lizvogel

We get a lot of wildlife at the pond, including the occasional heron, sometimes a pair of mallards stopping by, and some kind of bug-fishing bird I haven't yet identified. Geese are rare.

Sunday I looked up to find a small flock of geese making their way from the woods to the water. Six adults, five half-grown goslings... and, yes, two smaller goslings, barely more than bundles of yellowey-gray fluff. They swam around the pond for a bit, then waddled out on the far side and nibbled their way over the berm and back woods-ward.

Today they were back, in the front lawn. (Just coming from over the road, I think; I'd wondered what the cars were slowing down for.) I got a much better look at the tiny goslings this time. They and their parents seem like an annex of the flock; with it, but a bit off to the side. Possibly the parents are just very protective of their much-smaller offspring, as who could blame them?

Just now I can see the four adults and five teenagers in the field across the road again. No sign of the others; I hope that means they've decided not to chance the road so much until their tiny balls of fluff can waddle a bit faster.

In related news, I've been enjoying watching the muskrats swim about and collect bits for what I assume is a nest. I was less pleased to discover that one of them has burrowed into the main patch of water iris, and eaten about two-thirds of the plants to the ground. We may have to have words about that, though overall I do quite like muskrats; they're rather like pond-otters.

Amazing red-headed woodpecker working on the tree outside the living room window right now. He keeps leaning back and bipping from side to side as if checking the menus on the other sides of the tree, then coming back to the substantial dent he's making above where he's perched.

Earlier I was finishing my exercising while staring out another window and through a frame of snow-covered branches at a huge crow across the pond, hopping around and pecking at the ground. Another crow kept shedding snow while hopping around in the tree above. Eventually a third crow joined the first one, both somehow staying in their wintery frame even while arguing over who got which bit of ground.

Yesterday there were deer traipsing through the side yard again. They stopped to stare in the window at us when we moved to see them better, then decided against challenging the traffic on the road and headed back into the woods again.

Housemate and I went for a walk the other day around the university campus, which really is a lovely place with lots of trees and green spaces. As we were heading back to the car, one of the campus squirrels approached us, looking for a handout. Sadly, we didn't have anything to give him. (Imploring little squirrel face!) But I held still, and he came up and sniffed my shoes to make sure. And when I got the housemate to also hold still, he went over and checked out her shoes, then sat up and put his paw on her leg to steady himself while he sniffed her jeans! Then he moved over to her other foot and did the same there! For a minute I thought he was going to climb right up her, and she'd end up with a squirrel hat; but no, he finally decided we were in fact bereft of squirrel fodder, and moved off a few feet. Though he did keep looking wistfully after us until another squirrel distracted him.

Last week it was three wild turkeys (jeez, they're huge!) strolling through the back woods. And a trio of deer wandering about the same; the smallest of the three, having walked around the pile of downfall they were congregating around, decided it wanted to be back on the other side, and rather than walking around again, merely jumped right over the head-high pile. And then there was the raccoon on the deck, who showed every sign of being ready to come right in the house if we'd only open the door.

Today, it's a fluffed-up fat-looking robin, pecking fiercely into the leaf-litter covering the back yard despite the fact that it in turn is generously frosted with snow, more of which is blowing around to the extent that I'm occasionally losing sight of the road. He doesn't look bewildered so much as determined to not believe that he, a robin, is in a setting so very un-Spring-like.