Dare I hope that this is one of the baby robins I rescued a few weeks ago?
I asked him if he had lost a leg, and he told me he was just keeping his toes warm, one leg at a time, while he waits for a bug to check out the beans growing next to him.
Crispin has been at work high up in the fir trees, cutting down fir cones. They fall from a great height with a loud bang each time one of them hits the metal roof of the wood shed. Maybe I should get a hard hat for him. Then he comes down to gather the cones and stash them in secret places nearby. I made the mistake of helping him by bringing about 25 freshly fallen cones to the wood shed for him. I hadn’t counted on the sticky sap getting on my hands and had to go looking for some WD-40 to dissolve it. How do the squirrels not glue their mouth shut when they eat these sticky cones? I guess it’s like eating toffee.
Mrs. Hummer is resting on the Florence fennel, watching the nearby scarlet runner beans. Their flowers are so bright red, and they must have some delicious nectar in them because there is a line up of hummingbirds waiting their turn to get at them.
While Mrs. Hummer watches the beans, Mother Rabbit is watching her. Do you see them both in the photo below?
Bunny Junior doesn’t have the patience to sit around watching hummingbirds. He’s on the lookout for any weeds that might still be green in this dry spell. Luckily for him, the weeds are the last to die of thirst, and rabbits love weeds.
Have you noticed that for each of them, it’s all about food?
If that’s what it takes, then “I’m some kind of animal.” Interpret that any way you like.
The squirrels have been harvesting hazelnuts from the trees and hiding them to be retrieved in the winter.
Along comes Woodrow the Woodpecker, innocently looking for bugs.
Ronald Rabbit knows the squirrels wouldn’t like their stash to be unearthed, but, “What to do? What to do?”
“Mind your own business, Ronald,” says Woodrow. “That’s “What to do’!”
“I’m telling,” shouts Ronald. “The people will let their dog out and then you’ll be sorry.” Meanwhile, I have one leg raised and ready to make a run for it.
“Look out, you guys! Here I come. And don’t forget! I may be a teddy bear in the house, but I’m a wolverine in the field.”
“Are you serious?” Woodrow calls to Ronald. “Now that the dog is out, we’ll all have to make a run for it.”
“Aw, do what you want. I’m going up here to higher ground and — oh! What have we here? A hole in the tree. Anybody home?”
And so life goes on … unless you’re a bug in that tree.
You can hear the great horned owl shrieking, trying to scare the rat (or anything that moves). He’s hard to see in the dark, but watch to the end and you’ll hear him screeching back and forth to his girlfriend, telling her to come over and have supper with him.
Turn on your sound. If you click to make the video clip full screen, it will look better.
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The geese are moving in from places farther north where they have enjoyed warmer weather until now. They sense that the season is cooling off and have come to visit the fields of southern BC to fatten up on leftover grain, bits of corn, and anything else that looks good. Once they have met up with their friends in ever greater numbers, and they have rested and feasted and done little test flights during this staging time, many of them will fly farther south where the winter is not as harsh. A few smaller flocks will settle in to spend the winter here on Vancouver Island, in the hope that the coldest weather will be bearable and not last too long.
The eagle watches and waits. He will take advantage of any stragglers or injured birds to supplement his diet. Once the spawned out fish carcasses are cleaned up by scavengers like seagulls, crows, and eagles, it will be time for a new food source. For the eagles it will often be crippled waterfowl of many kinds.
This bald eagle has a good view of a cornfield that often attracts ducks and geese. If any of them are not able to keep up with the flock, they will make an easy target for a predatory bird.
Little songbirds like these chipping sparrows will be targeted by hawks who sit silently in the nearby trees, waiting for an opportunity to swoop down and scoop up a little snack.
This broad-winged hawk would be happy with a songbird or even a careless squirrel. Patience and alertness are what it’s all about.
The merlin doesn’t mind picking up a songbird either. He’ll happily take down a flicker that might be almost the same size as him.
The red-shafted northern flicker had better be alert. It’s a dangerous world out there.
The general rule for non-predatory birds, especially in the autumn, is “heads up or be eaten.” It’s the raptors who are the meat eaters, while the gentler plant- and insect-eaters need to fear them.
And I haven’t even mentioned the owls yet. Rabbits and mice beware!
When we see the shadows on the moon, we are probably looking at craters, or so we’ve been told.
Sometimes when we look, we see eyes and a mouth that looks like a big O! Last night I couldn’t see the big O but I thought I saw eyes and a nose. Maybe he was wearing a Covid mask. Moments later the man in the moon was gone. But who was that masked man?
Well, we know he arrived in the spaceship Apollo 11.
I tried to make the face a likeness of Neil Armstrong, but I’m not much of an artist.
But sometimes, when I look at the moon, I see “el conejo en la luna,” the rabbit in the moon. Aztec legends tell several versions of the story of their god, Quetzalcoatl, who was responsible for the rabbit ending up in the moon.
In one version Quetzalcoatl is still a man on Earth. He is tired and hungry from wandering and a rabbit offers himself up as food for him. Quetzalcoatl lifts him up to the moon and then brings him down again, thanking the rabbit for his noble offer and saying that for this generosity his shadow will be displayed on the moon forever to remind people of the rabbit’s goodness.
(We don’t know if he ate the rabbit.)
My apologies to all the bunnies out there for the lumpy, bumpy image I’ve posted. I’m sure the earthly rabbits look much better than el conejo en la luna.
The Captain and I were having an afternoon coffee on our deck when Randolph came to visit. He’d been lurking around the yard late at night and usually disappeared in the wee hours of the morning. But lately he is getting braver about being seen in the glaring daylight hours.
He wasn’t too concerned about anything – even took time to scratch an itch.
He came right out in the open, looking for dandelions in the grass, and this explains his more frequent visits. Our grass is loaded in weeds. Definitely not a Scott’s Turfbuilder lawn. I don’t really mind him digging out the weeds to get at the roots or bugs, but I wish he would refill the holes.
Until now I had been blaming Bonnie and Benny Bunny for all the holes dug in our “lawn,” and they do their fair share of digging, but I saw Randolph in action this day, and knew I had to allow the bunnies some leniency. They are probably only guilty of digging a third of the holes in the yard.
A new load of firewood waits for someone to move it into the shed. Doesn’t seem like a big job unless you consider that each piece of firewood must be picked up and set down again. If there are 300 pieces of firewood that means I have to bend down to pick up or put down wood 600 times. My back hurts already!
If I thought this prospect was daunting, how do you think young Benny Bunny felt when his hiding place was discovered after only a short time and he came bouncing out from under the firewood? Now he will have to find another place to hide.
“Don’t fret, Benny,” said Bonnie Bunny. “As long as we have each other, we can snuggle up together tonight. But for now, let’s get out of here. Quick like a bunny!”
You can see how tiny Bonnie is compared to the piece of firewood she’s sitting beside.
