Mr Hawk Moons the Camera

An interesting statement in this picture from Mr. Hawk. It looks like he is mooning the camera but he probably doesn't care about it. I haven't snapped a good picture of the hawk in quite a while so he may be teasing me. I bet he is looking down in the pond at those juicy Goldfish and maybe a frog or two. In the second picture is a flurry of wings as the I'm guessing the Hawk takes to flight. I couldn't guess it would be anything but the Hawk so I sticking with that explanation.

Grill Frog Makes an Appearance

For years we have enjoyed the company of the Grill Frog and this week was no exception. I removed the grill cover last weekend to cook some hamburgers and he was sitting on the front of the top cover. Of course I had to move him because grilled grill frog wasn't on the menu. So I caught him and moved him away from the grill. But within seconds he had hopped back and was climbing on the bottom of the grill leg. He slowly made his way up the leg moving closer to the quickly heating grill. I kept an eye on him while I cooked and thankfully he stayed just a few inches from the heat so all is well.

Black Cat Stalking Prey

There is activity around the ponds 24 hours a day and here is the proof. We've seen the cat in previous pictures but not any that were this clear. Here we are in the middle of the night and the black cat is hunting for "who knows what" but I suspect he is looking for some juicy frogs or Goldfish. I can't tell if the pond wildlife population has declined but the cat does look pretty healthy.

Goldfish Galore

A couple of days ago, I pulled two giant overgrown plants from the large pond. The Sweet Flag and Spade plants were covering more than half of the pond. What appeared was a bunch of goldfish that were not visible because of the plants. In these two pictures, you can see a whole lot of fish. The sad part is my four oldest, largest fish are really gone. The Great Blue Heron actually did eat our four foot long fish. I am glad to to see all of these fish survived the Heron breakfast buffet. Over time these fish will grow but I am sad about the ones that are missing.

Population Explosion Now Four Baby Deer

A great perf0rmance by the neighborhood deer this afternoon. For a time there were four baby deer in the front yard and nearby were at least four adults. A couple of the babies were roughhousing but I wasn't fast enough to get a picture of that. I did take these two pictures, the first of three of the babies and the second shows all four though you can just barely see the back end of two of them at the right edge of the photo. They were testing the taste of the Azalea bushes. Luck for us Deer don't like Azaleas or we sure wouldn't have any blooming in the spring.

Nuzzle up to the Bar

The baby deer were back today with their Mom. We've seen these four deer many times this summer, tow adult females and two babies. I think these are the same two babies in my previous post of Cutest Baby Deer Contest. These regulars were grazing on some of the grass in the front yard and it looked like the babies got thirsty. What do you do when you are a baby and you get thirsty - you head for Mom. Nuzzle up to the bar and get some fresh Deer milk. Mom put up with this for a couple of minutes and then said ENOUGH!! and they all moved on to graze somewhere else.

What is on the Tree

This is a very interesting picture that took me a little while to figure out. When I first downloaded it from the camera I studied it to determine what kind of animal was climbing the tree. That critter looked so big. I returned to the camera location where the picture was taken and it became obvious to me. It was a squirrel on the tree. The picture misled me into thinking that was a big tree with a fat trunk. In fact the tree is only about 3 inches in diameter which brings the squirrel into scale. Below is a cute picture of a squirrel doing push ups on a rock next to the frog pond.

Finally a Picture of a Buck

I finally got a picture of a Buck. But first another female Deer taken at the back corner of the yard. She was just walking by late at night and stopped to pose for the camera. There weren't any other pictures that night but the next day a Buck moved into the range of the camera. He stopped right where the camera date stamp is so I couldn't crop it out. At any rate I have been trying for several years to get a picture of one of the boys and her it is. I knew there were males around with all the baby deer we have seen.

Heavy Traffic Out Front

I put the camera out front to catch some more Deer pictures but I caught traffic instead. The road in front of our house doesn't get much traffic because there are only 3 houses on our gravel road but one day/night last week it was busy. First we have the great looking mini van zooming by (ok that is one of our cars). Later that night the camera caught a picture of the County Police driving down the road. I haven't heard anything from the neighbors so I guess he was just checking the neighborhood. But I did worry that he might not like getting his picture taken by a motion detecting camera. The next day the camera moved back to the back yard.

Black Magic Striking Blooms

About a month ago I moved several Black Magic Elephant Ear plants to the front patio and they seem to like it. They present quite a nice display and this week one produced two flowers at the same time. These bright yellow flowers are up to a foot long sitting on top of the a round green base. The flowers only last a couple of days but while they are blooming, they are beautiful. I haven't ever seen these flowers attract birds or bees and I haven't detected any fragrance.

Frog on Black Magic Leaf

We have a bunch of Black Magic Elephant Ear plants in the large pond and sometimes a leaf will fall into the pond and die. I reached in to remove this leaf but it was a perch for an opportunistic frog. So I grabbed the camera and took a couple of pictures. Thankfully, the frog was very patient and gracious in letting me click away. One thing that is pretty cool is that he seems to be lounging in small puddle on the edge of the leaf. He left later and I was able to remove the leaf from the pond.