Love The Pond

C

corgi

Wonderful nature shots! How did you trap the turtle? A large pond in my neighborhood has lots of ducks. Occasionally a duck gets a broken leg and is limping for a few weeks until it heals. I feel sure a snapper does this while the duck is swimming. What do you think?

I bought two live traps. 12" x18" x 36" . When I set them around the pond I tried to leave about a third of the trap above water. That ensures the snapper won't drown before I can get to it. I checked the traps every morning. In one of the above shots with the blue heron and the wood ducks, you can see a wooden stake. I use these to make sure the trap doesn't get moved if I catch one. I don't want it moving the trap to deeper water as it would drown. I tried many different baits to lure them in. Chicken skin, or smaller panfish, dead of course, tied up in netting and hung inside the cage so that the netting and bait inside was submerged to allow the scent to bring them in. The above pic of the snapper shows him in the cage and you can even see a bit of the netting left. I caught the one in the pic on chicken skin. There is a trap door at one end that is set in the open position, and a tread plate inside the cage that triggers the door shut when weight is put on it.You can also see the tread plate in the pic. This is why I stake them, so that once caught in a live trap cage, they cannot move the cage. I released this guy about 5 miles away at a wetland river system. As far as any duck we have in our pond, a 20 pound plus snapper could make short work of any of them and have been known to eat ducks, especially ducklings. I would not think a snapper would have a problem pulling the duck under and drowning it, which is why another culprit may be responsible for the broken foot, even local cats or dogs. Then again, it may be a smaller snapper developing future hunting skills and is not quite big enough to get the job done. These live traps cost about $100 .

As a side note, I've used these same live traps in our garden (60' x 120', it's huge), to get some raccoons. In a 10 day period in August last year, we had 6 rows , 120' long each and around 500 sweet corn plants ruined by these guys. I caught 8 of them in a two week period late August, early September. They love craft mini marmellows. I would leave in a small tin on the trip plate with some marshmellows, and almost every morning, I had one or two. 8' fencing around the garden did not even slow them down.
j

A few more pics

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Scrubby Bubbles
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cas

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What an interesting story @corgi . Thanks for sharing it and your pictures. You have a beautiful pond.
 
C

corgi

Wow, Such amazing pictures and stories about your pond and critters who visit.

So awesome you got to watch the deer giving birth. Do you put feed out for them?

I have two different areas on the property where I've planted food plots for the deer. One is a small one on the back side of the pond. The second is a larger one in the back area of our 3 acre yard. (mowing takes a while) A bunch of different sweet clovers and other perennials they like to eat. In the next couple months we will be seeing more and more of them grouped together. This "yarding" behavior is common during mid to late winter. There were a few times the last couple years when we've seen 40 to 60 of them coming out of our woods just before dark to feed in our neigbors hay field. He grows it for his beef cattle and the deer feed year round on his hay field. I'm just the lucky guy next door. Here are some more pics, especially of the matriarch doe who stands a head taller than all the other deer she hangs out with , including some very respectable bucks. She is a big doe and there is no mistaking her with the others. She is huge for a doe.

j

Edit: I've noticed that it sometimes requires refreshing the page to see all the photos.


More pics

Triplets Before And After


Here she is very pregnant last May. I believe this doe is 6, and responsible for at least 10 more deer to the local herd. This matriarch keeps the herd healthy and smart. Some of her offspring are very respectable bucks. She had been having twins for at least three years in a row prior to this year. This year, she had triplets.
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The first time we saw her with the triplets in early June
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Late June, note the darker larger one in the middle. Later in the
year you can see the developing antlers on this "button" buck. The other two are does.
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July - Note the doe trying for a red wing black bird in the second shot *(not unheard of), and she was very gaunt looking after giving birth to three. I didn't see if she got it or not because my attention was on the camera. They went into the taller grass behind them after this shot so I couldn't tell, but at the time I took the shot, I wasn't even thinking about the bird. It was later that I noticed her mouth open and then researched this and found that they have been known to eat small animals and birds when their body needs the protein.
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August
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This is a recent shot of them taken on 11/2. Note the larger fawn behind her. It's a button buck. The other two look like does. She was very gaunt looking right after giving birth to these three but she has put on a bunch of weight and now looks ready for another winter. A nine and ten point had both been chasing her in late Oct. She is now probably pregnant with another batch.
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Here are the two different bucks , a nine point and a ten point, that were both chasing her in late Oct during the rut. We watched these two all summer in the food plots I put in for them.
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That was this year, but lets back up the story one year.

