First Day

Last winter my interests in feeding wild birds peaked. So off to Wild Birds Unlimited and other stores carrying seed and feeders I went. A first only a smattering of birds arrived in our back yard to feast on the feed, but oh wow did the squirrels find the food! Every attempt to keep the squirrels away from the bird feeders was failing until my youngest son pulled the pole holding the bird feeder out of the ground and placed five plastic milk jugs one on top of another with the spout end down and reinserted the pole into the ground. Then the squirrels were confounded.

Since we had at least nine squirrels we found ways to amuse ourselves by installing a squirrel feeder that rotates like a windmill with four ears of corn helping to cause the wheel to turn. Latter we added a bungee cord with two ears of corn attached and raised just high enough that the squirrels had to jump to pull the ears down to feed. Well, at least we thought that is what they would do. However, we have one squirrel that was ingenious and decided that getting on top of the fence and pulling the bungee cord up would also pull the cord up and allow it to rest on the fence rail and be eaten at leisure.

As we added another bird feeder onto a pole and the squirrels took to climbing that pole. My wife decided to try greasing the pole and had numerous laughs as the squirrels would get about half way up the poll and then slowing slide back to the ground. Of course, the really smart squirrel just took a running start and didn't pause on his way up like the others and he was soon into the bird food. That is when we let the dog out to do her duties, and of course she was easily distracted by the squirrel.

The next problem we faced was trying to identify the birds. We purchased a book and that was very helpful, but remembering what bird looked like was a real challenge. Out came the digital camera but the zoom was digital and not optical and the pictures were almost as bad as our memory. As Spring came we noticed a fox or two in the neighbors back yard. At the time the house next door was empty and so there was not much action in their back yard to disturb the foxes. One evening my wife thought she saw a few little foxes but they quickly vanished. So a few days later I started to leave for work but took a glance at the neighbors back yard and much to my surprise heard a growl and yip as the mother fox headed away from me back toward the creek which runs behind our property. I retrieved my camera and was able to get a quick pictures of the fox before she headed to the creek. I then decided to wait a few minutes and sure enough a little head popped out from a hole which led under our garage. I took a couple of pictures and then out popped another head. A few more pictures and then a third head but the camera memory chip was not in the camera and no more pictures as the internal memory was full.

These events convinced me to get a new camera that had a good optical zoom and after a little research I decided upon my new camera with 12 optimal zoom. Other than the foxes and a still undetermined species shot in Yellow Stone National Park the pictures that will be displayed on this blog are from the new camera.