Wildlife Reports From The, Uh, Field
Tags: Nature
"Norman and Frances dropped in yesterday and while standing on my deck looking out towards Pistol Island noticed a few seals...One seal came by in front of the house and he/she was certainly a whale of a seal...the lake "was as calm as oil" and Flipper stuck his big big big head out of the water on several occasions...Norman was the resident seal expert and commented several times on the size of the brute...Norman fished lobster before and is familiar with seals and I think his little mermaid, Frances, is acquainted with the species as well." As reported to me by Hughie MacDonald.
I've been told, third-hand, that hummies have been sighted somewhat locally. They have not yet shown up at my feeders, which were put up a few days ago, but I am sure they will soon be arriving in swarms, attitude and all.
Yesterday we were rudely awakened between 5:00 am and 5:30 am by a loud, repetitive noise outside our house. At first I thought it was power equipment, eventually I came to the realization that it was a bird pecking on a building. Next, it started pecking on what sounded like the rain gutter. Then it moved on to what sounded like the chimney, pecking almost frantically. Then the pecking got frenetic and we thought a bird had gotten into the chimney, like the bat we found dead last year attached to the inside of the woodstove door in the early fall, so I opened the door to the woodstove and Kit got the ladder and climbed up on the roof. He found once he got up there that there was a slippery, light frost on the roof - not the time to find there's been an overnight frost. He removed the top of the chimney and peered down, looking in with the flashlight in hand. No bird, no critter of any sort, just an accumulation of creosote and soot. (Add chimney cleaning to chores list.) Later, Michealette told me it's probably a Flicker, a member of the woodpecker family. During mating season the male pecks on things that make his peck sound powerful in order to impress the females. We definitely were not impressed. Michealette said they had one that plagued them for 3 years. She and her daughters were not impressed, either. Ok, maybe we are a little impressed, it's the timing that gets to us. Do they always have to do it at the very first rays of dawn?
"Norman and Frances dropped in yesterday and while standing on my deck looking out towards Pistol Island noticed a few seals...One seal came by in front of the house and he/she was certainly a whale of a seal...the lake "was as calm as oil" and Flipper stuck his big big big head out of the water on several occasions...Norman was the resident seal expert and commented several times on the size of the brute...Norman fished lobster before and is familiar with seals and I think his little mermaid, Frances, is acquainted with the species as well." As reported to me by Hughie MacDonald.
I've been told, third-hand, that hummies have been sighted somewhat locally. They have not yet shown up at my feeders, which were put up a few days ago, but I am sure they will soon be arriving in swarms, attitude and all.
Yesterday we were rudely awakened between 5:00 am and 5:30 am by a loud, repetitive noise outside our house. At first I thought it was power equipment, eventually I came to the realization that it was a bird pecking on a building. Next, it started pecking on what sounded like the rain gutter. Then it moved on to what sounded like the chimney, pecking almost frantically. Then the pecking got frenetic and we thought a bird had gotten into the chimney, like the bat we found dead last year attached to the inside of the woodstove door in the early fall, so I opened the door to the woodstove and Kit got the ladder and climbed up on the roof. He found once he got up there that there was a slippery, light frost on the roof - not the time to find there's been an overnight frost. He removed the top of the chimney and peered down, looking in with the flashlight in hand. No bird, no critter of any sort, just an accumulation of creosote and soot. (Add chimney cleaning to chores list.) Later, Michealette told me it's probably a Flicker, a member of the woodpecker family. During mating season the male pecks on things that make his peck sound powerful in order to impress the females. We definitely were not impressed. Michealette said they had one that plagued them for 3 years. She and her daughters were not impressed, either. Ok, maybe we are a little impressed, it's the timing that gets to us. Do they always have to do it at the very first rays of dawn?