Wildlife: Heidi Chronicles: Question to All Readers, 2 by DreamOfSpring

DreamOfSpring wrote:
I don't know what happened to my raccoon guests. After that one wonderful visit from Desi and after seeing a 2nd raccoon outside the next night, I've not seen raccoons nor opossums for a while now. I do continue to put out food each evening, sometimes adding a 2nd meal later in the night in hopes of reaching both Puddle who comes early and the raccoons who both came later. The food is always eaten. In fact the early meal is usually gone w/in an hour or so. I just haven't managed to catch up with the diners lately.

Even now as we are only a few very short weeks from May those bright yellow goldfinches remain in my yard daily noshing on nyjer. My guess is these are young renegades bucking the system. With such a nice climate (now, that is) and unlimited food, they may be wondering why their elders bid them leave here to fly to their northern home to give birth to their young. They may think they know better, think why not stay here. In another month, maybe two, I'm guessing they will find out that the climate here will soon become inhospitable and their elders knew better, after all. But for now this group of several dozen goldfinches remain happily eating nyjer at my backyard feeder.

Thankfully, I've not seen the boars again. I'm hoping they won't be back for another decade or so. Below I've attached some pics to show the damage they did to my side yard in that one visit. The 1st pic shows an untouched section of the same side yard for comparison. It's early in the season, and so far I don't have a dedicated gardener this year, so I haven't fertilized the law yet. But while the 'before' shot may look a bit anemic, it's in decent shape for a lawn that is just starting to wake up in early spring. The other shots include both long shots to show the overall damage and closeups to let you see just how bad the damage really is.

Edited to add: Remember these pics were taken weeks later, after heavy rain has had time to settle the soil. In the days immediately following the boar visit the area looked as though it had quite literally been plowed under.

This message was edited Apr 18, 2013 12:39 PM