Activity at bird feeders beginning to pick up

Veterans Day is tomorrow. I’m not sure how the bill in Congress aimed at hiring veterans made out. None of the other job bills have gone anywhere so we’ll see what happens with this one.

The local weather has been great. We have had a freeze every night but it has been up into the 50s or 60s during the day.

My pond has been frozen every night but thaws out during the day.

A few Mallard ducks have been coming each day filling up on yellow birch seeds that coat nearly the entire surface of the water.

Most of the Beech tree burrs have spit out their nuts and they are like marbles in my flower garden.

This is the first good crop of Beechnuts in a few years. This is good for the birds, Deer and Bear as they fatten up them, which helps them through the winter or on their flight south.

Karen and I took a walk today (11/7) and saw where the Deer had pushed through the heavy leaf cover in search of the nuts.

There haven’t been many birds at my feeders as there is so much wild food around.

Monday was the first day I had any activity with four Chickadees, two White-breasted Nuthatches, two Hairy Woodpeckers, two Blue Jays and one Goldfinch stopping up.

These warmer afternoon temperatures have given the cluster flies and ladybugs a few more days to find a dwelling place to hide for the winter.

Sometimes when I crank open one of my windows there are 10 to 15 ladybugs hiding in the cracks. They are welcome there, but not inside. If a fly makes it inside Inky comes to the rescue and has a snack after a short chase.

There is a full moon Thursday night (11/10) and the Whitetail bucks should be starting in the rut.

You should be more vigilant when driving both day and night as these animals may be crossing highways. They don’t pay much attention to traffic when they are on the chase.

That would be considered just a normal day in downtown Old Forge.

When we came back east from Glenwood Springs, Colorado there was a lot more snow than when we went out ten days earlier.

Luckily the road was clear though you could see from along the side of the highway that some plowing and salting had taken place.

At the entrance of the Eisenhower-Edwin C. Johnson Tunnel, at the top of the Continental Divide, it’s 11,158 feet.

Going up towards Vail there was not much snow but most of the other ski areas had some. Some were up and running with skiers already on the slopes.

The Aspen trees in full color in front of snow covered mountains made for some neat camera shots.

Art was driving so I had my camera at the ready for any photo opportunities that might come along.

We saw Big Horn Sheep along that highway a couple years ago but I was doing the driving and no one else was ready with a camera.

The snow sends them out in the open and they lick salt along the roadsides.

I saw three of them along with one large ram but they were blocked from view by cars traveling in the other lane so I couldn’t get a shot.

Then I saw a nice ram up ahead on the opposite shoulder and got five shots of him in front and behind a passing car.

They are impressive animals, but you wouldn’t want to bump heads with one.

I had finished drinking a plastic bottle of water as we came down the east side toward Denver.

I kept hearing a crackling sound but didn’t pay much attention to it as I was busy shooting snow scenes and ski areas.

When we got down the mountain I noticed that the bottle was completely compressed into a flat piece of plastic.

No wonder my ears kept popping from the difference in pressure. We dropped from 11,000 feet to 5,000 feet in a little more than half an hour.

Along the way Art and I commented on the number of wind towers generating electricity in Colorado, Nebraska and Iowa. Many more were going up as we passed by.

We also noticed a lot of blades and towers being transported on tractor trailers.

They are using Mother Nature’s power rather than mining coal sands in Canada, or fracking for natural gas in Western New York.

More on fracking for Natural Gas, but that’s another story. See ya.