Nature Notes: moving into mid January

The photographs from the first part of this post were taken on a recent walk.

I had a new member of the wildlife family appear on my deck yesterday.

If he hadn't scared me so bad, I could have easily taken a picture as I was on my deck shooting the sunrise and had my camera at the ready.

My visitor was a gigantic opossum and I stamped my feet to scare him off before I had registered what he was.

 

My first impression was a rodent like creature as big as a cat was on my deck. Once I realized it was an opossum I regretted not taking his picture.

We've had a lot of misty foggy mornings and I could barely see the male and female cardinal above when I photographed them.

Sparrows are a frequent visitor to my deck, like the one above.

The female cardinal above looked like she was trying to talk to me. The little junco below was racing around on my deck.

When I shot the male cardinal below, I didn't even see the rufous-sided towhee under him until I downloaded the shot.

We're continuing to have huge weather swings from spring to winter.

Sometimes the temperatures can have has much as a 50 degree difference within 48 hours.

It is wild to need a winter coat one morning and then another day to be able to go outside in shirt sleeves.

The carolina chickadee below is a little bit blurry but they move so fast, I'm pleased to photograph them at all.

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