husband immediately and as he answered I said “Hey you got that rat didn’t you?” which he said ???  He got quiet and said “yes” ……Well I said,  then we have Pet Cemetary !!!!! I described the visible wounds only to confirm that Yes it’s that rat…now I’m creeped out.

It was AWFUL,  there she was eating in the feeder looking at me like really lady,  what kind of animal lover are you.

My husband is saying no way, it can’t be and then he said Get It.

I’m like absolutely not! Mother nature is giving me a “what for”. haha

It was wounded for sure but I couldn’t do it so I waited for nature to take its course.

About 3 days later one of my dogs was by the pond acting odd, and sure enough she had chased this rat and it jumped in the pond, damn I said , now I had to save it. Yuk  it’s looking at me like this is your fault lady, and I’m  saying to it Go into the Forest darn it, you can’t live here!  lol

Again, another couple of days and as I went outside all my dogs were acting strange in the middle of the yard.  Yep there is was looking dead in the yard. I grabbed my shovel and went to get it away from them.   Nope OMG Not dead!!!!! It was probably a great funniest home video moment but all I can say is it was a lot of ewwwww,  gross, barking and kinda screaming but this time I had to do it…….lol so I texted my son who had to help me hahaha

We disposed of it in the forest.  And I joked if it comes back again I’m moving.

It was about an hour later I looked outside and on the fence was Harriet the crow, EATING THE DARN RAT on my fence,  and then flew off dropping the damn thing in my yard AGAIN. lol this is a SIGN.   hahahahaha

It was not something I ever want to do, I tried for years to move her but she just wouldn’t and I just can’t let her live in my yard.

more later 🙂

 

 

 

woodpeckers

What a Summer

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Here is a short video of Lewey 🙂 The Douglas squirrels move the babies around and this is the first time Lewey has ventured outside. My other video is longer and shows all three of them that I have named Hewey, Dewey and Lewey as the are very curious and quite cute.

The entire summer has been a challenge for Nature, Our weather was Hot and Dry with no rain relief and forest fires everywhere. With all that and the horrible increase of forest destruction in order to build mass housing the animals are finding themselves homeless and dying. The proof if that is in the display given by our Northwest Orca whale Momma carrying her dead baby for 17 days !!!!!!  It’s serious for our entire Earth right now and Mother Nature is truly mad and is pulling out all she can to protect Mother Earth and all her treasured creations.  The storms will only get stronger until massive changes are made. I hope mankind realizes that we will wipe ourselves out with greed and nature itself will prevail without us.

The increase in predator activity has made it hard for my feeding stations and I have had to get creative everyday.  I have noticed missing locals which is sad and a part of life but I do have some new members too.  Of course Woody and Momma had babies and this year we got 2 🙂 boy and a girl.

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I am hungry
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J-5

I will add more about these two in my upcoming posts. I am making changes to this site and will update as I can.

Get out and check on your local wildlife they are all amazing creatures.

woodpeckers

I love Spring

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Look who is Back !!!!! Chuck returned yesterday with a new gal 🙂 I am so happy,  he showed her all the spots plus a dip in the pond.  I shall call her Lily again and look forward to seeing the babies again this year. I was so excited.

BunBun the bunny has a baby also,   I just seen it but sadly there is only one. She is keeping it close to us, she is using the bushes between myself and my neighbor. I think it may have been the cats but I am not for sure.

Here is Buster the Douglas squirrels maternity ward.  On the left she is home with the “door” blocked and she is out and about on the right. HaHa  I am not sure its a maternity ward anymore I am beginning to think its a home.  That would be so cool.

The Deer family came out on Saturday her little one is getting big.

Woody and Momma have babies too !!! They are currently taking turns getting food which is something I notice when they are feeding.

Lets not forget yesterdays visit by momma coyote. I think she has a den near here that she uses every year. She seems to be solo but I must say she is really pretty. I scared her but she saw me first.  Just a bit to close for a visit.

And then there was two.

 

 

Just a quick picture of Dovey the mourning Dove on the left and Bandit the bandtailed pigeon on the right. Both make a similar sound which sounds like an owl hooting, a really neat sound.

All this is happening now in my little sliver of forest and it seems to be changing every day  especially with the amount of forest being torn down.

More to come, have a great day and Thank you so much for the feedback and questions.

woodpeckers

It wasn’t Spring yet !!

