Who's In Your Backyard?

One of my Christmas gifts from Ralph this past year was an outdoor mountable bird camera with night vision.  I realize it's May, but we only finally got it working (it helps to have the setting on picture instead of test).  We set it up next to the fence in our back yard.  When we saw the first set of photos it captured, we couldn't believe our eyes (I believe I may have even done a little happy dance)!  Here they are...

The Bird Cam captured mostly turkey photos since they are constantly in our backyard. 

It's awesome to have such close up photos of our gobbler friends since they are pretty skittish when we're near.

Birds of a feather flock together...



Turkey Butt!  I wish the camera would capture a picture of a Tom in strut.



Well, hello there!

The mystery visitor!  We're thinking maybe a raccoon?  Any guesses?

Here's a cat who Remy was hissing at through the window earlier that day. 

Apparently, he or she made the same rounds later that night. 
Better be careful, there's a lot of animals in these woods at night!

Deer Butt! Heading right to the side of the house for a middle of the night snack of my hostas. 

Hopefully we'll get a front view of the deer at some point!

I saved the best for last...yowza!!

That's our friend, Bernard.  I would prefer we stay long distance friends. 

And here is the real finale...look for it, look for it...squirrel tail!!

I love the Bird Cam!!!  More photos to come... 

Turkeys Are Twitterpated!

Our wild turkey friends have become daily visitors to the backyard.  Different groups have been strolling through at multiple times throughout the day.  We've even had as many as 12 wild turkeys walk through the yard at one time!  It is usually the hens (females) who are our daily visitors, however today we were treated to a trio of toms (males) strutting!  Just as human males do their best to attract females (GTL anyone?) the male turkeys do the same thing...PSD you might call it.  Which stands for Puffing out their feathers, Spreading out their tails, and Dragging their wings.  It is officially known as "Strutting", but I do enjoy my acronym for it.  Either way, there was some major PSD going on this morning and I was lucky enough to capture a few photos...

Strutting their stuff!

"Dude, time for PSD!"

Positively Twitterpated!



Ralph took this one with his Android phone
 (Available at at&t in the Viewmont Mall.  Ask for Ralph.)

Read more about Wild Turkeys HERE.

Urban Dictionary defines "Twitterpated" HERE.  

Oh, Deer!

The turkeys have turned out to be frequent visitors to the backyard since their first appearance.  This morning I saw them fly from the backyard into the surrounding tree-tops.  If you've never seen turkeys fly you are missing out!  They are not the most graceful and/or coordinated birds around, that's for sure.  It's very reminiscent of myself during my high school gym class years. 

Although we're excited with every turkey sighting, we've been also trying to attract a different animal to the backyard.  I'm very excited to have finally seen and gotten a few highly un-professional photos of this new forest friend.  Hopefully they will return and give me a chance for some better photography! 


Deer me, at last!



I don't understand how anyone could want to hunt
and kill a creature like this. 



You can just see the second deer
in the middle rightof the photo. 



Creature Feature: "Turkeys: Take Two"

So I came home today to find our backyard filled with our feathered friends, the wild turkeys!  I managed to get some better pics before scaring them off with the crunching of the dry leaves under my feet.  So I thought I would share...
   


"Yay Gobblers!" ~ Ralph's reaction to me telling him
the turkeys were back 

    


"How do we get out of here?"
"Don't ask me, you were supposed to ask for directions!"

       


Thanksgiving is over - safe for another year!

  


On the 3rd day of Christmas my true
 love gave to me... 3 American turkeys!!!

 



Whose Prints Are These???

All right guys and gals, it's time to play..."Whose Prints Are These?"!  Here are some clues...
1)  They weren't on the deck when I went to bed last night, but they were there this morning.
2)  They weren't made by me or Ralph or Remy.
3)  There were seed shells on the deck from our bird feeders.



Lots of mystery prints!

 

Daaa duh...daaaa duh...daaa duh, duh, duh, duh.....

Front and back paws!



The big mama!

    



And the answer is...drum roll please...right after these messages from our sponsers!  Just kidding!!...............................................


Who Me??


   


Yep, that looks about right.

 






Aw shucks, I just wanted some Thanksgiving dinner!

Happy Thanksgiving!!! 

  

CREATURE FEATURE - "Halloween or Thanksgiving?"

I wasn't planning on posting again today, but about an hour ago I happened to notice Remy (my cat) going crazy looking at something outside the kitchen window.  I glanced out to see what had caught his attention, and to my suprise, saw 3 wild turkeys right in my side yard!  They were kicking the leaves around, and apparently eating something on the ground.  I just looked up wild turkeys and found out that they eat insects, berries, nuts, and seeds.  So they were perhaps eating acorns from our trees.  What an awesome site!  And not one that I had expected to see on Halloween!



My first wild turkey sighting!

 


Turkey time!

 


You guys better hide before Thanksgiving!