Weekend Wildlife Adventure

Alex and I have been working in the yard this weekend to prepare it for summer. There's a lot of weeding and planting to do before mulch season begins. I hate mulch season. We typically buy about 90 bags of the stuff and I'm covered head-to-toe in mulch until we've finished all the beds. This will teach us for trying to grow our own Garden of Eden.

Alex got a couple of really great shots of critters living in our yard. Yesterday he caught a photo of the kit and today he got the Pileated Woodpecker. The kit is really sweet and playful. He has two siblings and they frolic together like puppies. There are two adult fox parents who guard over them. When you get close, they make a funny little yipping noise and then try to head you off in another direction away from their babies. I'm not crazy about having foxes because they're bad news for the squirrels, bunnies, chipmunks and groundhogs in the yard. (I saw two groundhogs climb trees on Friday. I didn't even knot they could do that!)

Mr. Pileated has been in our yard for a while and we can always tell when he's around by the rat-a-tat-a-tat in the forest. Isn't he beautiful? We put suet in the bird feeder for him. The other morning I filled up a few of the feeders closer to the house and I was shocked to see four different birds having breakfast together at the same time! There was a European Starling, Cardinal, sparrow and finch.

Gotta run. Alex has lost something and I have to find it. I think I spend most of my free time trying to find things he's lost. Anyone who's ever had a husband knows exactly what I mean.