Good Friday!

Trying to use up my feeder.  Not as sunny as I'd hoped today.  Took my new position behind the tree and outside of the fence (so working on "closer" close-ups).  And the always reliable White-breasted Nuthatch stopped by and I got lucky with a combo with a Black-capped Chickadee.  Not a bad 10 minutes worth of work...

Nuthatch

 

Combo with Chickadee and Nuthatch

 

Nuthatch again

 

Chickadee

 

And finishing with Nuthatches

 

"Sometimes you feel like a nut..."

 

And finally a sunny shot...

 

Rabbit rescue aka "Bunny Cam"

I was noticing a low spot off the deck this past week.  I knew it was there from mowing but what caught my eye was the way the grass seemed smoothed or washed back.  Thought maybe it had something to do the with rain and I didn't investigate further.

Well Rusty put his nose in the hole on Tuesday and kept pressing deeper and I knew we had a situation.  I took him inside and came back out with some to poke around a little.  I pulled back the grass clippings and got to rabbit hair.  I didn't know if it was a ball of hair or the back end of a rabbit. I pulled that back and saw an opening and some movement.  Saw a naked bunny and quickly closed it back up.  I knew I had to cover it but wasn't quite sure how.  I called Steve for some ideas and he thought maybe a bucket with a hole and a brick on the top.  My main concern was keeping Russ out of it.

I didn't really have a bucket to cut and thought of crates that Gene and Ruth would bring to me from Pella. They were used for tulips/bulbs.  So I cut a door in one of those crates and used some of the many bricks still on my deck and here we have a shelter...

Here is the hole

 



 

Closer look

 

You can see how close this is to the desk

 

Crate over the hole

 

Showing you relative to deck

 

Nice cut doorway (used a file)

 

With the bricks

 

Closer

 

Another view

 

Looking from the deck

 

This is why I covered the hole...

 



I put out the trail camera to see of mama would come around

 



Rabbits are notorious for leaving nests.  Part of it is to not draw attention to the location and I've read a mother really only spends about five minutes a day feeding milk to the little ones.  That is enough for them. So the questions were "would mom come back" and "would she go inside"?  Here are just two images but you can see she is very careful to look out before going inside.  Last night she went in it three different times.  So I don't know if that is normal or due to the change in what I put over the hole.

 

Making sure the coast is clear

 



 

You can see her inside

I feel I have them covered (literally) for now.  The concern is when they come hopping out and keeping Russ away until they are old enough to be on their own.  Then they will need to dodge the fox, coyotes, hawks and owls in the area.  Welcome to being a rabbit!

As you can imagine, I will be following their progress and hopefully be able to capture images of bunnies tumbling out.

Spring snow today

Northern and eastern Iowa got more than we did but it fell steadily and made a pretty and sometimes interesting picture outside.

 Kind of melting but not...

 

The branch above became the hanging shape below...

 

 

Wanting to drip...

 

Don't stand so close to me

I've noticed how White-breasted Nuthatches really aren't shy when I'm standing at the fence.  And I've taken some pictures standing close to the feeder when I on the other side of the fence doing something so I thought "what if I stood next to the tree or just behind it?"  When I'm at the fence, I'm probably 12 feet away.  Standing behind the tree puts me about eight feet from the feeder.  So I was out yesterday playing with the zoom to see how pictures would turn out.  You'll see below that some are clearer than others.  When I zoomed all the way, not as clear.  And you'll see some of the pictures that I tried to really zoom were not well-lit.

By the end of the afternoon, I finally had some sun and was fortunate to capture a Downy Woodpecker.

Here's what I got...

First efforts a little shadowy and finally some sun on this White-breasted Nuthatch.

 

Here is a Black-capped Chickadee...

 

 

Some close-ups of a Downy Woodpecker that could stand more sun...

 

 

Nuthatch again in better light

 

 

And here is my series of Downy Woodpecker pics from my new vantage point and some sun

 

And here is my new vantage point

 

 

After 5pm seems to be a busy time on the edge of the woods.  I'm chasing Eastern Bluebirds now.  And there are elusive Northern Cardinals that seem to live in some thicket next door on the wood's edge.  I finally got a few decent pictures...

 



About as close as I'm going to get to a Bald Eagle this winter

I wanted to get down on the trail or down to the Des Moines River downtown to see Bald Eagles.  I have seen some on Beaver Creek heading into Johnston but I didn't have my camera with me. It just didn't work out.

These pictures are from Tuesday.  It was a clear, calm day.  I stood in the backyard marveling at watching a pair of Bald Eagles fly together.  I could even hear them it was that still. 

Anyway, these pictures aren't clear but it's what I saw that day...