Last evening, about 10pm our satellite internet connection went out so I went to see if snow on the dish was the cause (it was). While I was on the deck I heard scrabbling behind me and saw a northern flying squirrel eating sunflower seeds under the bird feeder. These are small nocturnal squirrels that are rarely seen. We often hear them as they glide in from the trees to land with a thump on the balcony or roof of our house en route to the feeder. They clamber down the chain that holds the feeder so that they can settle in for a hearty meal. They apparently love the taste of sunflower seeds.
Anyway, this little guy was on the deck and could care less that I was almost stepping on him. After I got the snow swept off the dish I ran in and grabbed my camera. he was still scabbling in the snow for whole seeds that the birds didn’t get. I had lots of time to snap a dozen or so pictures and the flash didn’t bother him one bit. I was able to get the camera within 40cm or so of him. 
I have never been that close to a flying squirrel before. It was a neat experience. I wanted to touch him but knew enough not too. Wild creatures don’t like to be touched and react badly if they are. There are two things to remember, they are incredibly fast to react and that reaction usually includes biting.
And then – while I was on my knees taking pictures I heard a small commotion behind me and assumed that another flying squirrel had arrived for supper. When I turned to look instead of a flying squirrel there was an apparently confused female redpoll trying to get fly through the patio door (which was closed ) towards the light. I have no idea what woke this dumb bird, perhaps the flash on the camera. It ended up perched on the door sill so I took a photo of it.
I’m not sure what was going on last night, it wasn’t a full moon but there you have it two very unusual sitings in one night. BTW I had to pick this little bird up (it sure squealed) and throw it up into the air so that it would fly away and not into the house when I opened the door.Who says nothing ver happens in the country.
We live in a rural part of the island and it is fairly common to have wildlife in the yard. Our visitors range from a variety of small birds who come routinely to our feeders to white tailed deer who love the taste of Val’s flowers and my vegetables. We’ve seen raccoons, foxes, a weasel and one warm summer night about 4 years ago a bobcat who had a taste for cat meat. Poor Mulder 
. Bad bobcat!
White tails survive northern Ontario winters because they have learned to expend the least amount of energy possible to acquire the most calories possible. That means that if they find a source of food, especially high energy food, they don’t go far. They regularly come right to the edge of our deck to vacuum up shells from the sunflower seeds that the birds love. Deer also have big brown eyes and when they can relax they look right in the windows at us. When Val sees them and I hear “oh they look so hungry” I know that I will shortly be going out to put some whole corn down in the driveway for them. Every winter I promise myself that I won’t do it but every winter it happens.This winter is proving to be no exception and late last week I heard those fateful words and Friday afternoon I dumped a pail of mixed corn and oats in the driveway. They were immediately discovered by a pair of blue jays who apparently love the taste of whole corn. Saturday – no deer, Sunday – no deer. Monday – same thing. Just those jays getting fatter by the minute! Yesterday about 9.30 am I looke dout the window intot he yard and this is what I saw:
15 wild turkeys came walking down the driveway and right in to that pile of corn. This not the first time we have seen them but it is the first time we have had them here in winter. They stayed for 15 or 20 minutes and then headed back down the driveway. But, before they got the road them seemed to settle down as if they were just going to rest there for a while. They are very wary animals and would rather walk or run than fly.Late in the afternoon they came back and were in the cedars in front of the house. They didn’t stay long this time but we are hoping that they come back again.
Every winter we put up a bird feeder or two. Actually I should call them squirrel and bird feeders because those little red rodents are incredibly persistent not to mention dexterous, fearless and not easily deterred. And at night when it is dark we hear but rarely see their really shy cousin the flying squirrels.
All the critters enjoy the sunflower seeds. And a big bag of fat attracts a couple of more species. We routinely get chickadees and blue jays. The chickadees are dainty little birds who arrive on a soft whirr of wings pick up 1 seed and take off again up into an adjacent tree to break open the hull and eat the seed before coming back for another one. The jays come in with a flurry and often a screech and proceed to jam as many seeds as they can into their bills which they then eat while hanging there before starting again. They are however, very skittish and at the first hint of a face at the window away they go. At the fat bag we often get a downy woodpecker or two. Diminutive compared to their larger cousins the hairy and pileated woodpeckers they are also less flighty and much more likely to ignore an intruder of the human type and just keep on eating.
Yesterday was a banner day at the feeders. Not only did we have the regulars we had a few visitors not usually seen. We had yellow finches in their drab winter plumage, we had purple finches looking like their heads have been dipped in cranberry juice and just for a few minutes we had a white winged crossbill. I know that these species as well as several others which are common to this area are around but for some reason we have a hard time enticing them out of the trees. Add to this list pine grosbeaks and the occasional mourning dove which is apparently too stupid to migrate any more. I’ll try to get some pictures to liven up this posting but in the meantime we’ll keep filling the feeder. 
Yesterday morning we were headed to SSM about 8Am. In mid April it is nice and bright by this time of day. As we pulled around the corner onto the highway there were three wild turkeys in the middle of the road and as we watched they walked into our woodlot followed closely by a white-tailed deer. Good siting. About 10 km further on I spotted movement in the left side ditch and up onto the highway came a red fox with a rabbit in its mouth! Ah, nature at its finest. A half hour later, along a newly opened stretch of the TCH where there are several osprey nests on power line towers right in the highway right-of-way. In the first one, two osprey heads. Wow! in the next one perhaps 1 km. away another head. Double wow! Ospreys are fishing eating raptors that are easy to identify because of their white head and very distinctive crest. Along the way there were pairs of Canada geese and sandhill cranes. I love spring as critters become more active and birds return.
This morning I was downstairs at the computer reading when I heard a terrible banging noise. After few seconds I knew exactly what it was so out I went. After surveying three sides of the house I found it 
and “it” my faithful readers is a pileated woodpecker. The biggest woodpecker in North America and very handsome bird except when he is trying to eat holes in the cedar siding on your house and then he is a damned woodpecker. I was less than 3 meters from him when I came around the corner of the house and he merely flew to the other end of the house where he started banging on the siding again. After a few seconds of therapeutic swearing he flew into the bush and I returned to the basement. Five minutes later he was back beating his noisy tattoo on the side of the house again. Out I went again and he was in exactly the same spot and there were more than few cedar chips lying in the snow. Again I banged on the side of the house and yelled at him. This time he stayed away! They really are neat to see but not when they choose to eat my house.