Wildlife in Your Life

Tin is light, relatively inexpensive, and durable if maintained properly. "We know that it will last 100 years," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1821, "and how much more we do not know."

Corregated iron roofing material is probably not as popular as it once was Gus. Although we do see some homes built with what is termed colour bond, mostly we see tiled rooves.

Rain on a corregated iron roof is music Gus. It patters it pitters, when it begins to drum ya know its good rain, when it roars like niagra you start thinking about the sandbags ya shoulda filled last summer and were too busy painting.

They kinda look like skinny chickadees.



I'm waiting for racoon vs. possum III to be available on pay per view.

Somehow I have to figure out how to get them on video......

Did everyone see the deer with the plastic pumpkin stuck on its head? That was just down the road from me.

Could you imagine if a bow hunter had taken that thing? "Oh, Bob, that was you that sticked the punkin' head?"

More pardalote Pics.

The first of the babies have left the nest.

Here's the little tree rat who destroyed my first few bird feeders... "The Red Menace".

What's with the red squirrels? Are they a new thing? I don't seem to remember them and they don't seem to be mutations like the black and white squirrels one sometimes sees.

Red squirrels are really cute from a distance! We had one move into a bird house in our backyard and the next thing we knew there were 6 baby red squirrels running around. It looked like our spruce tree was infested. We really enjoyed watching them grow up and then one day they just disappeared.

A more recent experience involved arriving at our trailer and hearing scrabbling noises. We'd been having problems with mice so that's what I was expecting until I had to face off with a p!ssed red squirrel telling me off in a very narrow trailer hallway. Aack! Turns out he thought he'd over winter in the linen cupboard. All the sheets were covered in discarded acorn hulls. He took off into the bathroom and disappeared. We filled in around all the pipes and drains with expanding foam caulking as that's where we figured he got in. We'll know in the spring if the trailer's been trashed that he got back in

There are lots of red squirrels up here. Not as many near the cities.

They are smaller than the greys, and they are more aggressive than the greys. Red squirrels are really fast, and make greys look fat and slow in comparison.

The reds will gang up on a feeder and chew it to shreds in a day to get at the seed. They will sometimes stand their ground when I go out on the deck and chatter at me. If I chase them they will leap from the deck (over 15' high) and run to the nearest tree, where they will chatter at me again until I get bored and go back in side. Then they immediately return and continue gnawing the feeders.

Now that I own a dog the squirrels keep their distance because the dog never gets tired of chasing them.

I really have to get a dog...

I know about them because my parents seem to have acquired one (or two). They live on CC. They bully the chipmunks, squirrels and assorted birds. But, still, I don't remember seeing them as a kid (in the burbs).

Here she is falling asleep by the window watching for squirrels...

Here she is after I woke her up...

I never saw many red squirrels until I moved into the woods of NH. There were lots of grey's around in Massachusetts when I lived there, even near the city.

I live west of Nashua NH, and the red squirrels outnumber the grey's out here.

That dog is stunning!

She is gorgeous isn't she - what breed?

Thanks.

Dakota is an American Eskimo Dog (Eskie for short). She will be two years old in March 07.

Okay, there had just been (= a couple of minutes ago) been this "hoot-hoo-hoo" close to my window (blue cross). So I went in our balcony (red cross) and tried to make a flsh-shot in the dark (it's completely dark here by now)


The result was on that oak tree (black cross), a little owl

Good shot!