Update on Whooping Cranes, Deer and Other Stuff

There isn't much going on these days.  Summer is coming to an end and our grandkids are going back to school tomorrow.  The Baltimore Orioles are still here.  They are busy eating a lot of grape jelly in preparation for there long migration.  The hummingbirds are fighting and competing for nectar from the feeders and flowers.

 

The Trumpet Vines have taken over the flower garden again.  I wrote about how invasive these plants are even though they are beautiful in a controlled situation.  The Hummingbirds love them.

http://www.thecabincountess.com/2013/07/the-invasive-trumpet-vine.html 

We tried to dig out the roots of the trumpet vine but they came back with a vengence.  I don't know how we are going to handle this situation without killing the other plants in the garden.

http://www.thecabincountess.com/2014/04/cleaning-up-trumpet-vines.html 

The trail camera has had the usual sightings with one exception.  We have a buck come every night with a very unusual rack.  One antler is perfectly formed and the other is malformed.  It is curved.  This ugly set of antlers may save this deer during hunting season.  A lot of hunters only hunt for trophy deer and not for the meat.

 For those of you who have read this blog, you are familiar with a doe we call Limpy.  I thought she might have had a fawn this spring, but she has been showing up alone.  Her hind leg has atrophied to a skinny little leg, but she manages to get around just fine.

Limpy may not have fawned this year, but our other two girls both had fawns.  One had twins.  Their fawns spots are almost gone, but it looks like they all made it through the summer.

Did you know a baby fawn pees like a dog?  I guess, how else would it do it.

The Sandhill cranes are being really really noisy.  More and more are showing up although it will be at least a month or more before they decide to leave for the winter.  We have the training ground for the new class of Whooping Cranes about three miles from our house.  I'm still hoping to see some show up in our marsh.  Yesterday we heard that six from last years class and two from 2012 showed up at the training grounds, so I know they are in the area.  Every time I see a white bird, I get the binoculars.  It is always an Egret, but you never know.  We have perfect conditions for them to visit.  Princeton Wisconsin will be the location for the Whooping Crane Festival this year.  

 

I have written about the Whooping Cranes many times.  You can use the search box to read those stories.  They are so beautiful, and it is so interesting to follow the progress of them from hatching to their migration to Florida.  You can follow them in a blog written by the people of Operation Migration.  Then at the end of September you can follow the long migration to Florida with the help of the ultralight aircraft.

http://operationmigration.org/InTheField/