Published by Alice on December 22, 2009
in deer.
I thought it was pretty cute when the broke-leg deer came to investigate the birdfeeder.
He is the deer who is the least afraid of me (I thought he’d be the only garden visitor)
and I like his calm contemplation of me and my camera. We are both aware that he’s much stronger than I am, and he likes that.
He can’t figure out how to get seed out of the feeder,
but he just loves the big things left on top of the snow for the magpies and jays.
He loves the birdfood, I’m fond of him…
we definitely had a moment there.
But it wasn’t a private moment. There was an old buck looking on, trying to figure out how he was going to get some of that stuff for himself, and the next day
the doe brought by one of her kids. You just trim the aspen while I work on the feeder, she said.
Sometimes it’s hard to get it started, she explained,
but once the seed gets flowing it’s the best.
And that was the end of the birdfeeder in the garden.
It can be hard to maintain a birdfeeder here, because the deer will empty it any night you forget to bring it in. We haven’t had one up in a while, but after Jessie died it seemed like no trouble at all to start feeding the birds again.
The littlest birds take the seed neatly from the feeder. Bigger birds like this flicker hang on the bottom of the feeder and spill seed on the snow where the magpies (too big for the feeder) can get it. I started giving the birds table scraps, and trimmings that would go to the compost pile in the summer. They were eating the two-day-old salad in the fridge that isn’t quite ready to toss. Everything was fine until the ducks heard about it.
The entire flock of ducks marched in a single line from their hiding place on the ditch to a clearing in the forest. I enlarged this photo, and counted forty (!!) wild mallards assembling for an assault on the birdfeeder. They marched from the forest to the feeder in two groups: one approached from the left, and the other hooked around and came at the feeder from the right.
It wasn’t a successful visit. The smaller birds don’t mind sharing, but there are too many ducks for the birdfeeder. And there were other problems as well. The feeder is too exposed for mallards. Although Jessie is gone, they remember her without affection. From the duck’s point of view, there wasn’t enough food to warrant the risk, and they haven’t returned.
Except for this girl, who waddles over to dabble at seeds on the snow almost every day.
(The birds don’t tolerate me at all, so these photos are taken through a glass door.)
Published by Alice on December 8, 2009
in deer.
We got well over two feet of snow in less than a day.
The snow isn’t so deep under the trees, and
my favorite little herd came to eat the fresh pine fronds knocked down by the snow.
Mom checked the yearlings as she left the forest edge.
You kids be careful, she said,
and then she broke the trail.
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