April 12, 2020 - Other Yard Visitors

We’re staying at our northern Minnesota home during the “shelter in place” order from our governor. Here are some of the wildlife visitors to our yard that I have photographed so far.

There are plenty of White-tailed Deer around and they do visit our yard. They browse on the shrubby plants in the forest and eat bird seed that drops from our feeders. This appears to be one of last year’s fawns. It arrives with a larger deer that I assume is its mother. I suspect them of ruining one of our bird feeders while we were in Florida, but I can’t prove it.

DeerWhitetailedcloseDunningLakeItascaCounty20200404

For the first 20 years that we lived here, we had Red Squirrels in our yard. Seeing a Gray Squirrel was a rare occurrence. However, in the last couple of years, we began to see them more and more. This year we have a pair of Gray Squirrels that we see almost every week, so I guess they are now here to stay.

SquirrelGrayDunningLakeItascaCounty20200404

Some yard visitors are detected only by the signs they leave behind. This is the track of a Snowshoe Hare. They are much more likely to be out and about during the night, so we don’t often see them during the day but we know they are around.

HareSnowshoetrackDunningLakeItascaCountySamsungGallexy20200319

I was sitting at my desk which is in front of a window looking out over our front lawn. This Barred Owl landed in the White Pine tree directly in my line of sight. I’m sure it was hoping to catch a mouse or vole that might have been eating seed dropped from our bird feeders. The owl stayed for a while but then just flew away, so I guess no rodents were around.

OwlBarredDunningLakeItascaCounty20200320

When the owl turned its head, a very different pattern of feathers could be seen.

OwlBarredsideviewDunningLakeItascaCounty20200320

After hunting season in the fall, I go to the local butcher and get some deer ribs. I hang them in our yard and that seems to be the only thing that attracts the local Pileated Woodpeckers. The black “mustache” on this bird indicates it is a female. The male has a red “mustache.”

WoodpeckerPileatedfemaleDunningLakeItascaCounty20200320

This Red Fox was another visitor I spied while sitting at my desk. It’s not surprising that Red Foxes are in our area, but this is the first time we have seen one in our yard. It trotted into the yard, looked around under the hanging deer ribs, and trotted away again.

FoxRedDunningLakeItascaCounty20200326