Afternoon: October 19, 2009

Great weather to sit and watch. The temperature was in the upper 40s and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. There still weren't any clouds when I came in at a little after 6 PM. If it's going to shower tonight, that will have to change soon.

It was so comfortable sitting there that I dozed off a couple times. each time, my chin hitting my chest woke me up. Perhaps if I had started to snore, it would have drawn a deer within range. It's happened before.

One year Mark fell asleep in his recliner next to an open window. He woke to find a fork-horned young buck staring in the window. he crabbed his brand new muzzle loader out of the box, loaded it and pocketed a spare charge before going out the door to follow the deer down his driveway and into my yard. When the deer went behind the garage, Mark climbed onto the roof using a ladder we had leaning against the wall, and shot the deer with the spare load after missing the first shot. The deer had no idea where the first shot came from and stood there looking around instead of bolting for deeper cover.

Another time he fell asleep while sitting on a five-gallon bucket behind his place and woke up to find a group of seven deer, including a nice six-pointer coming at him. The six didn't make it passed Mark. But the bigger eight-pointer that was trailing that bunch did.

******

I sat on a little knoll overlooking a depression on the west side of the property. No deer but there were the usual red squirrels and one wandering ruffed grouse that came by. At first, I thought the grouse was just a red squirrel out collecting some dried leaves to insulate its home but the sound kept getting closer and closer until the head of the grouse popped up over a log fifteen feet away from me. It was chattering and clucking to itself in a fair imitation of a squirrel as it looked around and then wandered on off to the east.

A brown creeper landed on a small tree not more than a few feet away from me and explored the bark for spiders and insect eggs. When it had climbed about twenty feet, it flew down to a second nearby tree and started its search all over again. eventually, it flew off to look elsewhere.

Several ravens flew about in the trees not far away. Besides their crow-like caw, they have some of the most liquid notes of any bird I've ever heard. It sounds like water dripping into a fountain only glassy, if you can imagine that.