The squirrel returned this evening is and sleeping in the duck house again tonight, but one of the other duck houses actually is being used by a wood duck. She has been laying eggs since the 10th and now she is sitting on the eggs. When she was laying the eggs, she covered them with the wood shavings so I didn’t see the eggs at first, but now she covered the eggs with her down feathers.
Duck Sitting on Eggs
It was a cold, wet morning and a squirrel took shelter in one of my duck boxes and it even brought a mouthful of oaks leaves in to create a blanket as it wrapped its tail around its nose to stay warm.
Squirrel Staying Warm
After the brief rain shower this morning, the skies still looked rather angry and now this afternoon, some rumbling from the nearby lightning can be heard.
Another Angry Sky
It was another chilly start to a spring day with the temperature down to 14 at sunrise and the geese and ducks left as my pond is frozen again.
Chilly Spring Sunrise
I don’t think the birds like the snow covered bird feeders, especially the blue jay that tried to land on the feeder later and with the weight of the blue jay, the feeder tilted to the side and the snow slid off the roof and showered the jay.
Snow Covered Feeder
After all the snow yesterday, it was raining this morning and just as it was getting light I had another non-duck visitor entering one of my duck house boxes. And while a squirrel has visited a few weeks ago, I didn’t expect to see one carrying its new baby into the duck box. I don’t know if something happened to her original nesting site as the heavy snow did break several tree limbs, but she carried in five little babies. And later in the day, she carried lots of oak leaves in that covered her and the babies underneath so it didn’t look like anyone was in the duck box except for occasional slight movement of a leaf.
Squirrel Carrying Baby
It definitely did not look like spring this morning as the heavy snow weighted down the tree branches and some limbs snapped off. The snow was around fifteen inches in the backyard when I went to clear the snow off the bird feeders.
Definitely Not Spring
As the snow started to pile up this evening, the Junco was having a harder time finding fallen seeds under that cold, white stuff.
Dark-eyed Junco
A pair of Hooded Mergansers visited my pond yesterday, and the female checked out a couple of the duck houses. But she didn’t stay too long, probably since there were snowflakes coming into the opening.
Female Hooded Mergansers
This morning looked more like winter than spring, but this is just a taste of what the predicted storm will bring on the Sunday.
Not Spring
