Visits from Wildlife

We had grown a bit bored with our snow pictures this week - every hour, every day it was pretty much the same view: All Snow, All the Time. Sometimes it fell thick and fast, sometimes it just fell. But today we woke up to sunshine and melting. And this afternoon we've had quite a few visitors - the roving male wild turkeys first, and then a herd of deer. Now, our readers in the suburbs would not be thrilled but we hardly ever see deer and they don't bother the landscape plants at all. When we do see them, there are usually only two or three at a time. Deer in these parts are a meat-case-on-the hoof in the winter, so they are very shy.

Cheryl had time to get the zoom lens on the camera to take a few pictures of the last doe and fawn because, although the baby crossed the road not long after the rest of the gang, Mom lingered a long time - we think she was licking up the road salt!


While taking shots of the deer, this little woodpecker provided a somewhat closer photography target.


According to All About Birds, this would be a Red-Bellied Woodpecker. We know, that makes no sense from our photo since the head is red and the belly is white, but the Red-Headed Woodpecker is plain black on the back, not striped. You can read all about it at the link - Red-Bellied Woodpecker. Apparently, this bird would have a patch of red on the belly that's usually hidden by feathers - hey look, among the photos we took as the bird moved up the tree we got this one!