Christmas snowstorm aftermath

The Christmas snowstorm of 2009 has dumped over a foot of snow followed by a nice freezing rain on top of it, making for a tough -and very loud- walk today. I doubted I'd see any deer as they'd hear me coming a mile away, and I was right. The only thing that stuck out of the white scenery was this Cardinal. Since there was really nothin' else to see today I tried again to capture some snowflakes where the path was covered with interesting looking ice crystals. Don't think my camera is completely cut out for this close of a shot but I'm gonna keep tryin. On the west side I noticed that the recent heavy snows have just squashed large areas of cattails creating new views of the lake that did not exist before.

Wednesday Owls and Deer

I recently heard that an owl's eyes actually focus better in low light. Must be true as I've only ever seen them at Palmer Lake on dark and dreary winter days. For the past week or so I've been keeping my own eyes upwards hoping to spot one. Today right off the bat I noticed a Great Horned perched relatively low to the ground in some birch trees. Man he was big. Shortly after I started walking more briskly in an attempt to warm up a little when I came right up on a group of five deer. My fast pace apparently spooked them and they scattered quickly until I slowed up. When I did, a few of them came back around. I'm positive this is the same fawn from yesterday and probably the same mother doe always along side. On the opposite side of the park I spotted yet another Great Horned Owl, though this one was slightly smaller and much more rust-colored -especially in the face. Look how far his neck is turned.

Bleak Tuesday

Pretty bleak weather lately with no sun and temps hovering around 20 degrees. Looks like people have already been skiing up and down Shingle Creek. If I can find a pair of snowshoes I think I'd like to try 'em out there this winter. I did manage to spot one deer on the north side and the photo is another good example of how enclosed the park is by houses.

Closest deer ever

Decided to take a different trail today and glad I did. Right before the end of the trail I came right up on this doe who was much more interested in foraging than in me. Every time her head went behind a tree, I inched up a little closer. As I leaned against a tree to steady my camera, I watched her plunge her snout into the snow over and over again in search of food. Only once or twice did she bother to look up at me and at this point I was only about fifteen feet away! During this time I kept catching a glimpse of movement further behind and I knew at least three more were close. After a while two of them got curious enough to walk up close enough for a photo. Hard to tell now but I'm pretty sure the one on the right is one of the fawns born this spring.

Saturday in December

I hadn't noticed these cool little "hanging" birds nests before but now it seems like they are everywhere. There's one in just about every tall tree. They're usually pretty high up so I zoomed in on this one just to see what it looked like. No idea what kind of birds build these but it must take them weeks. Something else I really wanted to get a photo of before it was gone was some greenery against the snow. It's pretty amazing that anything can stay green this far into December. I think I read or heard somewhere that Robins have adapted to eating seeds in the winter and can stay in Minnesota all year. Not sure if this is the case with all or just some of them but here's one that's decided to tough it out.

Deer are back

Last Saturday December 12th started off nice but turned gloomy by the time I was out walking and there was a noticeable line in the sky showing the change. After hardly seeing any deer in the past month, I was excited to see this one, even though far off in the distance towards the middle of the park. Not too long after, I spotted two more, then two more, then a group of six! The group of six were in an area I'd never cared to look before -right in someone's back yard. At first I only noticed one standing in front of a small storage shed but after watching for a minute I realized there were five more right up by a house. They must have had a feeder or something. I tried to get a shot of the group but they were far away and had also noticed me already. All of them looked like does I thought. Heading around the east side I saw two more right off the trail, bringing the total to thirteen. Not too bad; my previous high count was eleven.

December's here

Only minutes into my normal "clockwise" walk I was happy to scare up a doe. It was a strange area of the park to see a deer in, being very close to a large open area surrounded by neighborhood roads. She was skittish probably because of the area and I barely got one pic before she bounded away. There was just a hint of snow/frost on the ground and it made for a loud, crunchy walk on the woodchip trails.

The sun was shining, making the snow sparkle so I tried taking a close up of the white stuff on a fallen log. After spotting a deer so early on my walk I was hopeful to see more but unfortunately the rest of my walk was quiet and cold. Plants that had still been hanging on to their green color are getting scarcer and becoming brown, dried up, brittle versions of themselves.

While crossing the baseball diamonds on the east side, the snow had collected in the lower areas of the gravel, revealing a cluster of kid's drawings. They reminded me of petroglyphs or ancient cave drawings as they would have been near impossible to even notice without the snow.