An Unexpected Visitor

 While Kari and Kyle are on a trip, friends and family are taking turns having Saben and Annika at their houses.  We picked them up from one of their friend's house this afternoon. On our way home, we stopped in Mt. Vernon and went to a movie, "The Secret Life of Pets".  After we got home from the movie, Ken and the kids were outside while I was watering my planters, when a deer wandered into our yard.  Saben tried to creep near enough to take a picture with his phone.  This is as close as he got.

Later, he ran his remote controlled truck around the yard before we all played a couple of games at the table outside on the deck where it was a lot cooler than in the house.

Birds and a Squirrel

 We usually take down our bird feeder in the summer, thinking that there's plenty of food for them in the summer.  I really wanted to see if we could attract some gold finches though and after doing some research, Ken discovered that to attract gold finches, you need a different kind of seed and feeder.  We got some of both and proceeded to wait to see if any would come to the feeder.  It took a week for them to discover the feeder, but finally yesterday evening, we spotted this couple enjoying some seeds.

 Then this one was at the feeder this morning, followed by...

 ...a squirrel!  We never see squirrels in our yard!  We did have something eating the seeds in the other feeder for a while during the winter, but then they stopped and we didn't ever see any thing getting the seed except for the birds, although for a while the seed was disappearing so fast we knew something else was getting it.

The squirrel climbed out to the net feeder, but couldn't get anything, so he took off again.  (I was afraid that it would chew a hole in the net to get to the seeds!)  Hopefully more gold finches will show up now that the feeder has been discovered!

Saturday Fun

 After a shopping trip and lunch in Mt. Vernon, we decided to take the long way home and discovered that some daffodils were starting to bloom in some of the fields.

 Some of the fields had a lot of water in them because of all the rain we've had lately.

 We drove all over the area looking for snow geese, then as we headed back to the freeway to head home, we discovered a field with hundreds of them.  This picture shows how far away they were to start with...

 ...but then they started moving closer and closer.

 They even started crossing over a ditch that surrounded the field.  It looked like a migration was taking place!

 Some on each side of the ditch.

 A close-up of one of them.

 We stayed for about an hour watching them wander around.

 I discovered that I could take some interesting shots with the water reflecting the geese.

 We were hoping that they would all take off and fly while we were there.  A few of them flew a little bit, then landed again before we left.

 I needed a new Facebook profile picture of I had Ken take this one of me.

 We finally headed on our way and as we drove back to the freeway, we ran across some Trumpeter swans in a field by the road.

 So we got to see in one day, the 2 major types of large birds that winter over in our area.  It was an enjoyable, relaxing way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

Deer

 We've been seeing more evidence of deer being in our yard lately.  Ken has been spreading some dirt in some areas in order to put some grass seed down.  Saturday morning when he went out, he discovered...

deer and some other animals tracks in the dirt that he had put down.  We have also seen evidence of them eating the leaves on the apple trees and we've seen some deer droppings in the back yard.

 We have never see actual deer in our yard though, except for one other time, when the one we saw dashed away before we got a picture of it.  Sunday morning when we got up, we were surprised to see a couple of deer at the edge of our yard.

They actually stuck around for quite awhile, the buck even laid down under the apple tree

I took most of the pictures through the dinning room window, thinking that they would take off as soon as we tried to go outside.  When it was time to go to church, we opened the garage door, then drove out of the garage and down the street, while they continued to much on the apple trees and grass.  I took this one from the car after leaving the house.  They definitely weren't as skittish as I thought they would be!  (I talked to my neighbor after I posted this and found out that they saw the deer eating a bush by our front door around 11:30, while we were still gone.)

Fishing Trip

 For Father's Day, we went on a fishing trip.

This is what we got on our fishing trip.

 Sometime last month, a couple of birds built a nest in my hanging basket by my front door.  This is one of the parent birds, it's called a Junco.

