FEBRUARY MISTY MORNING, HUEY, ANNA

 COOL MORNINGS BRING SMOKE ON THE WATER

When the pond is naturally at 70 degrees F (from day time heating by the sun) but the night air cools down into the low 40's we get this smoke-like magical water vapor forming plumes reaching into the sky. 

On Duck Island, that's Anna our resident Anhinga, also enjoying the beautiful water vapor display. By 8AM she is full of fish and drying her wings for some "Fly-About" (like "walk about" but bird like).

BABY HUEY THE GIANT BLUE HERON, JULY 5TH, 2018

HUEY (AKA MR. CLEANHEAD) LOVES OUR FLOATING POND PLATFORM

We made this platform by stuffing a pallet with swim noodles from the dollar store. Many animals have enjoyed floating on the platform but none have ridden it more than "Cleanhead" Huey the giant blue heron.

Huey rides the platform and fishes off the side. We have several giant herons that have visited but this one has a long white upper neck and head which earned him the blues moniker of "Cleanhead".

This heron is less scared of humans, he often rides the platform nearby while Mary feeds the panfish in the big pond. Huey adds a unique and wonderful personality to our pond (unless you're his fish dinner in which case he's a big meanie).

Huey with Devil Horns

Huey, our Great Blue Heron, doesn't like raccoons near him when he's fishing at night.  This was a lucky catch, to grab this video of him yelling at and attacking a mama raccoon while it was still daylight.  We hear the "yell" of the wild Huey every evening as he polices the pond.  Scary! :)

HUEY EATS A PANFISH

The pictures say it all.

MEMORIAL DAY RACON ENCOUNTER

On Friday night of Memorial day weekend Mary finally got her chance to pet a raccoon who we quickly named "Kitty". 

Kitty was very small, about the size of a softball. He was sitting on our window sill outside. It looked like his mom had accidentally left him there. He was acting sick but after we gave him a bowl of water he quickly sprung back to life and wolfed down a few black oil sunflower seeds. After playing with him for four hours we closed the window and in the morning he was gone.

We've since seen a mama with three babies and we think Kitty is one of them. He appears to be doing fine, one of the late batches of racon babies this year.

Lessons learned:  

1. Raccoons are NOT soft, not even the babies

2. When you add water to a dry raccoon, they get bitey