July 8, 2012 - Misc. Photos

About a month ago, this White-tailed Deer fawn and its mother appeared in our yard. It must have been only a day or two old because it was still kind of shaky on its feet. I didn’t want to scare it away so this picture was taken through two sets of windows. Notice the big blue eyes.

DeerWhitetailedfawnDunningLake20120601

At our apartment in Shoreview, we always have a few families of Canada Geese. Here’s one that hatched this year and is about half grown. It’s no longer as cute as it was during the yellow, fuzzy baby stage. Adult feathers are seen over most of its body but the head and upper neck are still covered with fuzz. The wing feathers are just beginning to appear. The shafts of the large flight feathers are visible in the middle of the photo and I was surprised to see they are blue. I’m also amazed at the thick legs.

GooseCanadadevelopingadultplumageShoreview20120613

Here’s a Great Blue Heron at our lake about to swallow a fish that it just caught. The fish looks like a nice big Sunfish to me.

HeronGreatBlueeatingfishDunningLake20120602

Last week I showed you some warblers that I found near Grand Marais, in the far northeastern corner of Minnesota. Here’s one that is nesting in our woods. It’s a Black-throated Green Warbler. Northeastern Minnesota and all of Wisconsin are at the western edge of its breeding range. During winter, it will return to Central America or the northern part of South America.

WarblerBlackthroatedGreenDunningLake20120519

While I was still working as a programmer, one of my colleagues gave us some Iris bulbs. We planted them at our lake home and they have emerged each year to give us some beautiful flowers. Here’s one of them at the height of its bloom. (Thanks, Lori.)

IrisDunningLake20120608

We have a Woodchuck that calls our yard home. This year she had three babies and we see them scampering around the yard. This is one of the babies. You can’t tell males from females but I still call the little ones “Baby Chuck”. Diana has some other names for them, however. One of them came up on our deck, plopped itself right in the middle of a flower planter overflowing with pansies, and proceeded to eat most of the blossoms. Diana was not pleased!

WoodchuckjuvenileDunningLake20120608