 I didn't notice the nest until one of the parents flew out of it when I went to water it.  This is what the baby birds looked like the first time I saw them, which was May 27.

 The next time I watered was 2 days later and this is what they looked like.

 They were starting to get a few more feathers/fuzz on them, one even thought I was there to feed them.

 This is another shot of them on May 29th.

 This shot was taken on June 2, 4 days after the previous pictures.  They are changing quickly!

I took this one today, June 4, you can see that 3 of them are watching me and I guess I got a little to close because all of a sudden they all flew out of the nest.  Both of the parents were scolding me every time I went near their nest and even pretended to be hurt so I would leave their babies alone.  I hope they'll be all right now that they have left the nest!  It was fun watching them grow up!

Birds Around Our House

 I went out to get the mail the other day and heard a familiar noise.  It sounded like a bald eagle, but I thought it must be something else.  I scanned some trees near our house and didn't see anything, so I was about to head back into the house, when I heard the noise again.  This time I looked in the right direction and spotted this eagle sitting in the top of a tree at the end of our cul-de-sac.

Now that our pie cherries are ripening, we're having lots of birds visiting the cherry tree.  I don't know what kind of bird this is, it looks like a young one of some kind, I'm mostly seeing robins helping themselves to the cherries.  I don't know if there's going to be enough left after more of them ripen for a pie or not!

Frog Eggs

 When I looked in our pond today, I discovered a bunch of frog eggs.

 We've had frog eggs before in the pond, but this is the first time I could actually see the little tadpole in the eggs.  Do you see the little black curve inside of some of the eggs?

 There are eggs all over some of the rocks in the pond.  I usually spot the eggs, but hardly ever see the actual tadpoles after they hatch.

There's lots of eggs on the edge of the rock.  I don't know what happens to all of them when they hatch, but for some reason they totally disappear.  I also saw a bunny at the edge of our yard and a robin with grasses in it's mouth, ready to build a nest.  Unfortunately the camera was back in the house when I saw them.

December 29

 Sunday afternoon, we went up to Kyle & Kari's house to visit with them for awhile before Ken's mom headed back to Texas.  After lunch, Kyle drove us out to an area where they have seen numerous eagles in the past, and as you can see, we hit the jack-pot!There are 10 eagles in this one spot.

 A closer up shot of the same trees.

 There were a few eagles feeding in the river also.  Notice that this eagle is sitting on the salmon.

 A young eagle plus several seagulls are watching the older ones eat salmon.

 We also spotted an eagles nest on our way home.  In all, we probably saw around 50 eagles.

A 4 generation picture!  (Unfortunately, we forgot to do one with Todd and Seth when we were with them.)

Unusual Critters Abound Yesterday

 Yesterday, for the first time in the 26 years we've lived here, Ken saw a deer eating at one of our apple trees when he raised the window shade.  We had seen evidence of deer in our yard before, but had never caught a glimpse of one.  The doe headed into the trees at the edge of our property as soon as it saw Ken, who tried to grab the camera and get a picture of it, but only succeeded in getting a picture of its tail as it disappeared.  (You can barely see the tail between the 5th and 6th rails from the right.)

 Later in the day when we arrived at Todd and Betsy's house, Seth spotted this bird in the tree by their house.  We looked it up later and discovered it's a red breasted sapsucker, which we had never seen before either.

 Inside their house a couple of more unusual creatures were found, a cunning fox and an elephant that told the fox clues of where to find some treasures.

Spider Webs

 Even though I really dislike and am afraid of spiders, I like taking pictures of their webs, as long as they stay outside and don't come in my house to make their webs!  The one above was in an apple tree at Todd & Betsy's house.

 The rest of the pictures were taken at our house.

 It amazes me at how uniform and perfect most of them are.

 One of our cherry trees is covered in spider webs.  It's kind of hard to see all the webs in the picture below, but if you click on the picture, I think you'll be able to see them better.