Posted in wildlife, tagged chipmunk, chukar, partridge, photo, wildlife on Tuesday, September 16, 2008| 1 Comment »
Today I spotted this wandering around the backyard:
Where's my pear tree?
It’s most likely a Chukar Partridge. Thanks very much to Fearsclave for the ID on this non-native species, as my Audubon bird book was most unhelpful.
This is one of our pair of resident chipmunks, standing near a drainpipe and scolding the partridge loudly:
Hey, you, get offa my lawn!
I guess now I’m going to have to plan to put a pear tree in the orchard!
Posted in wildlife, tagged orb-weaver spider, photo, spider, wildlife on Friday, September 12, 2008| 1 Comment »
I need a bird book – there are so many birds out here that I don’t recognize, but my favourite so far are the pair of blue jays that swoop from the tree tops to the lawn.
Then there’s the pair of chipmunks that live somewhere in the western treeline, and run back and forth across the side yard to the house, scooting along the foundation in that kangaroo hop they do.
I spotted deer sign in the form of a big pile of droppings on my walk yesterday.
But the most interesting bit of wildlife so far has to be this guy, in the front flowerbed:
A bit of Googling has revealed that this is a very fine specimen of an Orb-Weaver spider, a very common and completely harmless arachnid.
out here 