Critters

I didn't get a chance to show some critter activity the last part of January, when we were having cold temps, and I'm thinking, these were from days school was closed due to the snow and cold.

After the last winter critter photos I took, Larry asked me if I'd taken one of the place the opossum, we assume, dug out the entrance to its home under our deck. 

I tried taking some photos of the inside.  Is that a dead mouse to the left?  (Larry thinks it's a rock.) One of the photos had some fur, which was about the same color of Heidi's, so maybe the wind blew it there.  I really would like to see what it looks like under there.
 

The next ones were taken a few days after the previous ones.  A lot of snow had melted, and there were mud tracks.

I'll have to look up opossum mud prints like I did critter prints in the snow.

We had some very cold temps in January.  I felt sorry for the critters.

Can you see it was 5 degrees here?  I really like the dark-eyed juncos.

I finally got some photos of the woodpecker.  There was no red on this one.
 

I've seen a few cardinals, but they fly off too fast for me to get a photo.

I tossed some bird seeds on the sidewalk out the back door so I could get some photos.  We have lots of sparrows.
 

The blue jays were wary of me watching from the house, but stuck around long enough for a few snapshots through two door windows, like most of these were.

The woodpecker was still around later when I took more photos.

At supper Thursday, I spotted my first robin of the year out the window.  I had noticed one of my Facebook friends from my city had already seen one, and I was a bit jealous.

The rest of the photos were taken Friday.  This is the feeder that squirrels had gotten down to the ground so they could eat the sunflowers Larry had put in it.  He had to wait until the temps got above 32 to put it back up.  I had gotten the mixed seed for it, but Larry didn't know that, and put the safflower seeds in it.  I wasn't sure if the black capped chickadees would eat it, but was pleased to see them back after it had been up a few days.  There was also a beautiful red male cardinal, but it flew off as I was slowly moving my hand to my camera.

Heidi has been eating some of the seeds we put on the sidewalk, so Larry put some corn for the squirrels up higher.  I added some bird seed to see if I could get some bird photos.  Sure enough, the sparrows showed up.  The dark-eyed juncos came, too, but I didn't get them in a photo.

Heidi knows there are critters under the deck, and where the main entrance is.  I have planted clematis in that area, but the critters clear the area and the plants don't survive.
 

It didn't take long for a squirrel to find the bird seed.  Hey, squirrel, you are supposed to be eating the corn!

I was spotted, and scolded a bit, but stood my ground inside the door, taking a few more photos.

Well, it's not just opossums that live under the deck.  After the squirrel took over the spot with the seeds, I put a few on the ground in this one spot by the herb garden.  I watched this mouse RUN back and forth, getting a seed, then taking it under the deck.  It was very hard to get a photo, because it moved so fast, and didn't really stop as it was picking things up.  I have been wanting to take the deck down because it is so huge, and takes up so much of the back yard.  This gives me some incentive to do it as soon as we can.  Plus, it will be in need of repair soon if we keep it.  The yard isn't level, though, so I'm not sure how much of the work we could do, and how much it would cost.  I'm thinking I'd like a covered gazebo of some kind, and a brick patio under it. 

How common is it to have mice in one's yard?  I suppose most of you with larger properties have cats to keep the population down.  We had mice in the house a few years ago, but we haven't seen any signs of them for a number of years.  I wonder if they will come in if we take the deck down.  Anyone know about these things?

I am going to link in to Misty Dawn's Camera Critters.  Her link is in the sidebar.