Official Bird & Nature Post

Hump

Phil Edwards status
Jan 10, 2002
5,909
2,130
113
Vancouver Island
View attachment 119698

of my ferals that lives around the barn,
homie don’t play

Not long after moving to my retirement palace I befriended this cat, an old crippled female who is a survivor for sure.
I started feeding her a bit and she and my dog became friends and all was good.
One morning, just as I went out on my porch, I heard a muffled "meow" and quickly saw Booty Hop (the cat) with a just killed baby rabbit.
She brought it to me, dropped it on the ground and then laid herself down beside it, obviously pleased as could be.
I took this quick pic for posterity.
BootyBunny.JPG

Later on I'd allow her inside and she wasted no time in taking over the dog's bed, much to the chagrin of the dog, seen here asking me just WTF is going on. LOL
BoatyardPics 006.jpg
Apologies for fuzzy photo.



Take care.
 

ThaDood

Michael Peterson status
Jul 29, 2003
2,236
133
63
Playa Zen
Not long after moving to my retirement palace I befriended this cat, an old crippled female who is a survivor for sure.
I started feeding her a bit and she and my dog became friends and all was good.
One morning, just as I went out on my porch, I heard a muffled "meow" and quickly saw Booty Hop (the cat) with a just killed baby rabbit.
She brought it to me, dropped it on the ground and then laid herself down beside it, obviously pleased as could be.
I took this quick pic for posterity.
View attachment 119714

Later on I'd allow her inside and she wasted no time in taking over the dog's bed, much to the chagrin of the dog, seen here asking me just WTF is going on. LOL
View attachment 119716
Booty Hop giving zero F’s about being in the dog’s bed. Hahaha
 
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Hump

Phil Edwards status
Jan 10, 2002
5,909
2,130
113
Vancouver Island
My friend Karen caught these locals having a log birling contest, so she claims.
Here you can see them getting ready for the signal to start.
Apparently you start at the quack of three.

BirlingDucksKaren.jpg

She claims it was a really good battle with lots of splashing, much shoving, wanton wing flapping and webbed feet whirling until the winner prevailed.
And here she is, Champion of the Inaugural Inter-gender Mallard Duck Log Birling Championship Of The Estuary, 2021.
Apparently her extra weight tilted things in her favor.

BirlingDucksWinner.jpg

And here's the loser, surfacing after his embarrassing loss and subsequent deep dunking.
Obviously failed his Duck Diving 101 lesson.
The shame.


MallardWings.jpg

Anyone want some rain?

I have some available, free to a good home.

I'm losing it. LOL





Take care.
 

Icu812

Nep status
Jun 23, 2013
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Wow! I was foraging around the other day and found a cluster of these--red-capped butter bolete--this was the biggest one, 4.25#! Ate some fresh and dried the rest by the woodstove for later use. Very tasty 'shroom!
sefGeR1xSBq7zh6A2a6kaw.jpg
 

Hump

Phil Edwards status
Jan 10, 2002
5,909
2,130
113
Vancouver Island
Eagles can be territorial at times and will challenge and see off any intruders.

Here we see the adult looking very dedicated to his pursuit, having spotted an intruder, in this case a Golden Eagle.
EagleInPursuit.jpg

Once he closed in on the intruder the scrap was on.
EagleAfterJuvie.jpg

Just before the grab. Note the Golden ready to retaliate.

EagleCatchesJuvie.jpg

They quickly disengaged and the intruding Golden left quite hurriedly.

Photos by Gregory Philip Hurst, who should have shot a couple more, but didn't.


NOTE: Greg just allowed as to how the intruder was, in fact, a Golden Eagle and not a juvenile Bald Eagle, which we had assumed it was initially.
I have edited my post to represent that.



Take care.
 
Last edited:

Mr Doof

Duke status
Jan 23, 2002
24,850
7,747
113
San Francisco, CA
Something killed and partially ate one of the marauding squirrels....lower 1/3 of it was missing when I found it this weekend past near the dwarf apple tree. Some marks about the head/neck, but don't know if that killed it. Am sure the missing hindquarters didn't help.

