Turtle, deer, and crows

Yesterday was a good day for wildlife watching at my house. Of course there were the usual birds at the feeders, including hummingbirds, and we've even been lucky enough to get a pair of Painted Buntings again this year. The birdwatching is always good here, but the other animals we see can be pretty special, too.

The turtles that always climb up out of the nearby creek and come into the neighborhood to nest in the sandy soil have been very active this month. Yesterday when Gregg went out to get the mail, he spotted a big female laying eggs in a hole she had dug right beside our mailbox. He came in the house and told me about it, so we stood at our front door and watched her slowly retreat in the direction of the creek when she was done. Then a gang of crows who were around and also watching promptly showed up, dug off the top layer of soil, and ate the eggs. As sad as we were that mama turtle's efforts had been in vain, you can't help but admire the crows' intelligence and cunning. And as I told Gregg, "Crows have to eat, too."

Here's another thing that happened yesterday. Gregg happened to look out of the office window early in the afternoon and saw a young deer walking through our front yard. He/she continued around the house, to the south facing side, and laid down for a while beside the hedges next door. I gently raised the bathroom window and took a photo with my phone.

The deer rested there for a good 30 minutes, only leaving once it started to rain.

Spring garden update

The baby crabapple tree has doubled in size this year, and for the first time, it has a few flowers! Aren't they pretty? Unfortunately, the deer came back night before last and ate a bunch of the tender new leaves. I was so mad when I walked outside yesterday morning and saw the damage! Apparently, apple trees of all types are irresistible to deer. 

The tree will never amount to much without protection while it's young and just starting to grow. With that in mind I went to Lowe's in the afternoon and bought four seven-foot-tall garden stakes. Along with a big roll of fine mesh bird netting that we had stashed in the garage, they make a decent protective "cage" to keep hungry wildlife out. It's not the greatest looking thing in the world, but it should do the job. 

In other garden news, I've been hardening off my tomato and pepper plants and preparing the bed for planting. I started some herb seeds (basil, parsley, and oregano) in pots, sowed borage seeds in the bed in front of the porch, and planted marigold seeds in the raised bed between the spaces where the tomatoes will go. And I planted rattlesnake beans! (Thank you again, Mary, for sharing those with me!) I've been at home on spring break this week and the weather has been wonderful for working outside. Going back to the office next week is going to be hard!

Oh, deer!

Regular readers of this blog may remember that I bought a crabapple tree late in the winter and planted it in our front yard. It arrived as a bare stick (dormant) and for a while this spring we were beginning to wonder if it was really alive. Then, finally, hurray! A nice flush of tender new leaves popped out and we knew it was alive and growing. More and more leaves started to pop out and I was so excited!

Then one morning I got up and all those pretty new leaves were gone--had just disappeared overnight. We'd been seeing a couple of young deer hanging out in our neighbors' yards and I couldn't think of anything else that would have stripped the leaves from a waist high tree like that. I was upset, but I could see new little buds further down the stem getting ready to open. And open they did! Another flush of leaves opened up and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Until about a week later. The same thing happened--all the new growth disappeared overnight.

This has happened three or four times now. Every time the little tree struggles to put out a few new leaves, they promptly disappear. I read somewhere that apple tree foliage is a favorite among deer. What on earth am I going to do? I don't think the little tree will continue to survive if it can't keep leaves for photosynthesis.

I wish I could think of a solution. I'm considering putting some kind of wire cage around it or some netting over it, but of course that's going to look ugly as hell in the front yard! If anyone reading this has any suggestions to deter hungry young deer (that won't look too ridiculous) please share them with me!

The ironic part of all this is that part of the reason we decided on a crabapple tree in the first place is so that the fruit could one day be food for the local wildlife! At the rate things are going, those deer will never see an actual crabapple...and neither will we!

                                              Centurion Crabapple Tree

Like a Disney movie

Over the past six months or so the boys and I have become consistent twice-daily walkers. We take George out very early in the morning and then again after dark for a lap or two around the half mile circle that is our little neighborhood. Partly because of the timing, but maybe in part because we're actively looking, we see so much wildlife lately.

