Bird Feeder
A few posts ago I wrote about the trapped bird and how I bought a new bird feeder called the Squirrel Buster Plus. Unfortunately, it just didn't work out, and I have no idea why. The birds seemed to like it at first, and ate a decent chunk of the food in it, but then they just stopped coming by. Week after week went by without any birds, which turned into month after month. It was kind of depressing. I never had this problem with the old feeder.
So a couple weeks ago I bought another SquirrelAway bird feeder, which is what the old one was (this post was the first time I mentioned it). Here's what it looks like:
As you recall, the problem with the old one was that two times a bird got stuck in it (the first one died, detailed here). But that didn't start happening until after squirrels managed to grab hold of the feeder, gnaw on some of the port holes and make them wider. I'm hoping that birds won't get stuck on the new feeder with normal sized holes, and that the baffle I installed on the pole a few years ago will prevent squirrels from ever gnawing on it again.
The day after I put out the new SquirrelAway feeder, the birds were back in full force, and I was happy to see them! For whatever reason, they seem to really like this feeder, and as I type this I see a cardinal eating away at it. So, hurray! The birds are back!
Trail Cam
I didn't check my trail cam for videos Saturday morning because it was cold, wet, and snowing (we got almost two and half inches of rain that night before a cold front moved through). When I checked it this morning (Sunday) there were 11 videos on it. Normally when it captures a bunch of videos they're almost all of rabbits, patiently hopping around our backyard and eating away at the grass. So I asked Wendy to guess how many of the 11 were rabbits. She guessed 8. I guessed 10.
It turned out to be zero! There were 6 videos of raccoons (some quite fat) and 5 videos of coyotes. Here are some of the better ones:
A fat raccoon:
A curious raccoon:
Coyotes:
Bike Ride
Finally, the weather today was sunny and upper 40s, so Wendy and I went on a rare December bike ride around our neighborhood. We rode for 3 miles. I bundled up with a jacket, ear muffs, and gloves. It was cold, but still enjoyable. A week or two ago I went for a bike ride at lunch because it was in the 50s. I may actually have another chance this week, because Wednesday the predicted high is 62.