Two Tramps in Mud time

A chubby raccoon....

And a Busy squirrel ...

Here on The  Hill April has done it's thing;  a roller coaster of rain, fog and mud,  with the sun breaking through now and then. The woods were full of signs, and I was hopeful...

And reminded of a Robert Frost poem:

"The sun was warm but the wind was chill.

You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.

But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March."

Robert Frost (1874–1963)
Two Tramps in Mud Time (1936

Feeding on Acorns at 10:30 pm

It's been almost a week since I checked the Wildview Trail Camera; Daytime exposures were of squirrels, and what looks to be the ear of one curious Yearling. Most of the visits were between 10 pm and midnight. The only food in the woods are acorns.

Changing Animal and Human routes through the woods...

One Year Later 

I'm scouting a new location for the wildlife camera.

A young boy who lives in our hamlet has graduated from riding his mini bike around the yard to riding the animal trail along the ridge.  A passing phase. As he and his bikes grow, he'll be riding further afield.

A Tale of Tails

Squirrel 

Raccoon

Lots of exposures on the Wildview Trail Camera today.
LOL

The  carefully designed "disguise"elements on and about the camera have all been stripped away.

First week in April

Doe exiting the grove

April: animals are moving back into this section of the woods.

These photos were taken with an older Bushnell Trail Sentry Camera. (2008 version) which has  a slow "wake up" time.

Also, while I saw the tracks of a small bear, and a smaller fox, they were too quick for the camera.

View from the Trail Camera

New Location, along a well used wildlife  trail. 

Hopefully the deer won't spot it and make a detour. There is a chance that  it's   "disguise"  of moss, hemlock branches and bark will help. 

It appears as though the ice won't go out until mid-April. 

Any guesses?
I say April 24th at 3 pm. Himself says April 15th.   (Update: Ice went out April 12th.) 

Time to bring in the bird feeders.
We saw  a young Black Bear yesterday.

Wild Turkeys Letting One another Know They are In the Area

The neighbor told me that there were 50 turkey's in this patch soon after I took the photo.

January 29th 2011

Opportunity...

The right Camera

The right lens!
The right place!
Coy-wolf

Winter

Sunset at 4:20 on December 30th, 2010

        
 Yeah! They Live!

Deer Tracks the week AFTER  "Hunting Season" in Western Massacusetts

Hunting Song (Native Indian)

       Comes the deer to my singing,

       Comes the deer to my song, 

       Comes the deer to my singing.

He, the blackbird, he am I,

Bird beloved of the wild deer.

       Comes the deer to my singing.

Eagle Outside my Window

Immature Bald Eagle November 2010

The Eagle

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Color in the Woods

Maple

Birch

Oak

Outside, Over There

View of the west shore on Columbus Day, 2010, from the edge of our lawn.

Fall Light

Through the Canopy

Autumn Gift

Milk Weed: food for the monarch butterfly's caterpillar.

One single plant, seeded from the meadow below,
Clinging to a patch of gravel at the edge of a wooded hillside.

Dry stalks of autumn
Partnered with purple asters

It Opened Overnight

Autumn on the Woodland floor

Woodland Floor

 Emily Dickinson writes:



"The mushroom is the elf of plants,
At evening it is not;
At morning in a truffled hut
It stops upon a spot."

What's that on the Tree?

Curious Fawn

Ear and eye of a curious fawn.

Mummy has moved on down the trail.
That's her,  just left of the center trees in the distance.

The Blue Heron

A great Blue Heron with tattered wings and ghostly shape...
A quick snap as he lifted off from our yellow raft...

The Great Blue Heron
BY CAROLYN KIZER
M.A.K., September 1880-September 1955
As I wandered on the beach
I saw the heron standing   
Sunk in the tattered wings
He wore as a hunchback’s coat.   
Shadow without a shadow,   
Hung on invisible wires   
From the top of a canvas day,   
What scissors cut him out?   
Superimposed on a poster   
Of summer   

The Young Moose

The Young Moose
Taken with motion activated  trail camera in Western Massachusetts;  August 28th at 8 am

Large tracks on the path..partial impressions on  dry leaves.

I  never thought  "moose!"

How did she find  this trail that traces a ridge beyond my house? Where did she come from and what is she hoping to find?

August: When even the weeds are beautiful!

All summer a variety of green weed grows on both sides of our  path leading to the shore of the Lake.
While  I am tempted to pull them all out...they are weeds, after all,  we take such pleasure in their  blanket of white brightening the edge of the woods throughout the month of September.

The Volunteer beside the road.

Greenings

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky