Saturday, May 19, 2007

Sunny Saturday

We were out in the turkey blind again this morning. It was much nicer than yesterday, not nearly as windy and about 10 degrees warmer at 5:15 AM.

Another slow day for turkeys. We saw the same hen around 8:30. She spent quite a bit of time checking out the area around our blind. I think she was waiting for our tom decoy to visit her.

We saw quite a few more birds and other wildlife. I got some nice looks at a great crested flycatcher through the binoculars. This nice, healthy-looking fox squirrel posed in a tree near the blind.


We saw a red fox run into an area overgrown with gooseberries and other shrubs. I checked over there before we went home in hopes that I might find a den, but didn't find anything. I did find some pretty flowers though.


Wild geraniums (with a dandelion thrown in)


Little blue flowers (does anyone know what these are?)


Here's a close-up. I have never seen these flowers before and the closest thing I could find in my Wildflowers of Minnesota book was Forget-Me-Nots.


Here's a beautiful blooming tree. Again I have no idea what it is.....maybe some sort of crabapple or cherry? You can see that the cattle have eaten all the branches off the bottom, that's why it looks kind of flat on the underneath part of the tree.


Hunting in the blind is really nice because if nothing's going on you can always lay down on the ground to take a nap or read a book. Plus you can stand up to stretch out when you get tired of sitting.

There's nothing like a Nora Roberts romance to help pass the time on a slow hunting day!








5 comments:

Larry said...

We've been seeing the Great-cresteds around here as well-noisy buggers.-I'll have to pass on the romance novels-(except for the good parts).

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

That sounds like my kind of hunting set-up! A comfy chair would just top it off. (And maybe a thermos of coffee)

RuthieJ said...

Hi Larry, the great-cresteds don't seem to be very common around this neighborhood and I was happy to get a good look at one close to ground level.

Hi Lynne, my chair in this blind is not very comfy (that's why I was laying on the ground!) I try to limit my fluid intake as the facilities are a bit breezy (if you know what I mean!)

Thanks for sharing in my hunting adventures.

Anonymous said...

Okay Ruthie,I'm not sure about this but I think that flower MAY be Jacob's Ladder. Don't remember ever seeing one in bloom but the leaf arrangement looks familiar.

RuthieJ said...

Thanks DC, it looks like you are right. Once I had a name I looked it up in my Perennials for Minnesota book. For Polemonium reptans (creeping Jacob's Ladder) it says "a very hardy, mounding perennial 8-16" tall, with an equal spread. It bears small, blue or lilac flowers in late spring and early summer."
Thanks for stopping by the blog and giving me this tip.