Wild Wild Woods

Bluejays love peanuts!  This bird was trying hard to get one even though the wind almost flipped him head over tail.

Several bird species were successful at hatching and fledging babies this summer in the wild wild woods.  This young Black-capped Ch...

These two Northern Cardinals Cardinalis cardinalis look alike.  Both are females, so have some red feathers like the all-red males, but ...

The birds are not the only wildlife enjoying berries in the wild woods.  The squirrels hang upside-down in the mulberry tree to reach ...

At the edge of the woods, where sun shines on them part of the day, wild raspberries grow each spring.  The birds love the juicy berries so ...

Germander Teucrium canadense self-seeded a few years ago where the slopes drain rainwater down to the swale and into the woods.  Tiny 3/8...

Eastern Bluebirds hatched five babies in a nestbox near the wild wild woods.  Both parents feed them worms, flies, damselflies, and other in...

The House Wrens Troglodytes aedon built a nest in one of the boxes near the woods.  The male carried twigs to fill the box, and the female f...

Record rainfall in June so far!  During one downpour, the swale and the dry stream bed down through the wild wild woods was running full.  G...

These galls are the "packages" left after winter birds pecked through to get at the treats inside. Last summer, an insect laid...

In the woods today, Solomon's Seal, Rue, Violets, and Trout Lily.  After the very cold wet months of April and May, native wildflowers s...

Another wave of migrants stopped here for refueling: Tennessee Warbler, Yellow Warbler and Indigo Bunting.      They gorged on suet a...

The post on 4/23/2014 was about a nest containing two eggs.  If you guessed it was a Northern Cardinal nest, you were correct.  Today the fi...

Migrating birds stopped at the edge of the wild wild woods this week.  On Friday, one Yellow-rumped Warbler Setophaga coronata hopped...

 Larch, magnolia, maple, and pussywillow display their springtime beauty. Larch Larix laricina branch with green needle tufts and fe...

Nestwatch season has begun in Minnesota and the wild wild woods. http://nestwatch.org/ Discovered today in an evergreen tree at the ed...

Baltimore Oriole Close up: the beaks of Baltimore Oriole, Red-winged Blackbird, and Common Grackle.  All three of these birds are in th...

  We watched two young female Pileated Woodpeckers Dryocopus pileatus this morning.  They were hunting for bugs in grass at the edge...

Nest cameras are ready in the wild wild woods! This is one camera's view into a wooden nest box from the inside of the roof, looking ...

April 1, 2014.  No, not a joke.  I saw my "first" Eastern Bluebird of this spring season at the edge of the wild wild woods this...

Aren't they amazing close up? The feathers on the birds in the wild wild woods are showing some wear since last summer.  Flying, pree...

I've occasionally noticed something about the eyes on some of the birds I observe: milky or filtered texture. According to the Corn...

This Eastern Cottontail rabbit ( Sylvilagus floridanus ) has a thick fur coat in cold weather, but does not turn white like the native har...

Watching the feeders and counting birds today for Cornell FeederWatch http://feederwatch.org/. All the birds are fluffed up as they hun...

Sub-zero!  Really sub-zero.  Thanks to Winter Storm Hercules, a polar vortex is invading most of the nation with record-setting low temperat...