Life in the forest

There seems to always be something going on with wildlife in the forest surrounding us. Sometimes those goings on have a direct impact on me.

I planted several dozen impatiens in an effort to have a garden behind a fence of deer screening.  The deer have ignored them completely so far.  Is there such a thing as racoon screening? Trying to be a good little green person I used organic fertilizer to plant my new annuals.  That night something dug up in between every plant and ate the fertilizer.  I filled the holes back in.  The next morning, the next set of plants were not only dug up (inside the deer screening area), but the plants were seemingly laid carefully aside and the fertilizer eaten again.  I'm assuming a racoon did this, considering their very capable little paws.  It's hard enough for me to plant these days without having to plant the same plants twice!

We have been providing suet blocks for the birds and especially enjoy watching the woodpeckers they attract.  Suddenly, the blocks were disappearing at an unusually fast pace.  We couldn't help but wonder what was causing this because our bird population in May has been dramatically lower than in April.  Not lower is the number of huge black crows visiting our feeder area. Too big for the feeders, they normally just enjoy the seeds tossed to the ground by the smaller finches and titmice and others.  One day this week we discovered the mystery of the suet blocks as we watched a crow jump high off the ground and hover beside the block.  It took several attempts, but the crow was successful at knocking off a chunk or two and falling back to ground to enjoy it.  Always trying to win the battle, we attached a shiney aluminum disposable pan to the bottom of the suet feeder today in an attempt to make the crow's efforts more complicated.  Still waiting to see whether or not that is successful.

My favorite forest story is the most personal for me.  A few days ago I was watering a potted plant on the back patio.  Suddenly, I hear the sound of bird wings fluttering and getting very close to my head.  Just as I started to raise up to see what kind of bird was so close to me the bird stopped its flapping and landed square on my head!  I froze in place as the still unidentified bird hopped around my head yanking my shortish blond hair as hard as it could.  I wanted someone else to see this amazing thing so I slowly walked toward the workshop window to alert Bill to the happening.  The bird continued its yanking until I raised my arm to knock on the window. It then flew up a few feet, made another attempt at landing and flew off.  Only then did I see the bird was a titmouse.  My Virginia bird book was quickly thumbed through to find this bird has a reputation for yanking fur out of sleeping dogs and squirrels to use in nest building.  I never thought I looked like either of those things, but one friend said the bird thought my hair looked like a haystack.  She might be right.