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It Snowed !

Yes it did, one day it 70 degrees and the forest is prepping for babies and poof its 32 and snow…. It did put a slow down on the feeding frenzy from the Hawk and Eagle. I’m pretty sure they are feeding babies now so they are staying closer to their nest. Or it could be I now have a bigger visitor.  I have a Great Horned Owl nearby and his calls are echoing through the forest, it is really cool but wow does the forest get really quiet.

We were working on the front yard which has a couple older Evergreens when we noticed up just a couple of branches tucked in tight was a huge nest,  its Harriet the Crows nest!!! It is really big but low,  I see her building another nest a bit farther out and I am beginning to think its a decoy nest, so I leave it alone and just watch her,  I don’t want to give it away, it looks like its been there awhile we just couldn’t see it.

Woody and Momma have a place very close and just yesterday I noticed they are not coming in together anymore, its one at a time lol.

Now the other cool part right now is Buster and Tippy the Douglas squirrels. I’ve written before that Buster had babies in a nest box we have high on the shed.  It’s tough to get to as it was meant for birds but we seen Buster drop from the roof of the shed landing atop the house and remodel the inside for her liking. Then she comes out and has to dive over to a hedge to get down lol . Last time she had the babies and then soon after we seen her taking each pink little bundle out and moving to new digs in the forest.  So we call it the Maternity Ward now and surprise she is doing it again 🙂 I am so excited.

As cool as that is little Tippy started acting strange and collecting stuffing when I notice she is making a home in the house I have just sitting above the Frog pond. Well silly me I know it’s not secure so I tried to sneak over and put in some screws by hand that would keep in from sliding and a simple bungee to hold it tight.  LOL Tippy came up to inspect it and I am not sure yet if she dropped the project or waiting for baby time. My guess is she will still use it but she doesn’t like the bungee haha.

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Another big wind storm is set for tomorrow so today I will secure it better, I want the babies to make it.  I’m curious if it’s another Maternity ward and then she moves them to the forest again,  but what a privilege that she trust me being so close.

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This is showing you how far a jump she takes,  she stays in the wood house on the left and comes out jumps across the that climbing hydrangea, we tried to add a stick but that didn’t work lol.

More to come……

Animals, birds, nature, woodpeckers

A Surprise

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Good Morning,  I have written before about my silly daily routine with my outdoor nature buddies, and recently I have been battling the Hawks. So each morning now I will sit out back since Coop is now hiding here.  I’m learning the calls the animals are making to indicate to each other just what predator is coming. As I sat there quietly behind a bamboo fence I use to stop the fly and grabs the Stellar Jays began to squawk along with the Crows. But the grey squirrel crept up the tree branch above me and made a sound I havent heard before. I thought aha! that hawk must be right on the other side,  so I quietly get up to peek over the fence (sense my only method of distraction right now is to scare him off) and Surprise..Wiley Coyote was right there and lucky for me it took him a second to figure out the head that just appeared was me.  I scared him good !!! I have to,  it is just to close to my back yard and I have little dogs so I have to set boundaries. Sadly again the forest around us is going down at alarming rates and our nature animals are having a serious homeless issue !!!!Where do we expect them to go ??

So far Woody and Momma are unable to return, I can hear them calling out there so I know they are still around,  I am guessing its to risky right now and will return when coverage is better. But also it could be that thier  homes are gone,  I am seeing such old growth logs heading to mills that it’s probably gotten to them too.

I have Northern Flying Squirrels 🙂 they are nocturnal and now that my cameras are up I caught activity that I thought was a rat but nope its a flying squirrel and they are super small and cute. Big eyes and they look hilarious on nightcam.   I named him Zippy of course and he is a lot like a douglas squirrel, how he sits and holds his food and then zoom he is in the tree.  So fun to see.

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The red-winged Blackbird has returned also,  its kinda early to have all these spring sounds and I am beginning to prepare for an early spring..

Gotta get ready for our next storm, more later.

woodpeckers

Frogs?? Spring??

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Good morning,

I am beginning to think that Sneaky Pete (our Cooper’s hawk) is making a game out of eating all of my buddies. I caught him sneaking beside the shed just waiting for Tippy the Douglas squirrel to come in and get one of his peanuts, in a flash he almost tagged him off the log ahhh then the little guys looks at me like Do something ! HaHa He doesn’t care if I’m even standing there anymore and he is succeeding in cleaning out my forest. But the other animals are still working together to come up with ways of notifying each other and me when he sneaking around. I have stopped feeding only to find them sitting in the trees waiting and realizing they have nowhere else to go so I become very creative in getting them food and cover.

