December 28/08 #1

Welcome to all nature nuts! The intention for this blog spot is to document my observations of the great beauty we live in along the shores of lake Winnipeg. My observations come from daily walks as well as operating a bird feeding station for over 30 years.

We feed the deer oats on a daily basis in the wintertime and receive much pleasure from watching their antics. I know most of the deer by sight and have names for them.....but my all time favourite is "Beauty Boy". This is his third year of coming for food and water in the wintertime. He has a broad forehead and quite dark fur on his face. When he first came this fall he had matured in to quite a fine fellow....with a broad rack of antlers. I was very happy to see him return as there are some very bad people who prey on the deer in our area and shoot them, although there is a no shooting bylaw. We didn't see beauty boy for a few days over Christmas and I feared he might have been shot....but he came back, missing one of his antlers. He looked so comical with only one antler and he had trouble balancing his head, so he had a rather cockeyed look. Today he came again, minus both antlers....I am sure much to his relief.

We have a Robin at our bird feeder. He has been here for about a month now and how he has survived the bitter temperatures the past three or four weeks is beyond our imagination.
We made him a styroform house, but don't think he feels safe in it. We haven't seen him going in to the house, but hope he is! We think he has a damaged wing and cannot fly long distances. I feed him cut up fruit and cat food and will buy him some meal worms when we go to the city.
I would like to catch him and take him to the wild life refuge but haven't been able to catch him so far. He seems to be quite healthy...but likes to cuddle up to the window where he can absorb some of the escaped heat from the house.

Our neighbours are letting their dogs run and they are chasing the deer unmercifally......as soon as the deer make an appearance in our yard the dogs are here.....I guess I will have to tell the neighbours to keep them at home or the dog catcher will be paying a visit. Responsible dog ownership is something that many folks need to understand. Just opening your door and letting them run causes so many problems for the wildlife and for the neighbours. Two fawns were found mauled and dead last summer and I am sure it was dogs. Wild animals would not leave the carcass, they would eat it.