Yesterday I snapped this photo of our neighborhood deer, who are almost tame. (I apologize for the crappy picture; it was my cell phone camera). There were actually three but I didn't notice that until they started to saunter away. George stood stock still and just looked at them, as he's learned to do. We encounter these same three deer (a large female and two smaller animals of undetermined sex) almost every day and we always stop for awhile and just quietly look at each other.  Last night we saw the large one standing in this same yard, close to the road, a big black silhouette under the street lights. Sometimes they'll even lower their heads and graze in our presence! It feels like such a privilege to have them around and to have their trust.

We've been seeing lots of rabbits, too. One of our neighbors has a large shady yard sloping downwards in the back towards a small pond, and the whole grassy hill is covered in dandelions. It's really pretty and that's the yard where we usually spot rabbits. We saw one over there just this morning, in fact. Afterwards we saw a pair of bluebirds flitting around some power lines and pine trees and the male was the most spectacular shade of blue I've ever seen. 

It's also that time of year when we see large turtles all around the neighborhood. The other night we saw one crossing the road and I swear it's shell was at least 12 inches in diameter, obviously an older turtle. It's been a couple of weeks since we've seen an owl, but one night early this week we heard two of them making crazy jungle noises in a tall tree. Sometimes I'll wake up at night and if my bedroom window is cracked I'll hear them calling to each other.

Add to all this the cardinals nesting in our pomegranate tree and the little Carolina Wrens nesting in the attic vent slates on our roof, and as I told Gregg this morning, "It's like living in a Disney movie right now!" I like it a lot. Who knew buying a house so close to the creek would be so perfect for nature lovers like us? We feel very fortunate.

Wildlife

I've mentioned before how much I love all the animals we see in our neighborhood. The proximity to portions of Jeffries Creek makes this a great part of the county to live in if you want to see many varied mammal, bird, amphibian, and reptile species. We didn't realize it would be that way when we bought this house, because we're right off busy Hwy 76 and less than a mile from the center of the city. What a lucky break! When we lived way out in the country back in 2007-2010, we reveled in the wildlife and the quiet, but the 40 minute commute to work (which we couldn't share because we had very different schedules) got to be too much. It was a pretty place, though, and we were sorry to leave.

When we first found this house and bought it we liked the fact that even though it was off a main highway, it was tucked away and had no through-access. It's a half mile loop that's tucked away with woods and creek bottoms on one side. We've seen all kinds of animals, from large turtles to owls to foxes. Then there's the deer. We see two or three deer several times a week on our early morning/late evening walks with George. One neighbor, we discovered, was feeding some at her back fence early, early in the mornings late last fall. We would always stop and look for a minute, then move on. But we hadn't seen them lately.

Then yesterday morning as we walked past this neighbor's house, her dog was in the back yard for a change and barking loudly at us as we passed. Just as we both were about to say "So much for seeing the deer today..." we realized two does were standing at the fence, behind the fiercely barking dog, completely unfazed and apparently waiting for their breakfast! The dog obviously didn't mind the deer and vice versa. We couldn't believe our eyes! Then the woman walked out, saw us looking, and waved. All the while the two does stood there patiently, looking back at us. How cool is that?

We see two and sometimes three deer at night in other parts of the neighborhood, too. I'm sure it's the same ones. When we see them, we always stop for a minute and look and then slowly move on. They never seem afraid, nor do they bolt. They just look back at us and watch us pass. It's almost like we have neighborhood pet deer and I love it so much! A close encounter with them always gives me a few moments of pure joy. Those are few and far between these days, so I savor them.

Solstice Great Conjunction

 

That's a terrible photo of last night's Great Conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn. It was taken with my cell phone camera in "night mode" which is why the color is kind of weird. Sigh. One day I hope to be able to afford a nice camera capable of taking these kinds of shots. Still, I wanted a picture to remember the event by. People have called the conjunction a "Christmas Star" which seems kind of silly to me. It's obviously two planets that appear kind of close together and not a single bright star at all. For my money, sparkling Sirius rising in the East is prettier and much more deserving of the name. 

Whenever the sky is clear we enjoy looking up at all the stars when we're out walking at night. We made sure to go out early enough last night to see the conjunction and then took a second walk later, around 9pm. As often happens, we encountered a deer standing in someone's front yard. We always stop and look at each other for a few minutes, then continue on our respective ways. Seeing one on the solstice night seemed extra special!

Three days left until Christmas...