WILDLIFE WEDNESDAY RABBIT PALOOZA

This Spring/Summer has been rabbit crazy out here.  

Gotta admit, they are cute!

SO cute!

This was the other morning when I left for work...there were FIVE bunnies running around.  When I drive up and down the driveway morning and afternoon, I have to do so very slowly as they dart back and forth.

We don't mind.  Once we have the garden up and running (hopefully next Spring) we'll have to make sure the fence is rabbit proof.  Of course, when we had our last garden, we never once had a problem with them.  "J" from 2nd Family has one nesting in her planter and she's hoping for baby bunnies.

WILDLIFE WEDNESDAY OPOSSUM

 Another night, another creature on the porch.

Bur this time it was a opossum cleaning up the cat food bowl.  They come by regularly and we know it's good to have them around the homestead.

Some interesting opossum facts above.

And not gonna lie, we think they are kinda cute!

WILDLIFE WEDNESDAY ARMADILLO

There is probably no other animal that is synonymous with Texas than the armadillo.

This little guy or gal was rooting around in the grass the other night.  I had to get a picture.  They can dig in flower beds and the yard in their hunt for grubs and other things to eat.  They can carry some diseases so it's never recommended to touch them or interact with them but generally speaking, they shy away from contact with people anyway.

 

It's interesting to see one for sure.

WILDLIFE WENDNESDAY SKUNK

 When we get an alert on a Ring doorbell cam, more often than not, we get a message that says there is something there that is not (it's always the cat that is identified incorrectly).

Still, we always look just to make sure.

Recently, we got an already that said "a skunk is walking on the porch".  Sure it is, let's take a look:

Oops!  Yep, sure enough, a skunk was walking on the porch!  2nd Man reminded me "don't open the door and scare it!".  Definitely not going to do that.  It sniffed around and then left.  We sniffed around afterward and no scent so we were good there.

Haven't seen it since (this was a couple of weeks ago).  Just another creature we share the property with!

WILDLIFE WEDNESDAY

 (This was supposed to post yesterday, but I had the wrong date. We'll leave it as 'Wildlife Wednesday').

So, feeding the kitties means we have some other visitors.  This guy visits almost nightly.

He likes the food and water and he comes late, after the cat(s) have come and gone.

As raccoons do, he washes his paws in the water.

He's ready for his closeup:

We have named him "Floppy the Raccoon".  2nd Man will see the Ring camera alert and say "Floppy is here!"

He's a cutie for sure and that ear just cracks us up.

WILDLIFE SATURDAY

Hope your weekend is off to a good start.

We were cooking dinner not too long ago and looked out the kitchen window and saw this...

...just a couple of deer strolling through the driveway and front yard.  Nothing like a wonderful meal, a couple glasses of wine and some local wildlife just casually saying hello.

We love it out there here!

#lifeisgood

BOBCAT SIGHTING

Well, apparently it's a regular Animal Kingdom out here at the farm, ha.  The other morning I went outside from the back door of the garage and I saw movement.  When I realized what it was, I quickly went back inside and I took this picture.

Kind of hard to tell here, he/she ran back there and then looked at me looking at it...

Can you see it there by the fenceline running?  Let me zoom in...

Here it is.  A bobcat!  I wish I had a clearer picture but I was inside taking it through the window.  I did enhance it some so we could make out features.  Then I found a good comparison picture online...

Image via wikicommons 

Here is a better picture of what they look like!  You can't deny, what a beautiful animal.

2nd Man said no "here kitty kitty" with this one!

OH DEER

Check out these pictures!

One morning, as we were getting something ready for dinner, we looked out the dining room window and saw this!  A buck looking back this way.

The picture was through the window so it wasn't as sharp as I would have liked but if I had gone outside, he would have run off.

But here it is zoomed in.

Then a few days later, we looked out the front window at the kitchen sink and saw movement.  There were a couple more deer!

While the buck was on the property behind us, these two were on our property, the part of our acreage that is undeveloped/uncleared so there is no telling how many deer are out there.  It's about 7 acres or so of dense brush and trees so there could be a small herd out there.  We aren't hunters at all, so they are welcome to live their lives safely there.  Just don't eat the garden when we get it built, ha.  They have left the fruit trees alone since I put up the fishing line.

We love living out here!

FERAL HOG DAMAGE

Check this out...

I was mowing and saw all this dirt in a remote area of the property.

Going a little further it was extensive...

VERY extensive!

I'll be honest, the area is pretty densely covered in trees and bushes and there are plenty of hiding spots for a sleeping "sounder" (the group name) of wild hogs and it made me nervous.  Mama and her litter and a couple of males, I do not want to round the corner and encounter that. They can be VERY dangerous!

Zen Machine 2 ain't that fast and neither am I!

We're thinking of getting a new trail cam and putting it in that area to see what's going on at night.  These pictures were taken a few weekends ago when I mowed and we haven't seen anything elsewhere since then.

TWO MEN AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING APPLES

Well crap...

This was a few weekends ago.  We had a little over half a dozen apples developing nicely...

And this was last weekend.

They are all gone!

There were no half eaten ones on the ground.  No parts or cores.  No remnants at all. 

Now we know there are various predators lurking around.  These were a good 6 to 8 feet up into the tree.  There were no tracks around (and the ground was wet) and no broken branches.  There was bird netting over the top and most of these were more "inside" the tree than on an outer branch.

Squirrels?  They were probably too big and heavy for a squirrel to handle without dropping one, plus in ten years, we've never even seen a squirrel.  Deer would have probably damaged the tree getting to them and there are rows of fishing line all around it.

Opossum?  Raccoons?  Do they climb trees?  The branches are not exactly strong enough we would think to support a climbing animal.

The only other thing we can think of is that a storm blew them off onto the ground and THEN wildlife had an all you can eat buffet, ha.

We will just have to learn to coexist and figure out a way to keep them next year.

ADD BOBCATS TO THE LIST

Coyotes and feral hogs and now...

We have yet to capture one (figuratively speaking of course, ha) on our trailcam but 2nd Family has confirmed that there are now at least two bobcats that have been on and around our property/theirs.

She went to their carport one morning to take out the trash and there was one curled up in the corner.  She carefully backed away to the safety of her porch and waited for it to leave.  Since it was startled by her, it had gotten nervous and left as well, heading toward the undeveloped front part of our property.

Then a few nights later, it was dusk and she was on her back deck and a larger one with darker colors, was walking through the back pasture that is between our front yard and their house, heading toward our general direction.  There are a hundred or so acres behind us that are just cattle grazing land with trees so it had plenty of places to go  once it passed through but still...

Bobcat, image via wikicommons.com

We did some research and also found this great PDF from Texas Wildlife Department: 

Females have a territory of about 5 square miles but males can have a territory range of 30 square miles.  They are beautiful animals for sure and we'd love to see one (from a distance) or capture it on the trailcam, but we know they are also very protective of their young.

We will need to be careful as we push into other areas of our property.  It will make future mowing of the trails an interesting experience every time I see movement out of the corner of my eye.

I read some articles where people "rescued" kittens that they found in their yards only to find out they were bobcat kittens.  I'll need to remember this so I don't tell 2nd Man, "look! I found a kitten at the farm!", ha!

Like everything at the farm, it's all part of us living in their habitat, so we will adapt.  Anyone have any good bobcat stories/advice?