I guess I have been hibernating in January. Now its February already, time to start preparing for this year’s breeding season. The birds are just sitting quietly right now, its −20C most nights, they sit back on their feet, slightly fluffing up their feathers, around their feet. Most of the birds don’t mind this weather, but I make a note of the birds/families that find it harder, as I will not breed too many youngsters from them.
We are in winter storm mode today… lots more snow.
Look carefully below, I think this called a Barred Owl, about 20 inches/51 cm tall., at about 5pm yesterday, sitting above my loft. It was dark outside, so I had to use the night vision setting on my camera, not a bad picture considering the conditions. Consistently very cold lately so I took this picture from my kitchen about 40metres away from the forest.
After about 10 minutes he dropped down to the ground behind the lofts, probably to pick up his supper, a mouse-cordon-bleu, or a red-squirrel-souffle.
Well −18C, but it is very damp outside, the birds are sitting back on their feet and fluffing up a little, you don’t really see that behaviour until −25 to −30. No matter, it is definitely cold out.
In this whether the birds eat barley like it is candy, and generally eat more if they are given a chance.
Old bird aviary, late yesterday afternoon. The birds get fresh water once a day, you see a couple a drinking in the foreground below. The others are looking out at the snow and waiting to be fed.
As for weather, today it’s humid at 94% humidity with some snow earlier, wind, and a slightly cool −7C. The birds seem fine, eating well and very healthy. In the aviary there is never any sneezing or colds, etc. Still for me, I find it cold so I am thinking of a large pieces of tempered glass that I have, they could fit across the front of the aviary, just to keep the wind off the birds when it gets a bit colder. The screen floor can stay open.
I sit here in my warm house, in front of my warm fireplace, and press the publish button.
This is not the nicest picture of my loft, but if it is one thing I am good at it is taking bad pictures. My excuse is it is a damp cold, cloudy/raining/wet snow day in December. I will do better next time.
My main loft is 8′ x 12′, with two sections and two little aviaries in front. The aviaries flip open, to allow the birds a single access point into each section of the loft.
I can hardly wait until a sunny day, we have record breaking rainfall in the past week, so everything is soggy outside now, and the snow is actually all melted. We have so much water, it is like the spring run-off in the forest. The temperature is hovering around 0C, but it is very damp and you still need to dress warmly on these days.
It's a cold damp day today, and I can't find my breakfast.
Pictured is a medium sized Cooper’s or a big Sharp Shinned hawk, its a little hard to see, as I was quite far away. This fellow is sitting under a small 4′x8′ wire bottom aviary I keep many of my old birds in, the hen section is on the left, and the cock birds on the right, basically open to the wind and dampness, the birds seem to be doing great health-wise, except would be petrified right now by this hawk. He was only there a minute or two then disappeared into the forest at high speed.
I get hawk visits from many different types of hawks, including Merlins, Coopers, Sharp Shinned, Redtail, and others…probably color variations of Goshawks or Marsh hawks, as some appear large, evil and nearly all black. There is also some large solid dark brown hawk or eagle, that eats a muskrat or two in the pond behind my loft.
Welcome to Pigeonplanet.com, my new racing pigeon website. Visit later, I am just getting started with this site and I am using “wordpress” to create web pages and manage the site content…
