Nature

Backyard Tanager

This male scarlet tanager was busy yesterday looking for snacks. His mate was nearby but much harder to spot with her mottled yellowish coloring. The Dogstar BirdnetPi detector did not pick up his song but its very distinctive. Check out BirdWeather if you want to see what species have been reported by Dogstar Observatory or …

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Turkey love

Its that time of year! This guy was trying out some new lines on the ladies but they were ignoring him. Must be his cologne!

Sand Hill Cranes

We visited my sister in Chattanooga last week and caught the annual Tennessee Sand Hill Crane Festival. Huge birds. The flock along the river was busy fishing and defending territories. They mate for life and interestingly, are not an endangered species – hunting in season is permitted. More info here.

Infrared eyes

The guy showed up on one of our security cameras last week. Night vision security cameras have infrared LEDs that illuminate scenes at night. The deer’s eyes reflect the light back to the camera making them seem to glow in the dark.

Woody Woodpecker

We had another 4-5 inches of snow last night on top of the 6+ inches we had on Sunday. The heavy snow is bringing out the birds looking for a snack. This guy was doing some hammering in the back yard.

Snow Day!

About six inches for fresh snow fell last night and continues today. Lexi loves chasing snowballs, sticking her nose in the snow and chasing Janie on the sled.

October Rainbows

October seems to be the month that the combination of sun angle and weather patterns create the ideal conditions for rainbows at Balsam. When the sun came out after heavy rains this morning, we saw this looking from our deck toward Water Rock Knob.

Visitor in the night

Janie saw a bear on East Reach yesterday in the woods near our house. Lexi barked her disapproval for several hours after they returned home safely and then he/she must have decided to investigate what was making the awful noise this morning.