The Other Night

The ground is starting to freeze up.  Lots of activity at the black oil feeders.  I put a platform feeder out on the lawn witih a mix of cracked corn and black oil that the blue jays flocked to all afternoon.  

I had to chuckle later when I saw the gander, Pluto, helping himself stretched on his ti toes.

At some point I acknowledge thehunger of the grey squirrel population and start putting out corn to take some pressure off the feeders and give the birds a chance.  The blue jays and morning doves like the corn, too.  

I saw several wild turkeys just in the treeline at dusk as I was locking up the chickens.  They were most likely heading to roost in the tall hemlocks out of sight to the right in the above photo.  But, with all the mayhem in the front yard with bird activity, I won't be too suprised to see turkey at the platform in a few days.

Kind of wondering if my deer visitor will knock it over in the night, but since the house was surrounded from all angles by gunshots opening day, I am assuming all the neighbors "got their deer"-and considering the increased doe permits for this WMD-I am wondering if my visitor avoided slaughter.  

There are still a few more days of hunting season- as I said, hopefully adjacent landowners have got their quotas and any deer remaining in the area can start to relax.