Backyard visitor

A doe and her fawn have become almost daily visitors to my back yard.  There is another doe with twin fawns in the area, but I haven't seen them lately.  A neighbor tells me they are up at his place.  Here the little guy (or gal) is eating what is left of some zucchini plants left from this summer's garden.

Fun with a fox

I went out to play with a predator call yesterday.  Actually it was the 4th time this week.  Deer/bear season opens this weekend, and I wanted a little woods time ahead of the hunters.  The first 3 times I couldn't call in so much as a blue jay, but the 4th time was a charm.

Sorry about the jiggles, but I hardly had time to get set up before Bear saw it and spooked it off.  The funny part of the whole deal was the fox wouldn't leave.  Gray fox can be that way.  Once they are convinced there is a rabbit there somewhere they hate to give up on it.  This fox stayed back in the trees where I couldn't get the camera on it again and barked at me.  As long as I continued to call the fox continued to bark at me.  I tried being quiet for awhile, and the fox was quiet.  As soon as I tried to call it back again it would bark at me.  This went on for quite awhile until I conceded it was a stand off.  At least I know he's still out there, and I'll probably call him again sometime.   

Smoke!

Yesterday I was over on Quartz Hill, across the little valley where I live.  This photo was taken looking back across Quartz Valley toward home.  Yes, there is a mountain over there - somewhere.  The fire isn't anyhere near home.  The smoke is coming from the Seiad/Happy Camp area, on the other side of the Marble Mountains from here, but we are getting our share of the smoke.  The last I heard, some homes in the Seiad area were under orders of manditory evacuation. 

While I was over on "the hill" I set up a couple of calling stands, but didn't have any critter responce.  I saw a small bear track in the dusty road, and a pile of scat where it had been eating manzanita berries, but that was all of interest that I saw.  I haven't been getting out much lately, just trying to get caught up on chores around home, but small game season opens in another week.  I'll start prowling around more then.  It sure feels like an early fall.

Replacements

A new batch of chicks just out of the nest.  I'm sorely in need of some replacements.  With all the varmint trouble I've had this year, I'm down to a bare minimum of chickens.  Hopefully most of these will turn out to be hens, but with my kind of luck the whole darned bunch will be roosters!  The hen was setting on a mixed batch of eggs, some of which didn't hatch, but it looks like most of these are Araucana with a couple of Cornish thrown in.

I only have 2 other hens laying right now.  If one of them will get broody I'll see if I can beg, borrow, or steal some eggs from someone to slip under her.

  

Another chicken thief down.

I would have bet it was a coyote, but this is what came to the call.

This has been a bad year for my birds.  First it was a skunk that was stealing eggs right out from under a setting hen, then broke into the pigeon coop and killed 8 squabs and an adult bird.  Now a fox that was set on killing every chicken on the place.  Came pretty close to doing it too!  I have a hen setting on eggs, so hopefully she can raise some replacements. 

Damn I hate a thief!

What I was afraid might happen did.  I saddled Sis today and went up on the hill to collect my trail camera.  It's gone!  Both trail bike and ATV tracks up there.  Guess who ever found it didn't think I wanted it anymore.  Can't leave anything out in the woods these days, no matter how secluded you think the place might be. 

The bee hives

A little over a month ago a neighbor at a ranch down the road set out some bee hives.  He recently told me that he is having bear trouble already.  The hives are surrounded by a wire fence with a strand of hot wire (electric) along the top.  Really not much of a deterrent to a determined bear, but I doubt there can be much honey stored away in those hives this soon.  But then I really don’t know an awfully lot about bees and their hives myself.  At any rate, I thought this might be a dandy spot for the trail cam.  I left it for a week as I have been doing, and picked it up this afternoon.  In that time the camera had only been tripped 3 times.  The only useable photo is this one of a deer on the outside of the wire fence.  There was another photo in which I couldn’t see anything, but the accompanying video shows a deer back in the deep shade.  It is so dark that I wouldn’t have seen it even then if it hadn’t moved.  No bears.  I may try there again at another time if I hear from the rancher that a bear has been back, but in the meantime I have other places in mind where I want to leave the camera.