June 14th

A variety of animals hung out around the house on June 14th - I made this video from different clips from that day.  I had to slow down the bobcat clip because she went by so quickly.  This was actually the first day we saw the baby bear that we have now seen a couple more times since.

Friends Forever

A truly beautiful and bizarre scene.  An elk finds the bones and skull of an elk that died near our court several years ago.  The elk starts chewing on one of the bones and decides to lay down and join the skull for a visit.  Surreal.

Great Horned Owl

This is (I think - feel free to correct me) a Great Horned Owl. We only see this kind approx once a year.  99% of the owls we see here are Barred Owls.  This is from a week ago and we haven't seen her again, so she must not have found the pond to her liking and probably only gave us one Hoot on OwlYelp.

A Gift from My Past Self to My Current Self!

So I found this old camera in a drawer full of stuff that needs repairs.  And lo and behold, there was an SD card in it with videos from more than a year ago we never saw. It was thoughtful of me-from-a-year-ago to leave some surprise videos for me-from-today!  The best one is this one of a bear using a tree to scratch that "just right" spot.  Thanks, past version of me, for being a forgetful stooge so I could enjoy this extra fun today.

Guess the Raptor

I don't know crap about birds (wait, maybe what I do know is crap).  Anyway, the point is I'm no good at identifying the local avian hordes.  My quick research tells me this is a Sharp-Shinned Hawk. But it could also be several other kinds of raptors. Please comment and set me straight.  I have zoomed in the 2nd time through to help with the ID.

Deer vs Coyote

Because there are so many animals around the yard, it is inevitable that they will run into each other on occasion. Sometimes with surprising outcomes. Here, a badass deer runs off a coyote who stops for a second to try to face-off with the deer, but then realizes that's not a very good idea.

Life

This is our deck (the arrow isn't really on the deck, I photoshopped it)...  Because directly below the deck, at that spot, is a Robin's nest.  We found it and have been taking pics by placing our phones on the deck and lining up the lens in the slats in between the 2x4s.  So the pics aren't great quality and are squeezed on both sides by the deck.

First we found the eggs...

This is Day 1 of life for the birdlings

Day 2

Day 3

 Day 4

 Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

 Day 8

Sometime in the next week, they will leave the nest and be gone.  We will miss them very much!