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Monday, February 10, 2014

Nature Notes: early February

I'm going to begin with three shots of the birds snacking on my deck wall.
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The first shot is of a rufous-sided towhee and the second shot is of a carolina chickadee with a towhee at the bottom.
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 I think the posture of the male cardinal below looks like a fish and there's a junco beside him.
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When I walk in my neighborhood I always see a downy woodpecker at the same suet cage.
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The same house has two suet cages and numerous bird feeders but this particular cage is the province of the downy woodpecker.
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 I also spotted the squirrel below on a neighborhood walk.
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 I think the bird below is a raven.
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 The next shot is another day and includes both suet cages and bird feeders at the neighbor house.
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 In the shot above the downy woodpecker is on the far right suet cage and below I zoomed in.
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 I could photograph this bird all day.
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 The carolina chickadee below is finding seeds to eat in the crepe myrtle tree.
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 The next three shots were taken at the Prairie Ridge Ecostation.
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My Our World post this week is about the ecostation and you can click here if you are interested.
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 As we walked by, flocks of birds would emerge from the grasses but I didn't get any good bird shots.
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 The rest of the shots were taken during a walk on the Crabtree Creek trail.
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 This trail is on the other side of the road from the Shelley Lake trail I frequently walk on.
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Runners frequently continue on this trail after running on the Shelley Lake portion.
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Back when I jogged I hoped to get to the point where I could jog that far but health issues made me stop jogging. There is a 26 mile loop which includes a number of these connected greenway trails which marathon runners use.
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If I want to walk on this trail I drive and park where it begins because by the time I would get there walking from home on the greenway trails near my house; just turning around at the start point and walking back to my house would be a long walk for me.
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10 comments:

Ela said...

Lovely photos of nature.
Wonderful birds and squirrel.
Greetings :)

Carole M. said...

a lovely variety here and I enjoyed the squirrel too

Anonymous said...

I'm envious! Generally our February is more like this. Lately, it has been colder! Did I see both Hairy and Downey woodpeckers?

EG CameraGirl said...

You appear to be weeks and weeks ahead of us here in Ontario. I hope we catch up to you soon. ;)

Crafty Green Poet said...

looks like a nice place to walk, lovely photos too, the towhee is very handsome

Karen said...

Great captures! I love Downies, cute little squirrel too!

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

I'd definitely have to drive to get there, but it definitely would be worth it to walk on this pretty trail.

It's funny that the woody has claimed squatters rights on that one feeder. Suet feeders never worked for us -- they attracted horrible starlings, zillions of them....I would have loved to have had a woodpecker even if it was there 24/7!

Sandi McBride said...

These are so beautiful...I love birds and yours are always perfect...thanks for sharing
Sandi

Rambling Woods said...

Nice to see the wildlife being helped during this awful winter.... Michelle

Jenn Jilks said...

What a lovely area! Great critters!
(ツ) from Cottage Country Ontario , ON, Canada!