Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

Buddy's backyard has been quiet because of the cold, but we did have some of our old spring/fall visitors come through. Our European Starlings. Where they been I'm not sure but they came back.

We have had our usual critters, and the raccoons been in hibernation since early November.

Ever wonder what would be some perfect birding gifts?

This year, I've receive and given gifts that is perfect for our backyard birding.
1. Is the 365 day calendar
2. I receive an "rite in the rain" which is an journal that is rain proof and a pen that is rain proof with a little zipup.
3. I've gotten dad a bird puzzle that features the Cardinals, Nuthatch, Chickadee, an Eastern Bluebird, and a goldfinch. <-- this by far is the best gift I could give to dad
4. Part of an Hallmark ornament series "The Beauty of the Birds" this year was the Pine Grosbeak, they did have a female limited edition but that was completely sold out on the first release day.
5. Next I gave my dad two new feeders because our squirrels have been destroying our small feeders.
6. I got my dad a stuff animal plush Squirrel which only until later tonight, I realized that the plush little squirrel is a replica of one of our squirrels named Sweater.
7. You know that commercial with the Raccoons?

Here's the video

I've found this little figurines that features three raccoons and it's honestly the perfect thing I could get dad.

Winter is coming!!!!

I know it's been extremely quiet on this blog, I swear once I'm on school break I'll start posting some photos of Buddy's Backyard creatures.

We finally have gotten cold temperatures and I think that all of our raccoons has taken shelter, there's no snow on the ground yet but I think this cold front we got will tell them to go hibernate (although they don't really hibernate).

The Moles that lives underground has really done a number on our neighbor yard, they are just tunneling all over and creating big unearthed holes. You could probably dig about less than a foot before you seen an actual hole that lead deep underground.

Other backyard titbits, our crows DO eat Peanuts!!!!! I've read somewhere that Crows eat Peanuts but we always throw peanuts out for the squirrels that we never seen them take an interest in until one day a crow must have watch me put peanuts in an unusual spot and sneakily took them but we witness it.

Here's some Winter Tips for your backyard creatures,

Heated bird bath, that's has to be one of the best thing we have for all our of birds and deers to have water access.

IF you feed Feral cats, start building those shelters now or start bringing them out if you already have made those. If you never made these shelter before here's a video on building them

Keep food available, we may go the extra mile to make sure that everyone has food. There's not much we can do for warmth for squirrels (If I could and if it would work I would totally buy an heated shed and have little houses fit for squirrels and birds)

How many can you see?

Who on the spotlight of Buddy's Backyard today?

It's no secret that Buddy's Backyard is filled with critters, one of our biggest group of visitors are raccoons. YEP Raccoons and NO they don't go digging in the garbage > sometimes the recycling but don't ask me why the Kits are a curious bunch.

These Kits are not camera shy, they don't care for the hose, they love grapes and now Marshmallows. According to dad we have always had raccoons, and he had always feed them but then he kind of stop feeding them until a few years ago. Clearly one of the biggest complaints people have about Raccoon is them getting into their garbage.

We started feeding them to keep them out of other people garbage, that way they didn't have to go out to find food but instead come to Buddy's Backyard and always have food there waiting for them. So we been into our routine feeding for awhile but then we took notice of raccoons showing up much later at night looking for food, so we decided to start making a second batch of food for them.

Well as you know Kits have been born and mama raccoon teaches her kits where to go for food. We believe we have two sets of family and a couple adults from prior family. So one night while taking photo I couldn't believe how many I was seeing!

So take a guess by this photo on how many there are!!!

Sorry that this photo is a little dark, but this is taken at night

Think you got the right number???? Check again!

If you wonder if raccoon cleans their food? Yes they do! Not all the kits are doing that yet but most of them are.

Hope you enjoy today tidbits on Buddy's Backyard and remember be kind to nature.

A doe & her fawn

I know Buddy's backyard has full of critters and wildlife. One of the biggest things we get are deers, while it's been a long while since we been able to take pictures because the deers show up at night. Truth be told, we're not even sure how many deers we get.

Today one of our Does, who clearly has been here before while we been outside at the same time. Brought her fawn today. Her fawn still has spots but those spots will soon fade, we hadn't put out all the food yet but we were able to put some of the raccoon food out.

Enjoy!

Meet Gretchen

Hey everyone!!!

So guess what new visitor been coming around Buddy's backyard . . .

She's been coming around since mid-June, what descriptions can we say to hint on what Gretchen is.

She's large . . .

Has Feathers

Eats plants, bugs, insects . . .

Leaves one sets of tracks.

Have you figure it out yet????

GRETCHEN IS . . . . . 

A WILD TURKEY!

Copyrights: Buddy's Backyard

Copyrights: Buddy's Backyard

Copyrights: Buddy's Backyard

Gretchen has become a routine visitor nowadays, typically it's an morning and early evening routine. She'll come in the morning and depending on if anyone up, we see her but sometimes she come really early but we're always able to see her early evening.

There are some days she does come maybe three times, typically it's two but it could/and can be three to four times a day. There's almost never a day where we don't see her or know that she has come.

She loves to dig in what we call our leaf pile between our two large trees, and scowers for bugs that lives underneath all that mulch. That's usually how we can tell that she had been here in the morning when the leaf pile looks very disturb.

She did bring a friend at one point that we call Zelda, but she makes a very rare appearance.

If Gretchen continue to come when the weather and seasons start changing, we'll have to find a way to provide food for her during the cold season.

Where Am I?

I apologize for not doing any picture sharing lately, things been a little crazy with having a job and just trying to take fun photos of everyone in Buddy's backyard.

I can still say that we're still having a lot of activities just as well with pictures, but I've been working hard trying to submit photos to the Nature Conservatory photo contest and finding the right pictures that will blow the judges sock off.

On another note, I will be traveling in July to Oshkosh where there happens to be an Audubon's Birds of America exhibit. So I can't wait to see that!!! 

On birds related news, our orioles are starting to bring the babies to the feeders and just yesturday our Eastern Bluebird showed up again, it appears that he comes when there's lot of activity going on with the birdbath because that's how it been with the last few times of him and the female showing up.

Granted we haven't seen either of them since our big storm earlier this month but to see him again yesterday tells me that they have to be in the area somewhere and knows our backyard.

The Grackles are interfering with the Orioles feeders, they or just one of them likes to go up on the feeder and disrupt the orioles.

We've gotten pictures of downy feeding her baby so if I can find the pictures I'll share some as well other pictures.

Wild rabbits!!!! We are seeing so many!!! We got to have at least a dozen and babies too!

Well until I can get more things organize about how to run this blog better, we're keeping in tune with the backyard.

Orioles Behavior

Today, May 31st was the first that we seen our orioles do something right before our eyes. So we get crows in our backyard all the time, but this one crow that clearly came for food got an very unwelcome greetings from our male Baltimore Orioles.

They kept swooping down at the crow, and the crow wasn't really willing to leave but the males were persistent in making the crow leave. So the crow moves around from spot to spot in our backyard to the fence across the alley. But the orioles were not satisfied until it left the premises, so the crow decide to take off and the orioles came swooping down at it then chase it to where our lilacs and woodpile is.

After watching that whole thing happen, I quickly went to search up reasons why the orioles would do that because this is the first that we've seen them do it. From a couple things that I've read, the reason behind this attack is to protect their territory, their nest.

Now we just realizes that the boy from last year nesting, along with his mate had to have built their nest in one of our trees in our yard. We say this because we would always constantly hear them in those trees, so maybe they felt that the crow was invading their territory as well being a threat to their nest.