It is the time of the year when I give a callout to my friend Paul down in the NW suburbs of Minneapolis. You should get to know Paul, or more accurately his “bird blog”. Paul has three duck boxes on his property which abuts a small, fast flowing creek. The ducks like his hospitality.
Did I mention that Paul is a retired engineer from Honeywell? We worked together to years and you should know engineers do not retire, they just move on to non-paying projects. In Paul’s case, one of those projects are his wood duck boxes which have an amazing number of cameras which watch the ducks through incubation and then “THE DROP”! You are even able to watch “THE DROP / jump” live via the internet. Last year I had the please of watching the woodducks jump with Paul in a bird blind in his back yard.
Like my blog, Paul’s does not have advertisements or solicitations. He enjoys his birds and shares that enjoyment with his readers.
Big, Big Mistake! Amy and Les, my local Great Horned Owl parents are not only good providers, but they are great guardians / protectors. This post documents the past few days and includes a crow attack. Momma / Amy was not pleased.
The images includes within this post are from Day #9 (owlets 19 days old) and Day #11 (owlets 21 days old). According to the Cornell School of Ornithology Great Horned Owlets normally spend their first 8 to 10 days underneath Momma Owl … thus I am adding 10 days from when the owlets were first viewable by me on Easter Morning.
Day #9 (19 days old): The nest is getting crowed, but Momma Owl still spends most of her time keeping the owlets warm and protected
Day #11 (21 days old): Momma Owl is now off the nest more than she is with the owlets. There isn’t much extra room, and the growing youngsters need both parent owls to hunt for food. Early this morning the crows attacked the owls … for good reason. Examine the first image. The owlets often enjoy crow for breakfast.
Things had calmed down by the next afternoon. Both owlets are fine … one is just hiding in the shadows of the nest.
The Northland Forest is waking up, and Momma Bear wanted to introduce her three cubs to Molly and me! Thursday night I looked up from the couch and realized there was a bear happily eating sunflower seeds at one of the bird feeders … only 10 yards from where I was sitting. When I stood up I quickly realized that the entire bear family was visiting Hoeg Hollow. There isn’t much food in the woods right now, and my seven bird feeders was just too nice an attraction to miss during their evening ramblings. The four bears spent over 45 minutes at our home on Amity Creek! Occasionally they would scamper into the forest, but within seconds one or more of the cubs would reappear.
We have a window seat which is only a few feet from the feeders, and I got down on the floor and crawled across the room to the light switches. Dousing the lights provided the two of us perfect viewing from our darkened house without scaring the bears.
As a fyi, we are NOT turning lights “on and off” during any of the videos. My security cameras automatically switch between infrared and normal modes based upon the amount of light, which accounts for the perceived “flashes”. Given the intensity of the floodlights the cameras took some video “in living color” as Walt Disney would say!
And now as Ed Sullivan would say … Let’s get on with the show!
My cameras were either my Decko Security / TrailCams … read full review, or my Pixel 7a phone. I did not use my Sony A6300.
Movies may be found underneath the still images!
The Bear Family first arrives … one of the cubs is very, very brown, not black
Radom Black Bear Family Photographs. Notice the “brown cub” is “in process” at ripping the suet feeder down … 3rd image!
Oops … the BBQ is Hot! The cub jumped back quickly. It was smelling the pork chops I BBQ’d three hours earlier. Brownie learns about Smokey Joes!
Aftermath the Next Morning! Molly and I were sitting on the window seat … closest window.
Black Bear Family … The Movies!
Bears Arriving … Trailcam … No Sound (video link for email subscribers)
Our Reactions … Pixel 7a Phone … Taken from Inside (video link One and Two for email subscribers)
Up a Tree … and Down Again! (video link for email subscribers)
Inspecting the TrailCams (video link for email subscribers)
