wildlife pictures for 2017

Here is a collection of wildlife pics taken this year. It is our first full year in northern Wisconsin. All but one of the pictures were taken at our house. Let's start with a little sunshine.

I've seen all 5 varieties of woodpecker native to Wisconsin. They are Downy, Hairy, Pileated, Red-Bellied and Red-Headed.

The Red-Headed and Red-Bellied Woodpecker.

The Pileated Woodpecker is my favorite. They look and can sound prehistoric.

We have a very diverse selection of winged birds and ducks. Much larger than I ever saw in St. Paul.

A Coopers Hawk spent the summer hunting in the area.

More birds and ducks.

Some waterfowl.

Other wildlife. River Otter.

Muskie near the dock shortly after ice-out.

Even the Red squirrel likes a drink of water in the winter, better than eating snow.

I got all these pictures from just casual observation. Hope to have more and better pics in the future.
I hope everyone has a most excellent 2018.

And the ornaments were hung

Have not been to busy this past week. I went to the Salvation Army in Hayward and picked up some Xmas decorations, spent a whole 2 dollars. With what I bought I was able to decorate the Charlie Brown Xmas tree at the entrance of our driveway and our lawn art.

Got this nice picture of a male Pileated Woodpecker working over a tree about 20 feet from our deck. You can tell by the red mustache.

I had to build a second deer feeder to stop the fights. We had 3 deer we called Earth, Wind and Fire and they all got along fine. We are able to tell who is who by their different body markings. This past spring Wind stopped showing up and it wasn't until about August that we found out why when she showed up with 2 fawns in tow.

Here is a picture from last January when they all got along.

In order to stop the fighting over one feeder between Earth and Fire versus the Wind family, I gathered an armful of scrap pieces I had and an hour later this was the end product. 9-1/2"X18" long and about 22" tall.

I placed the new one about 25 feet from the existing feeder.

Had a small fork buck whitetail come in overnight.

The weather the past couple weeks has not been bad. We have about 8-10 inches of snow on the ground. We've had a couple nuisance 1/2 inch dry snowfalls that I easily removed using my Stihl BR600 backpack blower. It takes about one-third the time. They say more snow tonight and then extreme cold for a few days. Hopefully the snowmobile trails will be opening up in the next week.
Last night's sunset.

Have a great Xmas.

Yes winter did show up.

At the end of my last post I gave mention to the weather. They said that a front was coming through, and boy did it. It started out monday mid 40's and humid with fog in areas. By mid afternoon just as I was finishing cleaning the gutters for the 3rd time this fall, it began to rain with temps in the upper 40's. Just after sunset we started to get some downpours along with thunder and lightning. Crazy stuff for the 5th of december. The lightning was close enough to shake the house real good a few times. Then the wind switched and started to blow and the temp started to drop. By 9:30pm it was 33 and snowing real good. When I got up this morning it was 17 and blowing about 20mph out of the west with gusts up to 30mph or more and about 4 inches of new snow.

So far the deer don't seem to mind a little snow, I guess they really have no choice. They still seem to find the acorns.

They say the temps will be in the teens for the next few days with plenty of wind. I guess it may be time to start doing some indoor projects.
Until next time, be safe.

Free wood is still work.

Last week my friend Erik called and said that he found some free firewood on Craig's list. So I agreed to help go get it. It amounted to 11 logs all 10 to 20 inches in diameter and about 8 feet in length. Sorry no pics of the pile, I didn't think of it. On Friday I was able to help for a few hours before bowling. We got a good start. Erik ran the saw while I split and loaded the trucks for the most part. We didn't loaf about and got alot done in about 3 hours. Erik went back for another load friday afternoon. I bowled really well, consistent and over average. I must of been all loosened up.
Saturday we met back up at 9am to finish. Couldn't quite get it in one load in both trucks. So while Erik went back for the last of it, I unloaded my truck at home, had lunch and then went over to Erik's to finish splitting a heck of a pile of wood.
Here's the pile to still be split after we had allready split a bunch.

Erik taking a load to be stacked for drying.

And stack it right here for drying.

We quit about sundown, could of worked well into the night. The moon was huge, a supermoon they said, very cool.

This is what was left to be split and stacked on sunday, plus the last load still in Erik's truck.

By the end of the day sunday I was back home with another load of wood.

I ended up with about one and a half face cords. It's wet now but just give it a year or so and it will be just fine for burning.
I saved the blue plastic that covered my boat last year and reused it for covering my wood stacks. I don't like to have the plastic directly on the wood, but with snow coming (finally) it will have to do. I will rework it another day. I'm using rods and bungees right now to hold the plastic in place, it seems to work well. A few rocks also.

It's Dec 4th and 46 degrees today with 100 percent humidity, I can't see across the lake.

They say that is all going to change when the front comes through. We'll see if they are right this time.
Saw the deer this morning munching on acorns in the yard, I hope they eat them all by spring.
That's all from here for now.
Please feel free to leave a comment, I do enjoy them.