Wednesday wildlife, pheasants in the snow

A couple of closeups of our pheasant population taken about a week apart.

In a discussion at work the other day, I was told that the pheasant numbers are down. Not on our place. I've counted as high as 14 at one time and I hear roosters nearly every day all day long as I work.

From my counts, I've seen more this year than the last 20 years. Maybe it's from my lack of mowing around the pond, or because I mowed only once in the north section of walnuts and not at all in the south section.More than likely it's because of a lack of predators since the rabbit population is high as well.

These birds are a welcome sight any day of the year.

Snowy cottonwoods

A postcard view of our cottonwoods on the east of the acreage.

Summer storm - from 6/30/2014

A short video looking to the east after a major storm last year. The English River was out of its banks for weeks after the downpour. Summer is on its way.

My first attempt at adding our videos of the farm.

(Fixed the video link. Sorry about that)

Wednesday wildlife, new insurance company logo?

This example of a buck with wide and symmetrical antlers would be a welcome trophy for many hunters:

But maybe I could exchange this picture for lower rates on my insurance. If I had a policy with them, of course.

Winter is still here

A look at a couple of walnuts (to the left) that look bare this winter at last Friday's sundown.

Winter crop circles

Wind plus standing grass creates patterns in the snow:

Wednesday wildlife, winter bird keeping an eye on me

A Dark-eyed Junco

A little R&R for these birds for the winter and they chose our place, including every other farm in the area. This one decided to watch me in silence as I pulled pics from one of the cameras and flitted away when I finished.

Spring is almost here (I hope)

A close up of our red oak at the top of the hill (taken 12/21/14):

This encourages us that we are doing the right thing. There's life in a tree even in the dead of winter.

Wednesday wildlife, rabbits

They're cute, they're furry and they're getting fat:

They mock me:

The population needs to get back under control.

Snow tree

Our red maple at the homestead after a 10+ inch snowfall.

What started out as a wet snow ended up with us shoveling the pile a couple of times to make room for more. And then the wind kicked up.

Hey, it's winter in Iowa. In a couple of weeks, I'll be looking at pruning our apple trees.