Yard! What Yard?

It's a lake.

From the time I woke this morning my phone's been trying to tell me something.

Not that there was much I could do about it.

Our bog was a pond.

As were other areas.

And we didn't used to have a stream back there ...

... nor there.

The driveway ...

... was now a waterway.

With a lake in the middle. A lake which encompasses the entire west side of out property.

Our property backs up to the South Branch of the Rancocas Creek. Although it now appears to be part of said creek.

Good thing we bought those kayaks last year.

💦🌧⛈☔️⛈🌧💦

Yard Critter of the Week - Eastern Bluebird

Eastern Bluebird.

Seven of which are in the image below. Along with an American Goldfinch, a Pine Siskin, a Red-bellied Woodpecker, and a White-throated Sparrow. As noted previously, it can get busy at the feeders.

Not long after we moved here we were walking about the neighborhood, such as it is, and spotted a small flock of Bluebirds near a farm field. They'd be a nice yard bird we thought, but our habitat isn't quite right as they prefer move open areas.

Seems they like food as well. And water.

And have been regular winter visitors to our yard.

The adult males are bright blue.

While the females and young males, like the bird drinking above, and the center bird shown below, are more muted and grayish.

A wonderful bird to have visit our yard. And one we are always happy to see. Well almost.

🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦

I mentioned above that we don't quite have the right habitat for Bluebirds as they prefer a bit more open space than our mostly wooded lot provides. But that didn't stop us from putting up some bird boxen, which you can read about here. And while we didn't have any Bluebirds use them last spring we did have a pair of Carolina Chickadees successfully fledge five chicks. But we've seen Bluebirds in much higher numbers at our feeders this year. And we were somewhat late in putting up the boxen last year. So maybe, just maybe this year ...

🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦

You can find all of the Yard Critter posts listed here.

Feeder Birds

Mornings around here can get a bit crazy at times.

All the blurry bits in the above image are birds. It was rainy and not very bright out. Thus I was forced to use a slower shutter speed than I might have preferred.

Here's one after I upped the ISO to 2000. Click on the images to bigafy them. Most of the birds are American Goldfinch and Pine Siskin, with a couple of Eastern Bluebirds and a Red-bellied Woodpecker. The ground was covered with Dark-eyed Juncos and White-throated Sparrows. And there were a number of other species about the yard.

🐧🦆🦅🦉🐦

A couple of weekends ago we, Patty, our friend Bernie, and myself, participated in the Pinelands Winter Bird Census. We had three areas to survey, all within a few mile radius of our home. At the first site we had three species. At the second site zero (!!!) species. In our yard we had twenty-seven different species. We may have had the most different species among all the participating groups.

We have a nice yard.

Yard Critter of the Week - Pine Siskin

Pine Siskin.

A northern relative of our resident American Goldfinch (one of which can be seen in part at the lower left corner in the above image), Siskin are winter visitors to these parts. This week had a mixed flock of thirty plus birds, with at least a dozen of these visitors.

And as you might imagine, they made quick work of our thistle feeders, a preferred food.

This is our fourth winter here at Piney Place, and we've had Pine Siskin at our feeders for each. Although this year they seem to have arrived a bit later. In December it seemed our thistle feeders would stay full for weeks, now they can be empty in a day.

But soon enough they'll be headed back north, although they have been known to breed well south of their usual grounds should a dependable food source be available. Alas, it seems our feeders are not dependable enough. Or perhaps there is just too much competition from the Goldfinch. It would be cool to add them to a yard breeder list. Maybe we need a bigger feeder ...

🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦

You can find all of the Yard Critter posts listed here.

Yard Critter of the Week - Fishing Spider

The Fishing Spider, Dolomedes tenebrosus.

A large spider. Counting the legs they can be up to four inches in size, with females larger than males. They get their common name as this genus tends to live near and hunt on water, preying upon small fish and aquatic invertebrates.

But this particular species is the least aquatic of the genus, and is found in woodlands often far from water.

Similar to and often confused with the slightly larger wolf spiders, the two groups can be differentiated by their eye patterns. Assuming you get close enough to look them in the eyes.

🕷🕸🕷🕸🕷🕸🕷🕸🕷🕸🕷

You can find all of the Yard Critter posts listed here.

Wait, What?

So, how exactly ...

... does one legally get on this road?

Yard Critter of the Week - Virginia Opossum

The Virginia Opossum, one of Patty's favorite critters. And no stranger to this blog.

North America's only marsupial.

They are regular visitors to our yard, and to the tree outside our living room. We've had as many as three in the tree at any one time.

They come for the peanut butter, and other food, we put out. And like to sit on the platform feeder I setup between the tree trunks of this Sweetgum tree. As this one is doing. They like to clean up and then relax after eating. This one is yawning and no doubt hoping to settle in for a spell after finishing off the peanut butter.

Although not before the Southern Flying Squirrels got their share.

And then a second Oppie came.

And not only was it disappointed when it found nothing at the platform feeders.

The first one was none to happy to have company!

Not yawning this time!

The newcomer hastily made its retreat.

🐿🐭🐍🐰🕷🦊🦆🐸🐧🐇🐦🐢🐜🐞🦉🦌🦃🐀

You can find all of the Yard Critter posts listed here.