Yeah, I’ve seen permanent structures in trees, like a grownup’s treehouse. When I was a kid a friend’s dad fell asleep in his tree and fell out, hitting the ground but luckily not shooting himself.
No idea how someone snuck this into the woods. Seems like it’d be a huge pain in the ass.
Not to a dedicated hunter. A friend of mine had neighbors who seemed to think it was their right to use her property. They had intimidated the elderly farmer who lived there before her. (Hint, neighbors farm looked like a meth production compound and the cops were loath to do anything about it.) Every time she’d take down a deer stand on her property, they’d put another one up. One time she came back into her house after removing an offending stand, and discovered that someone had been in the house rearranging things. Nothing stolen, but a suitable warning to her. She had done so much work to bring that farm up to a livable, workable space but with the police not willing to to keep an eye on the neighbors, she sold up and is now looking for another small farm.
Check back in a couple of weeks to make sure they haven’t put up another stand.
We walk by there daily, one or both of us walking the dogs. I listed it for $75 on Marketplace and have a buyer coming tomorrow. I hope someone puts another one up!
I present to you, my running partner this afternoon, the endangered Mill Creek Crayfish.
He… wasn’t very fast.
That’s a win!
We have turkeys that stop in our yard most days to eat the shelled corn we put out for them, deer, crows, etc.
Most days the flock is a dozen or less. This morning we were sitting, drinking our coffee, when 45 turkey stormed our yard. It was almost scary.
ETA: the tree stand sold!
Just a little snap to keep this thread active. I rounded a bend in the cyclepath just as this guy manoeuvered in to land. It always amazes me how a heron - not a small bird - can do that so delicately. That definitely never gets old. So I missed the chance to photograph the spectacular stuff; but he still looks damn fine in repose.
j
Today I saw a red-bellied woodpecker and a yellow-bellied sapsucker have a standoff at the suet feeder. The feeder is two-sided so they could both feed from it at the same time, but no - only one bird allowed at a time, according to them. So they flew at each other and then retreated to opposite ends of the branch the feeder is on, to glare at each other for what seemed like ages until the red-belly decided to go get some mealworms out of that feeder instead.
Because you can’t have enough herons, here’s a great blue I saw in Wheaton Maryland the day after Xmas:
Today, and every day recently, the Gila Woodpecker who tried to destroy the other side our house. We put Bondo in all the holes he’d made and hung up foil pie plates to blow in the wind. So now he comes to this side. Drinks from my hummingbird feeders, tipping sugar water to the ground, and sitting on the trellis just annoying me in his brashness. Good thing he’s just freakin’ beautiful.
Hawk (Coopers?) sitting on low branch about 30’ away eating lunch (Mourning Dove?). At the same time many song birds enjoying our bird feeders (and counting their luck!)
A house finch flew toward my front door. I figured he wanted to perch in the Christmas wreath there. A moment later he reversed course, squawking. Then the house finch already on my wreath came after him!
After making sure there weren’t any other birds on the wreath, I brought it indoors, even though I usually leave it up until January 2nd.
I’m with you there.
j
ETA - great photo, beautiful bird, BTW
I’ve been walking our dogs in the woods every day around 3 pm. Today my gf asked that I wait so she could join us (she works from home).
At 4:30 she realized she was too busy, so she told us to go, but asked me to ride a horse to give it exercise.
At around the halfway point, a ruffed grouse (Pennsylvania’s state bird) exploded into the air in front of us.
The horse freaked, I nearly fell off, and I swear the dogs laughed at the situation.
Truth. And great photo.
Quite often in nature I hear… cacophonous tweeting coming from a hedge. For some reason, sparrows have a fondness for gathering together, hidden by the leaves, and shouting their heads off.
It’s winter - not so many leaves at the moment. So today in nature I was able to see the culprits as well. I must have been less than a metre from them when I took this photo - maybe they still think I can’t see them?
Bird noise #2. We live in a town - not in the center, but not at the edge of town either. A couple of nights ago, Mrs T convinced herself that she had heard an owl. Checking on a local Facebook page - seems like she had, as a pair of barn owls are reported to have moved in about 50 metres away from us. Cool!
j
Was driving down a normally busy county road here on a cold, cold day this past week. Because of the weather, the amount of traffic was down and a fox trotted across the road and stood at the curb as I passed in my car, then s/he turned around to head into a mess of bushes in someone’s side yard. It must be a regular route for her.
Today I looked out the living room window and saw birch cone scales raining down from our trees. I went upstairs to look out cautiously into the birch tree branches, and there saw a whole flock of tiny yellow finches. They were pinning down the soft little cones with one foot and picking out seeds and scattering the scales. They were only a few feet away from the window and couldn’t see me at all.
Cute little things. I’m pretty sure they’re American goldfinches.
I found a goldfinch dead in my driveway today. 
Saturday night my gf was awakened by the call of a coyote. She went for a hike in the direction she thought the sounds came from and found tracks very close to our friend’s farm.
She stopped by their farm store and learned that they’d heard the coyote, and their dog was all worked up , barking her response. Turns out their dog is 7 months old and in heat.