One of the nice things about our rental house east of Cadillac is that we share it, or the yard at least, with the woodland animals.
We have seen more types of birds here than I can remember seeing anywhere. The turkeys seem comfortable, now that the campers in the rest of the property have gone home. We don’t go out much so I’m not worried about the birds becoming too acclimated to humans. I drove through the park today and they calmly but quickly moved to the woods.
Another treat has been the black squirrels, which I had never seen down south anywhere. Apparently they are a variation of the common Eastern Red Squirrel.
Today is the first day I got a good picture of one. You can see why Vicki calls them little black bears with fluffy tails.
We have discovered that we need to keep the blinds down. Not closed, but down and the louvers open so that we can see out but the birds can see that the window is not really an open space.
Last week we had two dark-eyed juncos (snowbirds) slam into a picture window with the space of just a few minutes. They both were stunned, and we feared one was dead, but after about 20 minutes they revived enough to fly off.
And we DON’T welcome the furry little mice into the house. They come in around the plumbing apparently and leave little deposits under the kitchen sink.
The Victor trap got one by the leg the other day but didn’t kill it. I took it out and released it, which may have been a death sentence in this weather, but I haven’t heard of mice rescue groups here.
I long ago determined that I would never again use sticky traps on fellow mammals. Death by dehydration is a horrible way to go.
Two Sheeps to the Wind 