The Gray fox family that lives in my woods must be expecting… she is visiting my compost area a little before dark every night. Isn’t she beautiful?
And then there were these 2 love birds…
Normally possums are solitary animals… Obviously they get together every once in a while… The romance is short, but I understand it is intense. I hope the mama brings her little ones around in a couple of months.
DID YOU HAVE AN IMAGINARY FRIEND WHEN YOU WERE A KID? Well, most of us did. But my imaginary friend was a dog because my mother was allergic to animals so I could not have pets. There were plenty of kids in the neighborhood, tho they were all boys, but my yard was the meeting place and our big 3 car garage was like having a gym to play in in bad weather. Grandpop always got a good fire going in the old pot-belly stove to take the chill off. So I did not need another kid for my invisible friend… I needed a dog. I did not like little dogs, one tried to bite me when I was real little. “My dog” would never bite anybody! And he or she would be big but not 
Well, most of you know how old I am. So you can figure out how long it has been since I had that imaginary pet. One year I found a little dog ornament of a dog that looked just like my make-believe pet. I bought dog ornaments for my friends, pugs, golden retrievers, a black lab, a yorkie, and there my dog was… I bought her for me. Now how dumb is that? I don’t even have a tree! LOL! Oh well.
Then a couple years ago a friend lost his dog, Gracie. She was a real sweetheart and he missed her terribly. She was his constant companion. But, at home, he kind of had another dog. She was a bit standoffish. He did not know where she came from. She just started hanging out and probably sleeping in his barn a couple years before. It took some work to get her to become a travel companion like Gracie had been, but she has come a long ways toward making friends with him and his friends. It is amazing how a couple “milkbones” can break the ice. Ruggie has become my very visible friend. And I do my best to spoil her. When her owner comes to visit, she comes to visit, too, flops over in front of me to get her belly scratched, and takes walks with my out in my woods. It took a long time for my friend to become visible, but here she is.
Rose Breasted Grosbeak. Yeah, I know it is hard to tell from this picture,
but by the time I got my camera, he was ready to move on. If you know your birds, you will recognize his back. If you don't know them, his breast is white with a bright red heart shape just under his neck, not that song birds have much of a neck. The female looks kind of like an over-sized sparrow in color and markings. I have had Evening Grosbeaks in the winter, even a Blue Grosbeak one summer that I thought was a giant Indigo Bunting! Hey, I was new to birding! And they said Blue Grosbeaks did not get this far north, but, as Roger Tory Peterson told my neighbor, "birds have wings!" Imagine!
Then, today a Redheaded woodpecker visited. How beautiful! The female is very plain by comparison, browns and white. Great coloring for sitting on the nest. I often have a good assortment of really cool woodpeckers, my favorite being the Pileated that lives in my woods (or Frank's woods, or in a tree on the line!) I have posted pics of them before on here... And I have posted pictures of the red-bellied, the occasional yellow shafted flicker, and the ubiquitous Hairy and Downy.
