Summer sightings

We started the morning with the discovery that raccoons(?) had disassembled the freshly refilled hummingbird feeder. [Last night we absentmindedly forgot to bring the feeders in after participating in a mid-evening Zoom meeting.] I have no idea what he, she, it or they were trying to accomplish by unscrewing the bottom of the hummer feeder but, as we were in the midst of taking stock and deciding where to clean up next, a very large black bear walked across the field right behind the house. At least the bear didn’t destroy the sunflower seed feeder last night but we suspect it was probably the culprit the smashed a bluebird house a couple of weeks ago.

Today’s air quality is much improved over yesterday’s but still not “Good.” It is, nevertheless, just bad enough to continue to provide me with an excuse to avoid out door chores. Lack of “Good” air and a desire to not get eaten by a bear weigh equally in our efforts to stay inside today. 😉

Yesterday, or the day before, while working in front by the road, I watched a whitetail doe stand in the middle of that road for about five minutes. She was nursing a very tiny fawn. All three of us were grateful for a lack of traffic. This morning as I drove toward the Daughter Person’s abode, a couple of miles north of our place an older, larger fawn came bursting out of some roadside bushes near the ditch, noticed traffic moving at 55 or 60 mph, promptly reversed direction and bounded back into the woods. I can relate.

the time of year for fawns and does

Photo by J. Harrington

Several folks I was chatting with this morning were speculating whether does had dropped fawns later than usual this year. The consensus was “could be.” As this was being typed, a couple of wild turkeys wandered out of the woods and through the field behind the house. I’m not sure if it’s the smoke, the bugs, the alignment of the stars, or what, but there seems to be much more wildlife active during full daylight than I’d expect.

Poem

Blanche Taylor Dickinson    1896 – 1972

Ah, I know what happiness is. . . . 
It is a timid little fawn
Creeping softly up to me
For one caress, then gone
Before I’m through with it . . . 
Away, like dark from dawn!
Well I know what happiness is . . . !
It is the break of day that wears
A shining dew decked diadem . . . 
An aftermath of tears. 
Fawn and dawn, emblems of joy . . . 
I’ve played with them for years,
And always they will slip away
Into the brush of another day. 

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