I don't think Bix the Cat got it, or any of the rival neighborhood cats. Have seen a hawk go after one, so, maybe that is what killed/ate it.

Anyway, I placed it among the blueberries on Saturday, thinking it would just rot into the compost, and then today as I raked some leaves and put them in the compost pot, checked out the decomposition process of said squirrel and it is gone.

Opossum would be my guess. Maybe a racoon would scavenge a few days old squirrel?
 

Hump

Phil Edwards status
Jan 10, 2002
5,909
2,130
113
Vancouver Island
I don't usually do much for Christmas, but this year I grabbed a small tree from beside the creek and sparsely decorated it, thinking it might add a bit of cheer.

I can only guess that this guy is a descendant of the Beavers we battled back a few years ago and he's still pissed off.

Anyway, he was caught in the act.

BeaverChristmasTrr.jpg

And that's a lie.

Don't even know who took the pic but couldn't resist using it.

My bad. LOL




Take care.
 

keenfish

Duke status
May 12, 2002
18,747
6,417
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Trona
www.pbase.com
Something killed and partially ate one of the marauding squirrels....lower 1/3 of it was missing when I found it this weekend past near the dwarf apple tree. Some marks about the head/neck, but don't know if that killed it. Am sure the missing hindquarters didn't help.

I don't think Bix the Cat got it, or any of the rival neighborhood cats. Have seen a hawk go after one, so, maybe that is what killed/ate it.

Anyway, I placed it among the blueberries on Saturday, thinking it would just rot into the compost, and then today as I raked some leaves and put them in the compost pot, checked out the decomposition process of said squirrel and it is gone.

Opossum would be my guess. Maybe a racoon would scavenge a few days old squirrel?
Hawks love ground squirrels. That would be my guess of the culprit. It may have come back for it even? I had a Coopers hawk with a pigeon kill in my back yard. I put the remains in the bin and right at dusk the hawk was back and it hung out for a good long time trying to locate the kill it had left behind.

Here's a RTH with a ground squirrel. It mowed on it for about an hour and couldn't give a sh!t that I was there snapping shots the whole time.

 

SteveT

Phil Edwards status
Apr 11, 2005
5,864
2,408
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The Carpinteria State Park grass area down by the beach floods during heavy rains and literally turns into a lake.
The birds love it.
This is from this AM. There's ducks, a White Egret, a Great Blue Herron and a Crow all hangn' together.
The Blue Herron was picking frogs off.

lcw-CarpLake2-122521.jpg
 

Icu812

Nep status
Jun 23, 2013
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What eventually happens to the carcass? Couild you hold your breath and carve out some vertebrae? A friend on mine found some on a beach in Baja and they are very cool looking.
Some friends of mine tried burying a smaller one hoping they could dig it up later for the vertebrae, skull, whatever. Don't know what eventually happened to that plan. I've heard of people using very sharp shovels to carve on carcasses from a distance...probably would want to have better than a Covid mask on for that sh*t though. If we ever get a giant swell again that might move this one around too.
 
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Hump

Phil Edwards status
Jan 10, 2002
5,909
2,130
113
Vancouver Island
Some friends of mine tried burying a smaller one hoping they could dig it up later for the vertebrae, skull, whatever. Don't know what eventually happened to that plan. I've heard of people using very sharp shovels to carve on carcasses from a distance...probably would want to have better than a Covid mask on for that sh*t though. If we ever get a giant swell again that might move this one around too.

When I lived at Sandspit, in what's now called Haida Gwaii, I got to know a really interesting couple, Neil and Betty Carey.
One of the stories they told me was about the locals anchoring down a whale carcass some years previously and letting nature take its course.
Wasn't long before nothing but the skeleton remained, which was brought ashore, assembled and hung as a school project.

Nature takes care of things, eventually.



Take care.
 
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