Snakes and Fred!

 Shug asked a question, "Do you all have a problem with snakes eating the bird eggs?" We really don't. Having lived here in nature, in the middle of a wetland for 15 years, we have come to understand the cycle of life. Mother Nature understands there is an ebb and flow. We trust that animal populations respond to external factors. We see how they respond to weather and climate, overpopulation, habitat loss, and human intervention or pollution. We tend to let things be in our ecosystem. 

 Most of our snakes (Ontario snakes) are smaller. There is the Black Rat Snake, but they are infrequent. They get to be 6' long. They are endangered, as I recall. They have one at the local park education centre. Here are the grandies visiting back in the day. They are not aggressive, and the kids handled it at the centre. This is Murphys Point Park, where they've often camped.

There are many other predators, though. The mammals are the most frequent: raccoons, weasels, mink, but crows steal eggs, too. I've seen them flying across the back yard. I think it was the mink that found the Cardinal nest one year. I saw it hop by one day, and saw it on the trailcam. 

Weasels are bad, as well. They eat an egg or two, then dump the eggs on the ground, right out of the nest box. Then there is Butch raccoon!

Cardinal eggs June 2023

🐀 I am enjoying Fred. She's giving the kits more space. They seem to stick together, while Momma roams between burrows.

Fred was doing some good yard work. She was nibbling at the twitch grass growing around the water fountain. Yes, I must get on that. She worked on it, we encouraged her from the deck, but they don't tend to eat in one spot for a long period of time. I suppose it's better to graze. This is why, I think, she keeps moving them from burrow to burrow.

See how she grabs a stalk, and eats up!