Mom Raccoon will show us her kits / cubs in the very near future. She uses this white pine cavity every year which is only 20 yards from our living room window seat. Often around 9:00 am in the morning you can tell she needs to stretch and move around. My trailcams always capture her nightly foraging under the feeders.

Checking whether the coast is clear …

Holding position …

Changing her spot in the cavity … climbing down.

All good … waiting till sundown in the new spot to visit my birdfeeders!

A red-headed woodpecker visited my yard for over 45 minutes yesterday afternoon. This species is very rare in NE Minnesota. Hopefully “red” has a mate near by and is thinking of drilling out a nest hole. Each summer, we have one or two nesting redheads in the region. It would be fun to have the birds select my yard (video of red for blog subscribers)

A humdinger of a blizzard swept through northeastern Minnesota over the past two days. Winds were consistently clocked at 60 mph near my house. We received a foot of snow at my home, but at higher elevations and a bit up the shore snowfall totals were over two feet of the white stuff.

I thought folks might enjoy seeing where I live. Normally after a big storm my “question of the day (or days)” is which will get to our road first … the tracked cross-country ski groomer, a Piston Bully (ski trails are 200 yards from my home), or the city snow plow. After past storms the groomer normally arrives first … two days after the snow, and the plow on day three! Neither have been here yet. I definitely have not gone birding. It would have been dangerous. Main roads are now plowed, but not remote back roads.

Occidental Blvd … Rich’s street which is closed a bit uphill from December 1st through April 30th (very steep with no residents …difficult and not worth plowing).

The Movie (walking up the hill to my home … video link for email subscribers)