We've been doing an inventory of the animals we've been seeing or hearing around the neighborhood lately. It's apparently the time of year for new babies:
Every night for a couple of weeks now we hear two baby Barred Owls calling to their parents for food. It's a thin, high-pitched screech. We've seen the babies a few times, too. Power lines across the street from our house (close to a streetlight) are favored perching spots.
Yesterday I spotted two baby deer standing in a neighbor's back yard. The property is bounded on the back side by a small, wooded lot, so I'm guessing they stay in there during the day. They're beautiful little creatures! My neighbor, Heather, saw one of the fawns along with its mother in her yard one evening last week.
Bluebirds have another nest in our box right now, and from the frantic sounds of the babies inside, it won't be long before they fledge. There was an earlier brood nesting in there last month, but of course we have no idea if it's the same parent pair or not. There are lots of bluebirds around here.
Thanks to all the rain we've had over the last week, the nearby creek is alive with a frog chorus at night.
Marco on the porch during a rainstorm.
My garden is really coming along. It's awfully late this year, but I'm hoping my patience is about to be rewarded. We have loads of green tomatoes, small peppers, and cucumbers. Another couple of weeks and we should have more produce than we know what to do with. Here's hoping, anyway! :) I'm planning to make pickles and salsas and hot sauce with any extras.
Marco's almost finished with his winter molt, and I must say, his feathers are looking beautiful this year. Spending plenty of time on the porch soaking up sunlight is obviously good for him.
Speaking of animals on the porch, this little guy showed up the other day and was also soaking up the sunshine. We've been seeing these blue-tailed skinks around for a couple of weeks now. They're actually called American five lined skinks (Plestiodon fasciatus), and they only have this coloring when they're juveniles. They lose the blue color as they get older and then their heads turn red, so this one will look totally different once it grows up.
In other animal sighting news, yesterday Gregg and I went over to the nature trail that's less than a block from our house and took a little walk. We only saw one other human, a guy out running. Way back in the woods, beside a stream that's part of the creek, we saw a fox walking silently along the water's edge. That was a treat! I thought of Meike and Neil and their love of foxes. We also saw a large pond slider turtle, sitting in a patch of sunlight in the mud. I didn't have my phone with me and so sadly I didn't get any photos. As we were getting in our car, we heard two barred owls calling to each other, which was strange considering it was the middle of the day. We hear them all the time at night. I wonder what they were up to? A quick Google search indicates that they do indeed sometimes call to each other and hunt during the day. Not too long ago we were out walking the dogs after dark and we saw one of them (thanks to a street light) land in a tall pine tree in front of us. Thanks to the close proximity of the creek, we see and hear all sorts of wildlife. We made a good choice when we picked this house to buy.
I can't wait for spring break, it seems to be taking forever to get here. I can't help but laugh at myself a little when I'm tempted to complain about how late it is this year. At this time two years ago I was working in a retail job I hated with no time off except the two or three weeks' paid vacation I got which had to last the whole year. And I had to work there over 5 years to qualify for that much time off! Now I have a week and a half at Easter, the whole summer, almost a week at Thanksgiving, and two weeks over the winter holidays off. I'm trying to always remember what a luxury that is.
It does seem to be taking a long time for our spring break to get here, though. Our local school district ties it to the Easter holiday, and Easter falls late this year. We're out of school from Good Friday, April 19th, until Monday April 29. Once we get back to school there's only 4 or 5 weeks left until we dismiss for the summer.
Gregg is taking an extra day or two off with me over the holiday. He gets very little time off so I kind of insisted he take some time to spend with me and to relax! After he goes back to work I'm considering going to visit my father in law and sister in law for a day or two. I've been meaning to get up to Raleigh for a visit since my mother in law passed away, but we've been so busy with buying a house and then the holidays that it's been on the back burner. I'd like to see Lou, and I'm also thinking about asking for some divisions and cuttings of plants that Edythe loved from their yard.
Spring has already fully sprung here in South Carolina. Our new little neighborhood, being adjacent to a small creek and nature trail, has lots of old dogwoods in full bloom, wisteria running riot, and even some trees draped in Spanish moss. Not to mention a thousand shades of green. We've never seen so many birds and such a variety at our feeders. There are scores of Northern Cardinals, House Finches, Song Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Tufted Titmice, Carolina Chickadees, Carolina wrens, and lesser numbers of Red Bellied woodpeckers, Red Breasted nuthatches, White Breasted nuthatches, Common grackles, and the occasional Blue jay. Best of all, we have our very own pair of Barred owls that live here! We hear their calls almost every afternoon when they first wake up ( a soft "who cooks for you, who cooks for you all") and then occasionally throughout the night. They're often hanging out close to our house (I fear they may have some interest in our well populated feeders, but so far we've never seen an attack). One of them landed in the tree over our driveway the other evening at dusk, and we got a good look at him/her. It was pretty amazing! Sometimes when the weather is mild and I'm sleeping with the window open, I wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of the pair calling softly to each other in the dark. It's a lovely, reassuring sound.
