Watch the Birdie

The fence around our property leaves something to be desired and it certainly would not keep sheep, goats or horses contained.  Part of it is woven wire and part of it is barbed wire.  Then there is a section near the house that is chain link.  It appears that this part may have been left over from some past owner's attempt to have a yard to corral small children or pets.

So, I am walking along this part of the fence the other day and I notice a large hole that I am sure was not there when we moved here.   I have no idea how long it has been there.  I believe it may have been covered up by a trailer that belonged to our son-in-law that was parked here most of the summer.  At any rate, I think something made it by crawling under the fence and placing enough pressure on the chain link to gradually make the hole big enough for a dog to go through.  It is obvious that it is used by some type of critter(s) regularly because the grass is beaten down around it.

I was getting a little tired of seeing deer, raccoons, squirrels and crows on the wildlife camera while it was positioned at the deer feeding station. So, I got Tom to move it over near this hole to see if we could figure out what was using the hole as a gateway into our yard.  The only thing we saw was a possum .... probably the one that comes to eat our cat food if we leave it out at night.  I think raccoons may have used it earlier this fall.  Raccoons have been noticeably absent from our wildlife camera ever since the weather turned cold.  I read where they tend to hibernate during parts of the winter when the temperatures are below 40 degrees, but wake up during milder periods of weather and forage for food.

Anyway, most of the pictures on the camera were of birds feeding on seed that fell out of our bird feeders that Tom placed over by the fence.  Like the beautiful male Cardinal below. 

And his girl friend.

There are also a lot of Mourning Doves too.  It is interesting how well these birds blend in with their surroundings, like the 3  in the picture below.

Here's a good picture of a Junco. These birds are only here during the winter.  My mother used to call them "snow birds".

Here's another bird that is sort of difficult to see.  It is a Harris Sparrow.  The black rod on the right side of the picture is the bottom part of the pole from which one of the bird feeders is hanging.  The Harris Sparrow is on the ground just to the left of this pole. The most striking part of this bird is the black cap on his head and black beard under his beak.  Clicking on the picture will make it bigger.

Finally, I had to laugh when I saw this last picture.  Squirrels will try anything to get into a bird feeder!