Critters & Creatures

Below are links to articles posted in Critters & Creatures.

Red Hot Poker – Something not to grow, and bunnies.

When I first got into gardening I was attacted to large blooming perennials, and planted mostly those. I have come a long way since then, namely I appreciate things like edibles more, interesting foliage, and length of bloom time as much as bloom shape, size, or color.
But sometimes that interest in large blooming perennials rears [...]

Rogue Climber

I awoke to a disappointing sight the other day, some fiend had meandered through my front yard, pooping, and eating leaves off plants. This would be bad enough, but what is worse, it tried to climb up my honeycrisp apple tree, and then I assume out onto the two lowest scaffold branches, and it broke [...]

Found a Large Egg in my Garden

So, I am out mowing the lawn and I see a large egg in one of my raised brick beds.

It immediately jumped out at me, so I’m sure it hadn’t been there long, or I would have seen it previously. It is a big egg, maybe a little bigger than a chicken egg. It has [...]

Juvenile Cardinal Fearless & Frolicking

Cardinals mature very fast, just a week ago (maybe less) I saw this cardinal learning how to fly, it had just left the nest. Yesterday, while filming something else, he came to visit, and got really close to me. Since I had the camera ready I decided to film him, it is so rare to [...]

Baby Robin Photo Diary

I actually took these pictures in 2008, but only just now am getting around to blogging about it.
In 2008 some robins built a nest in a barberry bush just outside our kitchen window, and so I was able to monitor it daily.

May 26th

I first noticed a single egg on May 26th. By June 1st there [...]

Opossum on the Porch, Compost Eating Critter

No picture with this post, this is probably the first post I’ve done ever without a picture, for some reason I didn’t think about it last night.
So, last night I made some skillet apples, and as I do normally I got out a brown paper bag to put all the scraps into for taking out [...]

Butternut Squash & Squirrels

So, I increased the amount of space devoted to edibles this year in order to save money. Involved in this was picking new spots that are NOT garden beds to plant things to see if they’ll grow.
I planted some squash on the south side of my house near my raised beds (but not within them) [...]

Attract Yellow Goldfinches to your Garden

The American Goldfinch, Carduelis tristis, is a beautiful backyard songbird that happens to frequent our garden so I thought I’d share how I attract them with others.
The easiest way to attract these birds is with a sock full of niger thistle seeds. You can get these at most home improvement stores, but I’ve seen them [...]

Stop Rabbits (and Deer) from Eating Shrubs in Winter

This isn’t the most timely advice, it would be best in the Fall, but I’m posting this in Spring because it is on my mind. Also because I noticed a lot of my blog traffic is from people searching for advice on this.
I don’t really have deer where I live in town. However I do [...]

Attack of the Red Squirrel!

We have had a red squirrel named Rudy take up residence in our backyard. My wife really likes him, he has been active all winter and she enjoys watching his frenetic search for food. These squirrels are small, maybe halfway between a chipmunk and a normal squirrel, are very active, and are very [...]

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