More Clamoring

Last night there was lots of noisy clamoring. I moved the camera trap to point towards the pond deck, but no pictures of anything yet. I did see footprints right under the camera trap, so something was too close to get its picture taken.

Bark or Vocal Clamor?

Tonight as we were checking the camera trap, we heard a bark. Leotis (not his real name) had heard the barking earlier and then saw the fox. Plus the barking we heard was coming from the direction where Leotis saw the fox go. What I'm wondering is, was it a bark or a "vocal clamor"? The animal diversity website (under my links) says this: "Copulation usually lasts 15 or 20 minutes and is often accompanied by a vocal clamor. " This is mating season after all. In 53 days we might have baby foxes!

Fox entering yard.

Deer.

Fox leaving the yard again.

Fox entering the yard.

Fox leaving the yard.

First Camera Trap Photos

I didn't check the camera trap for a couple days, in the hopes that there would be more pictures on there. Then the SD card reader wasn't working, but I slapped it, and then it worked. No raccoon pics, but a fox! Note the time stamp on the pictures.

Culprit Revealed

Last night I went to check the camera trap. It had taken 25 pictures...all of me, and my cat peering through the sliding glass door. As I was adjusting the camera to point at the compost bins better, it snapped a picture. I thought probably it took a picture of my cat again, but then I saw the culprit walking out of the woods towards the deck! A raccoon! How he managed to raid the compost bin without getting his picture taken I don't know. He must be camera shy, but not too shy to be seen in person. We'll see tonight if he was actually caught on film.

Camera Trap

I bought a camera trap or "scouting camera" from Cabela's, to automatically take pictures when something walks by it. I tied it to a tree last night, pointed towards my compost bins. Something has been knocking over one of the compost bins to eat the kitchen waste. I put more kitchen waste in it last night, and sure enough, this morning the bin was knocked over again. Hopefully the culprit will be caught on film, although since it's my first time using the camera trap, it may not have been pointed in the right spot. I'm anxious to find out who the culprit is.

First fox sighting of 2006

Last night at around 9 pm I saw a fox running down the middle of the road, to a wooded area along a fence. I wonder if this is the same one I used to see in that area! Hopefully we will have a new crop of babies this year.

My Online Habitat

Check out Jayla's online habitat. I registered my habitat on the National Wildlife Federation web page. I might get our yard certified at some point.
http://www.enature.com/backyardwildlife/nwf_bwh_showhabitat.asp?bwhID=48913

More deer, new frog update

The other morning I saw a doe and her two fawns, which did not look all that young. We put a net over the pond to catch the leaves, but we left part of it uncovered so that animals could still drink from it. I scooped some of the leaves off of the uncovered part the other day, and this morning I saw that tiny frog again! I thought he would have hibernated by now, although it has been quite warm for November.

Deer, new pond inhabitant

I've been lax about posting, but we saw 4 does the other week. I also spotted a new pond inhabitant--I saw something that looked like a small frog in the pond, and sure enough it was! It looked like a baby, which is strange considering the time of year. It appeared after it had rained several days in a row. I'm not sure whether it came from somewhere else, or was one of the original tadpoles. It seemed awfully small to be one of the original tadpoles. Hopefully it is big enough to survive the winter.

Fox Sighting!

I was looking at the backyard and saw a fox again! This is the first time in several months. It was not really in our yard but more in the park land trotting through the park. I will have to be on the lookout again now that I know they are still around. The pond has at least one frog daily. I was looking with the binoculars and one frog has a bright green mouth, and reddish brown eyes, whereas the larger frog doesn't have a bright green mouth but has a yellowish lower lip.

Hummingbird

We have had a hummingbird feeder out for a few months now, but I had never seen any hummingbirds at the feeder. I stopped changing the nectar since I thought nothing was coming, but then the other day I saw a hummingbird! I was afraid the old nectar would make it sick, so I put in new nectar and bought some more. Since then I've seen the hummingbird on at least two separate days. On Saturday we must have seen it like 5 times. It is so tiny and its little tail waggles when it is flying.

Deer

Tonight we saw a young buck in the backyard. We watched it eating vegetation as it walked farther in the back yard. Then up walks another buck! ...And another!!! The poor third buck was skinny, kind of mangey, and had a slight limp. Considering this is the suburbs, it was kind of surprising to see any deer, although I knew deer had been here before.

Pond Fiasco

Over the weekend we removed the pot we tried to use as a fountain, and tried to set up the fountain with just the slabs of rock. It seemed to work, so we let the fountain run a while. I turned it off that night, but in the morning most of the water was gone! Apparently the hose had come off and the water didn't get back into the pond. The poor baby frog was still sitting in there without much water, but the large adult frog wasn't there. So we filled the pond up again and fixed the fountain. Two frog have been spotted since, so I guess the adult frog came back.

Mouse in the House

The other day, we heard a screeching, and then our plumpest cat came running through the living room with her mouth full and a tail hanging out. :/ We managed to get her to release the mouse, and I thought it was dead, but then I saw it breathe! So after observing it for a little while, we thought it looked okay because it could run around in a garbage can, so we released it outside. We saw the ground cover move so it must have run off. Poor thing. It was just a baby Peromyscus (white footed mouse). I had done a science project once on homing in white footed mice, and no matter how far away I released the mice I caught, they would always come back and get caught in the live traps again. (We would snip their fur to be able to recognize them). This one mouse I had caught several times, except one cold night it had gotten into the trap even though I would close the traps over night, and we thought it had frozen to death. My mother gave it CPR (well, she rubbed its chest) and I saw it breathe! So we kept it in a cage for a week, and then released it. "Frozen Boy" kept getting caught in the traps after that and I can't remember if I continued to transport him and release him, or if I decided to retire him from the experiment.

Buck in backyard.