Backyard Buck

A couple days ago, Mr. Johnson happened to notice that a few small trees in our backyard have been rubbed rather vigorously by a whitetail buck. He seemed to favor my staghorn sumac thicket. This one was on the outside edge of the thicket.

Here's my hand to use as a guide for the size of the tree being rubbed.

This one was farther inside and towards the back edge of the thicket.

Pretty much the same size tree again. Check out those gouges in the wood below my hand! Those antler tips are really sharp!

On the other side of the yard in the aspen thicket, we found another tree that had been worked.

Same size again, so we were pretty positive this was the same buck. This tree was deeply gouged. They're really strong and so aggressive this time of year! Can you imagine how dangerous it is for them when 2 bucks have locked antlers and are fighting? I sure wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of those antlers.

Since it was obvious there's a buck in the backyard, Mr. Johnson turned the trail camera on again......and we weren't disappointed. We're fairly certain this is the buck that's been rubbing on our trees. This guy doesn't have very big antlers, and the general rule is that the larger the antlers on the deer, the larger the tree they'll work. This buck has a nice big body, but due to point restrictions in place this deer hunting season, it's not legal to shoot this buck, so maybe we'll see him around again this year.

I got these pictures in reverse order, but he showed up twice in one night for corn. I'm guessing he also stayed around to visit with some of the does that frequent our backyard overnight too. There was lots of deer activity and photos on the camera on this night of 6th and early morning on the 7th.

The little fawns are still hanging around in the backyard, but I think they're on their own now. Once the does come into their breeding season, they chase their babies away to be on their own. At least the little fawns that have visited regularly over the summer know where there's a safe place to eat and rest in our backyard. Now if we could just figure out a way to keep them from trying to cross the road!

The possum is still visiting the backyard at night too. Looks like this possum is getting in pretty good shape for the long winter!

Random Photos

I've neglected this blog for far too long, but really, nothing particularly exciting has been going on with me lately besides working and knitting. My sissy and I did have a 3-day getaway last weekend and I've got some pictures to post from that (hopefully this week yet). But in the meantime, here are a few pictures I've taken in just the last couple days.

While I was gone over the weekend, Mr. Johnson reported that we had a new visitor in the backyard. As luck would have it, that visitor showed up again a short while ago and was more than willing to come right up to the back door for a photo op. This is the first time we've seen a raccoon in the backyard. Hopefully this busy little critter doesn't decide to start destroying my birdfeeders!

The weather has been quite lovely for the entire month of October. Lots of "summer" birds still hanging around here still including grackles, red-winged blackbirds and robins. This one was trying to get a drink from the nearly empty birdbath on the deck. They're such pretty birds!

And for the first time since I put up the new aquarium, Penny has finally discovered the perfect spot for watching the fish!

More Trail Camera Photos

If you don't have a backyard trail camera of your own yet, here are some photos taken during the daytime. This will give you a good idea of the capabilities of this camera for detecting and photographing birds and critters much smaller than deer. This particular camera is motion and heat activated, and as you'll see from the photos below it doesn't take much motion to activate.

A flock of sparrows comes to eat

The flock of hungry sparrows flies away & the camera catches it

More sparrows at the feeder & flying away

Bluejay & bunny

Mr. Cardinal

Bunny checking up on supper

One of my fat little squirrels

Another bluejay

Something I don't often see -- bluejay & sparrows at the same feeder at the same time!

Solitary MODO

Sophie!!

Two Bluejays -- they love corn!

Bluejay & Dove

And here's three more great shots from early this morning....

Looks like it's getting a little crowded around the corn tray -- maybe I'll have to think about getting a small feed bunk to accomodate these larger groups!

Wild possum dash -- we've gotten a few photos of a single possum, I had no idea there were two out there!

These 2 bunnies look a little startled by the bright flash

Trail Camera

Mr. Johnson pulled the trail cameras out of storage for me last night. The weather has finally warmed up enough that the cold won't drain the batteries, so it's a good time to get those cameras set up and begin monitoring our nocturnal backyard visitors again.

You always want to do a test shot first to make sure everything's working correctly......

So here's our first visitor at 1:53 AM (I can see that I'll have to make an adjustment to the camera's time clock though). This little doe looks slightly moth-eaten as she begins to shed her gray-brown winter coat.

We usually don't see single deer in the backyard and this visit was no exception. These two are probably sisters and were born last spring.

This camera doesn't make any noise when it takes a picture, but the flash is blindingly bright!

I'd say the deer were a little annoyed by this and they didn't stay around for very long. I got one more picture on the other camera and I'm pretty sure it was probably the other deer that walked away from this feeder. Their visits have become a little more sporadic now with the arrival of spring and other readily available sources of food. Sometimes 2 or 3 days will go by before all the corn is cleaned out of these tray feeders.

I'll keep these cameras out in the backyard until we have to move them for deer hunting scouting, so stay tuned for future updates on nocturnal visitors to my backyard. I'm still hoping for pictures of fox and/or possums with their little ones.