Alaskan's Journal

[Bruce]

SPRING!!! You should be

 

[Alaskan]

Not necessarily!

Might just be a month of slush and ice.

Hard to tell around here.

 

[greybeard]

Spring here. I saw the first scout cartwheeling the air around my house yesterday morning.....Hirundo rustic....barn swallows. They'll be here in droves in a week or so, taking up their mud nests from previous years.

 

[Alaskan]

I love the swallows!

We get them too, but I think they are here for only maybe 6 weeks. They zoom up, build nests and have chicks, then they grow up and fly off the second they are able.

 

[Bruce]

Love my barn swallows too. 1 pair nests in the barn alley, don't know where the rest do but there were a couple dozen adults and kids at fledging time last year.

 

[Alaskan]

We can get three kinds..

Barn swallows, tree swallows and uh... violet green swallows (I think that is their name... need to look it up) the last 2 kinds need nest boxes.

 

[Alaskan]

I can see dirt!

Yep... part of the dirt on my driveway has been exposed! Of course that means that the sinkholes are alive and hungry.

 

[Alaskan]

No idea why the eagles are acting so crazy hungry this year....

They keep stalking my coops... actually landing on the ground, walking around , trying to pull something open. That is new.

Managed to get a duck this morning.

This guy he landed on the ground, hopped/walked through the net covered area, pryed back a rock to get access... got a duck.

I am pretty ticked. We have now screwed a board over the hole.

Can't do proper repairs until the snow all leaves...

After the dog attack earlier (little dog, pried open some fence and squeezed in) and then a few by the eagles....

I am down to 3 ducks and 2 drakes (1 young, 1 old and infertile).

I knew my entire complex was at the wear- out point.... but with my dad dying this summer I did not have the time to redo everything like it needed... and hoped to manage to limp along until this summer....

Anyway.

I am pretty depressed about it all. Lost all my old ducks (so good experienced moms that we were attached to), and the 3 young ducks left are all dark ones.. . the one young drake is also dark.... no more rainbow ducklings. Well.... maybe there is some silver hidden by the dark on both sides....

I don't know....

Just


Sad.

 

[Alaskan]

Yeah... I know that photo doesn't show snow....

Here ya go

 

[frustratedearthmother]

So sorry....