I still have a large group of Bushtit and they are so small and cute so I am putting out the suet in hard to reach locations. I have Red wing blackbird’s now, which have figured a way to land on the suet log for Woody and like to eat it along with the stellar jays, black-capped chickadee’s and many more. Our temperatures are staying above normal so the buds on the trees are blooming and believe it or not Freddy the frog is starting to croak goodness it’s only January!

Woody and Momma are close but they can not come in right now until this Hawk is gone. Once the leaves return they will have a much better ability to come in. My need to keep a barrier along the fence line has caused some easy access during the winter, along with the deer which I can see come in at night and sit by the back shed and that have helped clear the overgrowth .

More of the forest is gone and I have a view of the mountain now, it is pretty but if you could see the amount of forest that’s now gone in just 6 months it’s heartbreaking. They just looked 70 acres behind us in the middle of homes and it’s a gigantic wrecking yard 😳 yep tore down a forest and filled it with wrecked cars full of oil gas and all things non environmental. I’m pretty sure there were other areas where so much wasn’t lost for the greed of just a few but that would have required a conscience and the ability to think beyond ones self and that is not happening anymore. So I will stay here and do my best to save this small corner of nature and hope that others around the world will too.

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Mt Rainer

 

Animals, birds, nature, woodpeckers

Thief

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Sadly I am reporting that our home and sanctuary has had a theft, and it was a human animal that has disturbed my private domain. We were so angry,  he stole a bicycle and our super sleuthing found he came around thru the forest.  Grrrrrrr  So the camara’s are now set for security and will have more for the animals later. Nothing makes you madder then knowing just how far in a stranger had made it, well good luck doing it again because were ready this time. !!!!

Meanwhile Cooper the hawk and Red are spending too much time picking off the animals, it is feeding time for the babies and our warm weather is causing even more to start to nest.  But they have found a gold mine in this part of the forest so I have to keep the food away a bit longer. What is interesting is how the other animals are adapting to the increase in predators, The Stellar Jays are known for mimicking and I can now tell that they use that to indicate what predators is hiding in the bushes. I have heard the hawk, the Coopers , Bald Eagle and my favorite is the strange call they make when its a ground predator like a cat or coyote etc.

Woody and Mamma and our late Juvenile have been pushed back a bit but I do hear them out there and Woody came in yesterday,  but its only for a quick bite. Cooper landed right in front of me no worries at all.

I had a flock of Bushtit along with Evening Grosbeak again which is very strange. They usually do not show up until March so lets how this goes.  Even Freddie the frog starting croaking yesterday.  I’m so curious to see if spring activity is really starting already and what new visitors we’ll get this year. More soon. 🙂

 

 

 

woodpeckers

Everyone is hungry 😳

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What a month it has been. Sneaky Pete alias Coopers Hawk along with Big Red the Red Tail Hawk my little buddies are getting picked off left and right. What a bad time to stop feeding, it as frozen or flooding! But that darn Cooper has my number, he even landed right at my door grrrrrr I swear that bird knows haha. I have interrupted several of his attempts and kills in the hopes he will just eat elsewhere but I’m beginning to think he loves a challenge!

This increase in raptors is making it hard for Momma and Woody Pileated to come in. Now they come down and call from our porch so I can stand out there while they eat, that’s when I noticed I had 3 visitors and one is a juvenile female. Wow, this means because of hot summer and late fall arrival a lot of my birds had second batches of babies. I first noticed last week when my Downy and Hairy woodpeckers each had babies they were feeding, then yesterday I had a flock of Evening Grosbeak well that was a huge surprise, then looking closely I see they too have juveniles. That’s the picture from above, they are beautiful but the young have no color, they are grey and black super cool but odd that they are even here.

Also I’ve added a raw video of a visit with Momma Pileated ☺️ you will see Chester the chestnut backed chickadee, my Grey squirrel that’s addicted to suet 😂 and you will hear how Woody talked to Momma while she’s here. In the tree you’ll see a Flicker woodpecker and where Woody lands. And busters visit to the peanut hutch.