Category: Wildlife

Red-Shouldered Hawk

On By CarynIn Wildlife
Red-Shouldered Hawk in flight

So this is one of my better pictures of a hawk. Hawks will also prey on chickens (everything likes to eat chicken!), so we are putting welded wire on the top of our runs too. Since our property is mostly wooded, removing hawk perching sites really isn’t an option. This particular hawk lives along one of the walking trails in town. I noticed him because a Blue Jay was yelling at him; I startled him into flight when I pointed my camera lens at him. But we do have hawks and owls in the neighborhood.

The thing about taking my camera on my walks is that I always find SOMETHING to photograph. Sometimes wildlife, sometimes flora, sometimes I just like to experiment. This photo of the moon and trees is a composite that I put together with Photoshop because I couldn’t get the trees and the moon in focus in the same picture.

Some times I will even take a picture of my dog (he is awfully cute). Here is how he feels about me stopping and taking pictures.

Sad dog
He is not happy about me stopping. Again.

Guess what this is

On By CarynIn Wildlife

Time to play “Guess What This Is”!

If you said a molar, points to you! If you said opossum molar, then you get the star. We found what we believe is an opossum skull in the back woods and this is one of the teeth from the jaw.

Opossum skull

Opossums are omnivores, as you can see from the sharp incisors for tearing meat and the molars for grinding. We have seen these guys on the trail cam pictures too!

Opossum trail cam photo

Cats

On By CarynIn Wildlife

Not really surprising that a cat will eat a chicken, or chicks given the opportunity. What is surprising is the number of outside cats that prowl the neighborhood. Our neighbors have a clowder of cats to keep the snake population down, especially the copperheads (yikes!). I’m all for those cats doing their job (although I think there is a speckled king snake on our side of the fence, and I hope he stays because he (or she) also keeps away the poisonous snakes), but it means that we have to plan on protecting the chicks and chickens both from stalking cats and slithering snakes. Here is a photo from the trail cam.

One of our neighborhood snake patrol agents. His name is Rusty.

Cute, but deadly! Hence “Chicken Fort Knox”. We are planning on putting 1/2″ welded wire along the bottom of the runs and skirting the coop to keep the smaller critters out, and 1″ welded wire along the upper sides and top. We will also bury welded wire mesh all along the outside of the coop and runs to deter digging.

We’ve had a gray calico adopt us as well, so we really want to make sure we protect the chickens and still be able to enjoy our outside felines.

Sophie, who decided to adopt us.

Not Ranger Rick

On By CarynIn Wildlife

You know what else likes to eat chickens? Raccoons. And we have a whole family of raccoons that live on the property, and they regularly show up on the trail cam.

So I know raccoons are smart (I did read Ranger Rick as a kid, and even recently with my own kids), but I didn’t know until recently that raccoons can undo latches. And raccoons can tear through chicken wire (chicken wire is really just effective against chickens, everything else can rip it open or crawl through), so we will be using hardware cloth to cover any openings in the coop and will bury it around the base of the coop and runs to keep these critters out. And use complex latches that need two or three steps to open. Phew!

Foxy fox

On By CarynIn Wildlife

So we check the trail cam periodically, and on this last check found a picture of this cutie.

We believe this is a common gray fox, and the trail cam has picked up a few pictures of her (him?), but never straight on like this one. This is one of the biggest reasons for building Chicken Fort Knox. The photo was taken less than a 100 yards from the coop. Not only do we have foxes (and coyotes, and bobcat), the neighborhood dogs tend to slip through their electric fences and go for a stroll through our property. Dogs and chickens don’t go together either, so we need to anticipate trouble. Everything likes to eat chickens.

Now we do have our own dog, and I plan to follow these recommendations for introducing dogs to chickens, but for the most part our dog will be in his yard, and the chickens will be in their yard.

And just in case you thought it was just one fox… I think there are three in this picture!