Christmas Wishes

My Christmas wish this year ~ peace, healing, and good will toward the planet which is our home, and all of it's inhabitants, be they four footed, winged, finned, rooted or two legged.
                     
                                   For those who don't celebrate:

                                    For all those Who do:

Enjoy,
Susan

Home Sweet Home

                                         Where does the wildlife live?

Pileated Woodpecker home

Pileated Woodpeckers create square holes, unlike most woodpeckers.  Their nesting hole is created the same way, a new one every year.  Although Pileated Woodpeckers typically choose the highest tree in the forest for their nesting site.  The nest hole above was abandoned, although obviously used at some time, perhaps by another woodpecker species, as there is a second hole dug out  inside.

Nuthatch leaving shelter

I was lucky to capture an image of this Red breasted Nuthatch leaving it's shelter this year, an abandoned woodpecker nest hole.

Muskrat entering it's den

Last spring I captured many images of a Muskrat in a local pond.  I learned that the Muskrat is primarily nocturnal and lives in a den it digs out at the edge of a pond.  The den will have several entrance/ escape tunnels when the Muskrat is done.   In the photo above the Muskrat is heading for it's den, as it was uncomfortable with my presence.

Dug-out colony

Last fall I discovered this colony of homes of simple dugouts around a single tree.  I didn't see the animals that live here.  Ground squirrels perhaps?

This home may have started out as a woodpecker hole, which was then enlarged.  It has since been abandoned, but I found nesting materials inside.

Under a tree

I know that Squirrels will often dig a home amongst and under the roots of trees, but this one was quite large leaving me to speculate about which animal may have lived here.

Enjoy,
Susan 

One second with Nature: December

The pond

                                                        Abundance
Enjoy,
Susan

What Woodpeckers provide

Pileated Woodpecker

I love Woodpeckers and will often stop and just watch them quietly whenever I get the chance.  The things that all Woodpeckers do naturally, provide, not only for their young, but for other wildlife species as well.

Northern Flicker

Aside from ridding trees of a plague of insects, they also build homes which, when abandoned serve as homes for other birds and wildlife.  Or when they dig deeply while mining for beetles, larvae and other bugs, the resulting hole may also become a home for another small bird or creature.

Nuthatch in an abandoned Woodpecker home

Squirrel feasting on tree sap

Some species of Woodpecker, such as the Yellow-bellied sapsucker also provide sustenance.  When they bore their holes in a circular pattern around the trunk to glean the sap of a tree, the sap keeps flowing for some time after the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker has gone.  This then becomes a source of food for other birds, such as the Hummingbird, as well as other wildlife.

Yellow bellied spapsucker

Pileated Woodpecker and Blue Jay

The Pileated Woodpecker not only digs insects out of the bark of live trees, but will also excavate fallen trees in various stages of decay, exposing nests of insects and grubs in the process.  When he does, other creatures  benefit.  And they know it, as shown by the photo above, where not only one, but several Blue Jays waited as he let the wood chips fly.

Enjoy,
Susan

Pest control and alternatives to poison

Mechanical owl

In my post on the "Unintentional side effects of poison" a couple of weeks ago, I showed how more than one species of bird or wildlife can perish when we use poison as the means to control pest species such as Mice and Pigeons.  However, pest control, especially for health reasons, is unfortunately necessary.  What isn't, is the use of poison to achieve it because, as it turns out, there are many alternatives available.

The mechanical owl, shown in the photo on the left, was put in place just recently to discourage Pigeons, as well as a pair of Ravens that had nested inside the tower it is perched on this year.  The owl must have a motion sensor attached to it, because when I saw one of the Ravens attempt to land on the top of the tower yesterday, I heard the voice of an owl and, although the owl itself didn't move, the Raven veered off in alarm.   I haven't seen any Pigeons perched at the top since it was installed.  According to my research there are several different versions of a device just like this, that can be installed which gives off the sound of a predator's call or certain types of sounds disliked intensely by specific pest species such as Mice.

Pigeon

There are also several other simple devices that can used to keep birds from landing on buildings, such as sharply slanted edging.  Another is called a bird jolt, which is a flat strip of material installed much like a runner on the edges of a rooftop. This device gives a bird a slight, harmless jolt of electricity to condition it to stay away.  Flat rooftops, or any flat surface, can also be decorated with an object called a bird spider.  It moves with the breeze and startles birds away.  Other objects, devices and methods include mesh barriers, climbing barriers and all natural, non-toxic liquid or pellet scent repellants and more.

Gopher

Not only are these pest control methods humane and effective, they prevent the death of other innocent species.  Simple preventative measures such as these can even be used around your home keeping your pets and children safe accidentally poisoning.  More can be learned at the following links and other such sites:

http://www.birdbgone.com/products/bird-spiders/
http://www.birdbgone.com/products/bird-jolt-flat-track/
http://www.nixalite.com/animalcontrolproducts.aspx

Enjoy,
Susan

Alberta winter birds

Today's outing brought home both a surprise and new knowledge about winter and birds in Alberta.  In fact, the day brought more than one surprise.  Starting with the temperature outside, which being -4 this morning, is not typical for Alberta at this time of the year.  In fact that's almost balmy for Albertans.  I said hoora to that and unpacked my camera, having packed it away for winter because it doesn't do well in extremely cold weather.  I will admit that I didn't go far and I was hoping to see some Common Redpolls at the very least, but I really wasn't expecting to see much more than the usual neighborhood birds such as Blue Jays, Chickadees, Merlins, Owls and one, or both species of nuthatch, just to name a few.

Chickadee

Goldfinch female

The first of the birds I heard was not one of those, in fact it had me moving right quickly to locate it.  It's song sounded much like that of the Pine Grosbeak, but that, I realized when I saw it, was the wrong id, since those birds are definitely not yellow.  The photos I got aren't very clear because the bird is at the top of a tall tree and, unfortunately, I don't have a telephoto lens yet.  However I can make out just enough of this bird's coloring to identify it, but to do that I had to do some digging.  I ended up doing a general search on the internet about wintering birds in the province and got more than one surprise, all them good. 

The first is that the bird at the top of that tree turns out to be a female American Goldfinch, a first sighting for me.  The second surprise is that many more bird species remain in Alberta over the winter than most people assume, including hawks and ducks.  Although the American Goldfinch does migrate, not all of them do, just like not all Canada Geese migrate.  This of course is wonderful news for me, which means I can't wait to get out there again, provided it isn't too cold.  If you wish to find out which species are regularly sighted in Alberta every winter just follow this link: http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/maybank/other/abwinter.htm

Purple Finch male and female

My last surprise of the day was another first sighting.   One that I didn't realize I had made, because I was totally focused on getting another glimpse of the Goldfinch.  When I got a good look at all of my photos for today, I discovered a photo of Purple Finches in yet another tree top.  Again the photo isn't particularly good, although better than the one of the Goldfinch.  But that's ok, usually if I see a bird once, I see it again sooner or later, although hopefully sooner.  That means better photos are in store eventually.

Enjoy,
Susan

One second with Nature: November

Cranberry

                                                     Nature provides
Enjoy,
Susan