What's In Your Backyard

Purple tulips in my yard

My backyards is full of cats..some accept me as caretaker, some don't...
meet Brownie...

Finally have no squirrels in the backyard, for some reason they don't really exist this summer... And yet saw a groundhog? I never saw one in my area ever. I scared it off hoping it won't come back. Birds i'm fine with, anything that munches, not so much.




There is a sacred snack that happens in the morning. A bit after breakfast, but before lunch. The blessed mid morning snack. There is certainly something satisfying about a fresh chewy worm in the morning. That long, squishy thing that just hits the spot, but doesn't quite fill you up. Perhaps a few crunchy beetles to follow it with.

But after a few hours you get hungry again, and before you snack down on a lot of small grain at lunch, sunflower seeds are a nice healthy snack. Crunchy, sweet, fun to find, sometimes you can just eat this the entire day. But its best not to, because your tummy will ache, and fat birds don't fly that well.


----Mike Savad
http://MikeSavad.com

Bird houses for our feathered friends, when they're not too busy snacking.

We moved a few years ago to a lovely kettle pond-side home in New Hampshire. We have woods and a path through the underbrush to the pond where our canoe awaits. We've seen all kinds of birds. No loons but they are on the big lake down the street.

Robins love to nest on any light fixture. We have another bird nesting in one of our hanging plants. There are ducks on the pond. Great Blue Herons hunting on the shore. Frogs singing at night. Fireflies.

We've seen deer, Went for a walk a few days ago and a deer was sitting on the side of the road silently chewing something. 10 feet from us. We almost walked by without noticing. Even the dog didn't notice - too busy smelling for the turkeys that were just up ahead.

Fisher cats, once spotted a black bear walking across the ice in late spring. Once in the front yard having a snack at the bird feeder. Some kind of mink or weasel sometimes moves along the shoreline in winter. We see a fox quite regularly.

Box turtles and snapping turtles come up to the gravel driveway to lay eggs.

There was a moose in one of my neighbor's driveway once.

We have chipmunks and squirrels. Lots of woodpeckers - large and small. We're encouraged to leave dead snags standing so they have lots of things to peck at.

Sometimes crows hang out. The occasional owl and hawk. Bald eagles sometimes are spotted in the sky.

Hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, all kinds of insects. This community prides itself in protecting nature - no big lawns, no pesticides, no fertilizer leaching into the water - so nature thrives.

We can't feed the birds until winter because of the bears but they have been enjoying the birdbath we set up. Lots of natural food around anyway.

The birds like the cherub which I call Keeper of the Birds

Over summer in Australia I have different sizes of Blue Tonged lizards living in my garden.

Cows, chickens and goats....We have 10 acres and a huge backyard...lol

This piece is based on my mid-sized Jersey girl Frosted Coco Puff:



And this one is of one of my Nigerian Dwarf Goats Zoey:



And one of my 16 "Doodles":

The view up from where our rubbish bins reside:

This young rabbit was so teeny when it first ran up to my feet on my front patio. It then continued on and jumped right through the lattice fence to my neighbor's property. I took this photo some weeks later. I occasionally put out carrots. I know I shouldn't. And I know odd are a hawk or owl will take it.

We have a variety of fruit, vegetables, berries, herbs, and flowers growing in our back yard. The things we grow attract all kinds of birds and pollinating insects.



My wife keeps bees, so we have a large number of European honey bees working the various flowers.



We are also fortunate enough to have a pretty good patch of wooded land in our backyard. Our woods are part of a huge tract of an undisturbed Oak-Heath forest.

This is not in my own backyard, but from a Mexican shepherd's backyard in a small village of the Oaxaca state of Mexico, during the dry season.

Prickly pear cactus -- grows almost everywhere, not just the southwest

Most of my floral imagery also comes from the backyard:

That's a rare find Randall :) Never seen a squirrel like that myself.

A colorful and intriguing scene of a chaotic collection of junk and old, vintage and out of use household objects in several backyards in Chloride, a historic Wild West village in Arizona. Believe it or not, locals call this kind of display "Yard Art" :)

In the winter:



And in the Summer, a frequent visitor:



(Note: A broken branch from above landed by the birdhouse...I've been continually trying to get my landlord to get it down...It annoys the hell out of me)

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-roses-are-blooming-kay-novy.html



One of my beautiful gardens. Flower lover me has too many!

Pink Cactus Flowers in our backyard when living in the Southern Arizona

This little guy was in my Live Oak tree in south Florida

This cute Jack Rabbit was also in our yard in Southern Arizona - I have many photos from that place :)

Javelina, collared peccary

Haven't seen any this big yet, in 2021.

View from our backyard in Southern Arizona

And this morning it's a skunk...ugh

Sweet Tufted Titmouse!!

Whitetail deer

A lone Bumble Bee on a Crocus flower

Muscadine grapes are growing in my back yard. I've been picking them and making jelly this week. I have two vines planted. This type of grape doesn't ripen all at the same time so I end up picking several times during the late summer.

Here's what's in my backyard

Birds On A Wire / Pink Love by Davorka Gredicak



Birds On A Wire / Pink Love With A Quote by Davorka Gredicak

Our neighbors behind us have peacocks...They often wander into our backyard...

Open spaces and good hiking


and space for wildflowers in our garden

If you're old enough to have ever used one of these on a cold February morning then you know just how great it was to have indoor plumbing among other things. Some tout the Air Conditioner as the greatest improvement, but I'm not sure what do you say.

Monarch Butterfly

Lots ion pretty flowers and bees in my back yard!
A photograph of a beautiful blue echinops and a bumblebee. Edited to resemble a watercolour painting.

Last night we saw an owl...so cool! I love living in the country. :)

Early morning dew on rhodendron blossoms in our back yard

Just about every day we see deer in our yard.

Ruby Throated Hummingbird!

"Butterfly Swallowtail" by Davorka Gredicak

It's my "vacation" backyard not my real one (a timeshare on Marco Island, Fl) but it still qualifies. This was the scene yesterday morning at 5 AM....

Flowers of Silk Floss Tree

Talk about “If looks could kill”!

Hello everyone.

Thank you for joining in this thread and adding your great images.

Randall, thank you for running this thread and please feel free to open a new thread after 24 hours. As per the Image Thread Guidelines it must be with a different subject 😀

We are closing this now August 3rd 2021

Abbie
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Abbie Shores
Site Manager, Fine Art America | Pixels.com