Last night we were watching TV when something caught my eye outside in the garden. It was a deer. This is slightly unusual as we don’t get many deer around during the summer and even less during daylight. It turned out to be a young stag which is more unusual still. We have only ever had one stag in the garden, usually we get does with young. This one is obviously very young and just starting to get his antlers.

Lets hope we see him again.

It has been very hot this week with temps in the high 20′sC. Today is going to be 28C with humidex putting it up to the low 30′s – toasty! Hopefully we can get some more geocaching done soon. We haven’t been able to recently because of all the rain.

Yesterday we watched a very industrious squirrel remove the metal plate that covers the holes in the bird feeder. The plate allows only a certain amount of seed to be accessed and the squirrel obviously decided that he needed more seed. Once it was removed he then stuck his head in the now much larger hole to get his seed.

In this photo you can see how the other holes are and how he has removed the plate and stuck his head right inside the feeder.

As we were watching him, he decided that he needed even more access and actually got inside the feeder. He didn’t seem to like this much as he was soon out again but not before hubby managed to get this very amusing photo.

Talk about getting yourself into a tight spot!

We were also taking photos of the rabbit when suddenly a chipmunk popped his head up and hubby quickly took a photo. It wasn’t until we downloaded it that we realized the chipmunk had obviously just been digging and was covered in dirt. I hope he washed his paws before eating!

Wildlife is just great.

Now we are getting well into autumn and the trees are changing colour, leaves are falling many of the summer birds are leaving. We have gone from lots of robins in the garden to one or two young ones popping by now and again. The grackles are fewer and our lovely little white breasted nuthatch has come back.

We have also seen evidence of the deer in the garden as there are some hoof tracks in the ground, but we haven’t seen them in the flesh yet. Obviously the abundance of food in the adjoining woodland is drying up so they are coming back to the garden to forage – great!

This morning I spotted a hawk in the trees at the edge of the garden. The blue jays didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered but the squirrels and chipmunks were noticeable by their absence.

Here it is in the trees surveying the land. I believe it is a sharp-shinned hawk.

He only stayed a few minutes then went off to probably find better hunting grounds. We love to see them but would prefer it if they didn’t prey on our wildlife!

The raccoons are out most nights although we try not to leave too much food out for them to find. They are looking really fat and fluffy at the moment as they seem to have their winter coats ready for the time they will spend huddled away.

Temperatures are going down and yesterday was only 9C but it felt warmer in the sun. The rest of the week is apparently going to be warmer with temps in the high teens, but I think the temps in the 20′s are a thing of the past (well at least the +20′s are).

The weather man mentioned snow for the first time in Ontario the other day as apparently Sudbury had some fall. Hopefully we are still a couple of months off that, but you never know!