Gorgeous!
My squirrels have gotten very sneaky now that I have a dog, but they are still out there. They are once again attacking my apples like crazy. I can count almost 8 per day per tree missing! My Pristines are quite small this year, no rain, but they are turning yellow, ripening and disappearing!
Forest rats.
They’re into my Kieffer pears, which I would rather if it kept them out of other stuff
it looks like it, but actually he was just sall enough to get through…he was just weaved in and out of the wire like in the photo when I found him. However, if he had actually eaten a chicken and had it inside him, there is no way he could have gotten back out with that lump in his belly. I’ve heard of this happening.
Hey Dax. I LOVED your quail photo. They are my all time favorite birds. I recently found a nest that was just a few feet from the road. A couple days later either my neighbor or the county road crew mowed over the nest. It ruined all the cover that was hiding mom and nest so she abandoned it, but miraculously the eggs were unharmed. I took them and put them in my incubator. 22 days later I now have 9 baby quail!!!
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Oh my. That is so cool.
Dax
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I thought you’d like that! I plan on releasing them when they get big enough. I’m not worried about them getting too tame…they go crazy if I just walk near them. Baby chickens get used to me in a few days, these quail most certainly have not!!! Its also absolutely amazing how fast they can run. 12 hours after hatching I couldn’t catch them unless I corned them against a wall or something, but at a dead run they were lightening fast within a few hours of birth. nature is cool.
Oh… I meant to tag @dutch-s too. Jeff, I love your wild turkey photo. In addition to my quail, I have a wild turkey baby also. Similar situation but it didn’t happen to me…a friend accidentally mowed over a wild turkey nest while cutting hay. Sadly, he did ruin all but 3 eggs. He called to see if I wanted them and of course I did. 2 of them hatched. One got his head hung on the corner of my cage and died (I was crushed) but the other is alive and well. I post photo of it too sometime.
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Very cool…Turkey is a great bird and from my experience can get quite big! You plan on keeping? Cooking? Releasing?
Definitely the plan on my wild turkey is to release it. In a perfect world it will stick around my property and I’ll still feed it. But I actually did this once before and they wild turkey I raised only stuck around about 2 days and disappeared. I still felt good about it and I will with this one, but it would be fun if he/she sticks around.
I hate to tell you this and I know it seems extremely contradictory, but I’m actually a turkey hunter. But I don’t find saving babies and raising them for release to be contradictory with hunting. Hunting is good management, and of course you only harvest Toms, only after babies have been reared, so I’m ok with it. After all, as you know, there are more wild turkeys alive in America today than there were in Ben Franklin’s day. And there is a lot less habitat, so it is working.
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I’m a Turkey Hunter too…The hunter’s are always the best conservationist contrary to the talking points out there. I love animals and all wildlife and enjoy watching them and owning domesticated pets immensely but I love to eat meat too and i find hunting to be the perfect way to do that and to avoid all the UN natural stuff being fed the grocery store meats. I think it’s very cool you helped the little turkeys and have a great respect for wildlife. It’s a good thing to strike that balance and it seems you have…
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You and I would get along quite well, as we clearly have similar philosophies! Most people think being a hunter means you just want to kill things, but as you said, hunters (and especially the money they spend) is what does the most to promote wild animal welfare, management, etc.
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Cool! I actually sort of hope that is the way mine will be, though if she is a hen I’d love to see her raise a brood. Otherwise, I’d love to have some wild ones here that could roam my property the same way my chickens do.
found a canadian goose on the side of the road. it was laying there and tried to walk away from me but couldn’t. i wrapped him in my jacket and brought him home. put him in the chicken coop in a quiet corner with food and water nearby. after a week he was outside trying to get out of the run. i caught him and released him in the fire pond next door where there were 2 can. geese w/ babies already. he jumped out of my arms into the pond. for 3 days i saw him feedng on the shoreline then didn’t see him any more. must have flown away. my good deed for the summer!
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order some online. all kinds of breeders sell them. pretty cheap too. put out a feeder for them and they will slay around your place.did that with some phesants and they stayed around my place for 4 yrs. think they moved on or predators finally got them.
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Our bats were out early. Right above our heads, so cool and so graceful. They followed us halfway to the house.
My guess is the squeaking in batspeak was hey, very useful, these tall walking things really attract yummy mosskeeters.
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Its a big black ugly snake and I will no longer watch your snake pictures. Too creepy!
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