I'm starting to get a bit nervous about the wildlife in our backyard. We've come across a couple of distressing sites since being here.
The first one was last week. It actually started out as an exciting discovery. It was a birds nest with 4 eggs in it. The nest was built between two spotlights right outside the screen porch. We were looking forward to watching them hatch, and were hoping to observe a feeding or two since it was in such an open and easily visable area. We never got to see the eggs hatch, and James was the first to discover the baby birds, when he almost stepped on one. At the time 3 had already fallen out of the nest, and the 4th one was on it's way. I grabbed two sticks and tried placing them back in their nest without touching them, but the nest was a bit slanted and they just kept falling out. I finally just had to leave them on the ground. I went out the next morning and they were dead. Something must have gotten to them that night, because the morning after that they were gone.
Today I see the boys hovering around something in the yard. The screen door was open and I could hear some of what they were saying.
"I think it's head got bit off!"
"No." (pause while further inspection takes place) "Well, not it's whole head, just half of it!"
I sat there debating for a bit, but curiosity finally got the better of me. I slipped on my shoes, grabbed the camera and headed out. Sure enough there was a pretty big frog with only half his head. The top part must have been eaten by something. He was still alive, even hopped a time or two. No eyes, no nose, just a bottom lip and a throat that you could see straight down.
Poor Kent has missed most of this, but he did have a run in with Punxsutawney Phil this morning. We knew we had some sort of critter getting into our trash each night. This morning Kent got to meet him when he went to dispose of his yogurt cup before getting in his car.
For those of you wanting to attract some groundhogs of your own, they seem to be particularly fond of chicken legs.
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