My most memorable Marty Stauffer moment by far happened the year before in late May of '17. I had filled my coffee cup and was going to go downstairs to my man cave , but decided to look out the back window of our home first to see if the turkeys were coming out of the woods yet and making their way toward the bird feeders. (They're the clean up crew). Imagine my surprise when I saw two twin bucks, just starting to grow their antlers looking at me in the window watching them. They would look at me and then turn their heads and look to the west. This went on for about 5 minutes, and I assumed they were looking at other deer that may be headed their way.
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I shifted my position and looked out the window in the direction they had been looking and was amazed at what I was saw. It was their mom having another set of twins right in our back yard. I woke my wife and we watched with our mouths hanging open as to what we were seeing. While she was licking them clean, her twins from the prior year were watching from about 50 feet away. After about 20 minutes, the young bucks came in to check out the new additions to the local herd. Had these two not been her prior offspring, she would not have let them near the newborns, but she allowed them to sniff them.

Our three corgis were wanting to go out and do their morning routine but we made them wait as we did not want to interrupt what we were witnessing. It took about 40 minutes before she ushered them off to the woods, and all the while they were aware of our presence watching them from the window of our home. We were apparently not enough of a threat for them to run off. So awesome to have seen this.

I just wish I had been shooting with the Canon SX 60 I bought last spring instead of the SX 12 which is a very cheap camera. That is why I know this deer so well. We see her almost daily with her 3 fawns as they use the food plots I put in for the deer. Lots of sweet clover varieties they love with some other perennials they like. I love watching them. This doe is huge and stands a head taller than the mature bucks we've seen her with. She survives 3 months of hunting in Michigan and teaches her offspring this knowledge and that keeps the herd healthy and smart.
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One of her two twin bucks from the prior year photo bombing this shot. The other one is just out of the shot on the right.
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Ushering them into the woods.
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Here is a more recent shot of the other area I plant clover. There were about 20 of them and this was taken on Jan 2nd. The 3 month hunting season ended on Jan 1st. Nice to see a bunch made it, in part I'm sure, to the matriarch doe. The hay field the other side of the pines is my neighbor's hay field they gravitate to every evening. I just slow them down a little by planting some sweet clovers for them. This lets me watch and take photos while their in our backyard.

12 of 20
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addy1

water gardener / gold fish and shubunkins
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How wonderful and neat! I would love to watch that in our yard.
 
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We've been feeding the deer in my yard for years, but never had the time to really follow them and learn about them, so thank you for posting, I'm learning a lot from reading your posts!
 
C

corgi

lcome @corgi , you have an absolutely gorgeous pond and wonderful pictures of the wildlife, please keep sharing with us!


Thanks Shawn. Looking at your avatar, can I assume you play music? It's a huge part of my life and how I use to make all of my money, up until the early 80's when I got a real job. lol


More pics you say. Ask and you shall receive. I've played guitar for a very long time. I no longer play out, but It's still a huge part of my life. I have a studio in my man cave and I cannot tell you how many times I've looked over the top of my monitor while recording and seen another Marty Stauffer moment just outside the window. I have to stop recording, set down the guitar and start taking pics. Some months I've taken over 2000 photos from inside my man cave. I've taken pics of almost 70 different bird species out of Michigan's 120 or so. More pics

Edit: One may need to refresh the page a time or two to see all of the pics. I have to. If for example you see a header above where a picture should be, but do not see the pic (northern cardinal for example), then refresh the page. I've made the pics much smaller for posting and yet, it requires multiple refreshes of the page to see all of the pics.
A little mod help. Am I using to much bandwidth in these pics? Do I need to make them smaller? How many can be put in a post? All good questions from my standpoint. Thanks

J

Northern Flicker at edge of pond ( a member of the woodpecker family)
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Pileated woodpecker
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Half beard and friend
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As the squirrel spun his tale, the bunnies all knew he was telling another whopper.
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Plump porky passing pond pic
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Wood ducks
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Hello-- How can I record music when I have these kind of moments happening.
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Turkey stumping. "If elected I promise to ban Thanksgiving dinners."
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Squirrel in stealth mode
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Scrubby bubbles
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Raven
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Better look out behind you
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Northern Cardinal
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Pond gun. This is an 1855 Harpers Ferry that has been passed down
in my family for generations. My great, great, grandfather used it in the
Civil war.
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River watching the outdoor channel ( Mallard duck at far end of pond, black squirrel, grackle, and fox squirrel.
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Not a pond pic, but cool to see. I was ice fishing Chippewa lake and
looked over my shoulder to see these two eagles eating discarded panfish left
on the ice by anglers. These two are residents at the lake.
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4 of 36 in my collection
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Song recorded using a Les Paul Axcess
https://soundcloud.com/belleswell%2Fsaying-goodbye-1
 
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@corgi I was the vocalist in a hardcore metal band for a little over 7 years, but that was in my "younger years" and it's been almost 15 years since we parted ways. It was quite a lot of fun while it lasted though!
 
C

corgi

Satriani has been my number one influence the last 30 years, although having first picked up the guitar in '64, I have huge list of artists and bands that have shaped my style. Here is a vid of me playing a Satch cover. It's a ballad he wrote for his wife. I recorded this about 10 years ago. Glad to make your acquaintance.
J

 

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