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Something dug a hole through the mulch and landscape fabric against the house foundation. It looks big enough for a large woodchuck. There no pile of soil around the hole. It has to be somewhere.
Something dug a hole through the mulch and landscape fabric against the house foundation. It looks big enough for a large woodchuck. There no pile of soil around the hole. It has to be somewhere.
Around here, an armadillo would be the likely culprit. I had to put chicken wire on the ground to stop them from trying to dig under the foundation. They sling the dirt back out of the hole, so they don't always create mounds of dirt.
I have a local county park nearby, small but with a diversity of habitats (forest, field, streams, etc.). I usually take my morning walks there with a pair of binoculars. Early last week I took my binoculars with me for some light birding and a one day, one hour walk turned into several days and over 5 hours total at this park, as I came across a surprising migration stopover!
Apparently, sometime around September 30th there was a shift in the winds and I got a nice treat. Within the typical mixed flocks of wintering nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, and chickadees was a terrific diversity of migratory birds! Here is the list of migrants that I observed (this is besides the 20-25 species of year-round resident that I typically see there). Note that many of these were in numbers (the largest number was the black-and-white warbler-I counted about 15)!
Merlin
American redstart (more females than males)
Chestnut-sided warbler
Bay-breasted warbler
Common yellowthroat
Black-throated blue warbler
Black-throated green warbler
Black-and-white warbler
Magnolia warbler
Pine warbler
Blue-headed vireo
Yellow-throated vireo
Eastern towhee
Eastern wood-pewee
Unidentified Empidonax flycatcher (either Acadian, willow or alder-bird was backlit)
Unidentified thrush-veery or hermit thrush (brief view before flitting into brush)
Merlins are definitely moving hard this week, I saw more merlins this week (3) than I've seen in a year.
I went back to that park early this week and the migrants, sadly, are gone (or at least I could not locate the flock again), but the winter residents are moving in. I saw yellow-bellied sapsuckers, brown creeper, and white-throated sparrows. Just waiting for the juncos to round them out!
I have a local county park nearby, small but with a diversity of habitats (forest, field, streams, etc.). I usually take my morning walks there with a pair of binoculars. Early last week I took my binoculars with me for some light birding and a one day, one hour walk turned into several days and over 5 hours total at this park, as I came across a surprising migration stopover!
Apparently, sometime around September 30th there was a shift in the winds and I got a nice treat. Within the typical mixed flocks of wintering nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, and chickadees was a terrific diversity of migratory birds! Here is the list of migrants that I observed (this is besides the 20-25 species of year-round resident that I typically see there). Note that many of these were in numbers (the largest number was the black-and-white warbler-I counted about 15)!
Merlin
American redstart (more females than males)
Chestnut-sided warbler
Bay-breasted warbler
Common yellowthroat
Black-throated blue warbler
Black-throated green warbler
Black-and-white warbler
Magnolia warbler
Pine warbler
Blue-headed vireo
Yellow-throated vireo
Eastern towhee
Eastern wood-pewee
Unidentified Empidonax flycatcher (either Acadian, willow or alder-bird was backlit)
Unidentified thrush-veery or hermit thrush (brief view before flitting into brush)
Merlins are definitely moving hard this week, I saw more merlins this week (3) than I've seen in a year.
I went back to that park early this week and the migrants, sadly, are gone (or at least I could not locate the flock again), but the winter residents are moving in. I saw yellow-bellied sapsuckers, brown creeper, and white-throated sparrows. Just waiting for the juncos to round them out!
I think the only birds I have ever seen on that list are the pine warbler and the Eastern towhee.
I just said to my husband yesterday, where are the juncos?! They seem to appear all at once one day. I guess it isn't cold enough for them yet. Maybe they are still enjoying the balmy weather in Canada.
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