Texas Backyard Wildlife

12May26 - The raccoon who injured her right hand and lost all the skin off her wrist and the back of her hand has moved in under the deck. Her wound has almost healed (which is a bit miraculous - how could all that skin grow back?) but she lost her index finger and her middle finger has retracted as the wound closed. However, she's doing really well and I wanted to post this snapshot of her from this morning because she looks so relaxed and happy. And that makes us happy too.

3 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 265

Texas Backyard Wildlife

01May26 - A male rose-breasted grosbeak. He was on the hanging feeder and a hawk swooped through and chased him into a window. He's recovering on the wood pile and seems OK. A close call, though. We are keeping watch for the hawk.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 132

Texas Backyard Wildlife

01May26 - This is how flash floods happen here in TX. The first snapshot below was the creek at 7:59 am this morning. The second is how it looked by 8:02 am. Click on the square image to expand it to full landscape mode.

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2 weeks ago | [YT] | 77

Texas Backyard Wildlife

28Apr26 - Here's a photo of the titmouse nesting box. It looks utterly bizarre, I know. We have conical flashing to stop snakes climbing the pole to reach the box, floppy flashing at the bottom to make it a bit tricky for raccoons, and massive rocks stabilizing the pole itself. Amazing that a little bird would consider nesting in this monstrosity, but apparently they're quite broad minded about such things.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 104

Texas Backyard Wildlife

24Apr26 - Baby raccoons have the biggest mouths in the entire world (if mouth capacity could somehow be pegged to weight in grams or ounces). We get to see just how big when they yawn. Dan and I get a huge kick out of raccoom kit yawns - we actually have a special folder on our server for video clips of "Raccoons - Babies, big yawns".

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 148

Texas Backyard Wildlife

22Apr26 - Our Hobbit box mama gave us a very sweet view of her two sleeping little ones today.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 182

Texas Backyard Wildlife

We had a surprise visitor in (well, almost in) one of our bird boxes yesterday. It lifted our hearts after so many cardinal egg and chick losses. A black-bellied whistling duck. We hope s/he was looking for somewhere to nest, and Dan widened the doorway just in case.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 147

Texas Backyard Wildlife

14Apr26 One of the under-deck mama raccoons moved her 5 week-old kits into a hollow log on the deck playscape last night. An awful idea - there's no space in there and we didn't see how she could possibly nurse. She moved them out this morning, and after doing an entire 20 min running circuit of the backyard with one kit in her mouth, she moved in under the deck again. But she left one behind in the hollow log. Poor thing - it was wedged into a tiny space between the wall of the log and a stump we'd put inside it. I had checked the log 3 times to make sure she'd got everyone (like us humans, raccoons can't always count) but I couldn't see him. I heard frantic chittering at about 5pm and summonded Dan. He tried forceps, but in the end my hand was just small enough that I could catch the baby's tail and pull him out. We put him down the nearest tree well and mama immediately came and got him.

1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 230

Texas Backyard Wildlife

The 4th cardinal egg. 11Apr26.

1 month ago | [YT] | 71

Texas Backyard Wildlife

And our third cardinal egg. Laid 10Apr26. The parents aren't incubating yet, so perhaps we'll get another one or two?

1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 48