WEBlue

This is the boring dead end of winter, when all that happens in my area is that a big snowfall comes, lingers, melts a bit, and is covered by another snowfall.

But the husband and I have noticed that we see an amazing array of wild creatures in the winter, or at least their tracks.

Aside from the many usual birds & squirrels hanging around the bird feeder, here are some that I've seen in the last few months:

Fox
Deer
Hawk (two kinds)
Osprey
Horned owl

Bob

Out in the boonies, where places still use salt on the roads, that's where you'll see deer/moose most easily, if you're out early enough.

I can't say I've seen anything particularly unusual locally though.

Yorkieabroad

Lot of migrating birds gathering round our way this time of year. We were out west on Saturday and counted 11 chevrons of ducks in the sky at one time. Gorgeous, but hadn't got the camera. What was more amazing, was no one seemed to be trying to blast them out of the sky!

The "cartoon ducks" (our name...think they are black bellied whistlers) are still hanging around, which is cool cos they are really pretty, but they should have left by now.

Also got a lot of some sort of spoonbill (I think) passing through, and the local supermarket car park is absolutely swarmed with some sort of blackbird....kids love driving through the car park and making them fly....in fact, they love it so much, I had to go practice without them yesterday

We can hear the coyotes, but very distant, and not seen any but road kill.

Saw some gators over the weekend...surprised as they are normally hiding this time of year, but the unseasonably warm weather we're getting seemed to have brought them out.

Huge number of cattle out in the pastures...seem to be a lot more than normal, but maybe that's a false impression...not sure why there should be as the grass is still dormant. Maybe save on electricity?
Also got a few more active insects, again a bit early, but another cold snap will sort them out for a few more weeks...

Yorkieabroad

Oh yes, and the turtles in the lakes seem to have come out of hibernation too...dozens of them basking in the sun this morning

Hotscot

Ladybirds
Hummingbirds
Killdeer
Wasps

WEBlue

Interesting that I saw one of these inside our house yesterday. Very surprising. I think it found its way in through a crack in a window or door. I didn't want to toss it outside, as we've got freezing temperatures and a half foot of snow out there. So I left it where it was on the windowsill. I hope it can survive till things warm up outside.

scrubbedexpat091

I had to look up what that was. Turns out its a lady bug....No idea they were called anything else.



We don't have a spectacular collection of winter animals that venture into town much, but generally over winter we have:

Bald eagles that fly south from Alaska for the fall/winter to feast on Salmon.

Canadian Geese, the ones that decide going south for the winter is a waste of time.

Raccoon's.

That is about it that I see on a normal basis. In the woods you'd find deer, cougars possibly, foxes etc.

Now that spring is on the horizon more birds are showing up by the day.

Southy_SWFC

I've seen loads of deer tracks in the snow this last week or 2, last night I put cat food out for them as apparently they like that but it wasn't touched this morning.

WEBlue

We've seen deer in our back garden in the past, but I haven't seen any deer tracks in the snow lately.

The animal that does traverse our property regularly is a fox. We see the tracks everywhere. He (or she) checks out my untidy compost pile at the back edge of the garden--I think little furry creatures are hibernating in there because it's warm. Then he stops by the bird feeder, then he circles around into the front garden to see what's going on there.

A few days ago, we were standing in our nextdoor neighbour's driveway talking to her when a fox chased a squirrel up a tree not 10 yards away! It didn't care that we all stopped to stare at him. It's beautiful, looks so much healthier than the foxes I'd see back in Blighty--bigger, with a lovely thick brightly coloured coat and big bushy tail.

yukichon

We will have quite a variety of wildlife where our house is in Colorado. In December I met with contractors as out house and was walking round the plot and a huge owl flew out, not sure which variety it was.
On visits so far I've seen not far, Elk, Deer and a Coyote. I'm hoping to spend time looking for bear, Mountain lions and Bobcats as I have a huge interest in the natural world.

Philk

Birds, squirrels, voles, deer

3 different types of woodpecker ranging from small downy ones to the large one in the image. All of them come to the suet feeder right outside our living room window, sometimes we watch them more than the footy

Pulaski

Deer, lots of deer, and lots of squirrels. With the heavy snow we had last week I could see all the tracks left by the deer, and the paths they use through the woods. We have two species of woodpeckers too, I don't remember which species though. But they have been taking full advantage of three standing dead oaks we deliberately left back in the woods to provide food for them. All the oaks' limbs have dropped off and the trunks are slowly rotting and being ripped apart by the woodpeckers, mostly from the top down.

Yorkieabroad

We used to have one come and sit on our chimney pot at about 9.30 at night. It would call a few times, then move on. Used to drive the dog crazy

WEBlue

Ha, that's a difference in name. I'd never heard the name 'killdeer', either, and had to look that up. (Hotscot's sighting.) A kind of plover....

We have so many birds that seem to over-winter here in my part of New England--chicadees, titmice, cardinals, at least 3 kinds of woodpeckers (2 small varieties and a large woodpecker called a flicker), doves and of course crows.

But lately we've been seeing some new ones, so they must be migrating--a funny pair of birds I thought were odd cardinals but turns out are cedar waxwings, and some American robins in a little gang who descend in a noisy group like thugs, so different from our tiny delicate British robins.

WEBlue

Yes, these are the tiny things, smaller than mice, that I think of as the "plankton" of the field...that is, every predator seems to love to eat them--foxes, hawks, owls, etc.

We have some that pop up out of little holes in the snow under the bird feeder. Whenever the other birds feed up above, the voles pop out to get the dropped bits down below.

Phil, that's a beautiful pileated woodpecker! I've never seen one in real life, only in my bird book.

I love the woodpeckers. We originally set up our birdfeeder to try to lure the woodpeckers away from pecking the outer shingles of our house. There were several that would really have a go at certain shingles, and the husband had to fill up the holes with wood putty and repaint.

I think we succeeded in distracting them from the house because we haven't heard any pecking or drumming in a long time. They love the seed block and the suet block we hang on one of the feeders (well away from the house), they go through one of each every few weeks. We have mostly the little woodpeckers, but we also have a pair of flickers, who are so big they have to cling for dear life to the dangling suet cage to peck away at it.