The Official Critter Thread

[cory]

 

[cory]

 

[Dave Shepard]

Bears are intrigued by Jake Brakes. A big black bear ran across the road and up a driveway yesterday. When I clicked the Jake on, he stopped, stood up, and looked over his shoulder at me from the driveway. Must not have ever heard that before.

 

[Burnham]

Here's some pics of one of M's many handmade birdhouses that paper wasps have co-opted this summer. She decided to let them keep their nest...don't ask me why . Anyway, it is sorta beautiful, in a bizarre way.

 

[Dave Shepard]

I had some trouble with white tailed hornets last year. I tried to live and let live, but they declared war. As per usual, I won. The long video wouldn't load.


View attachment 20240930_191523.mp4

 

[cory]

B, I'm a fan of hornets etc but that birdhouse takeover looks a bit scary somehow !

 

[Burnham]

You can be sure I was using the zoom function to take those pics .

 

[stikine]

One of the thugs showed up today in the garden.

 

[Mrs.B]

I am at war with the damn deer. Everyday, at least a dozen of them chomping up every plant I have nurtured along. I'm losing the war. They other day they were in the back yard chomping my geraniums so I went out there screaming and banging sticks and chasing them. I chased them from the back house to the front and right back to the back where we started. Tired me out.......and I felt a little stupid. There's about 6 big bucks that come around and I'm a bit intimidated by them. They just ignore me.

 

[Nutball]

Electric fence. A 15 or 30 mile charger with grounding rods spread around the property ought to do it. Exposed wire can be run to the grounding rods just like regular electric fence wire, even along side it if separated enough. If you get creative so you don't have to buy any solid copper grounding rods, a corded (AC) electric fence system would run around $300. Deer stay out of my garden now. String some wire (probably doesn't need to be charged) up around 8 ft or so to deter them from jumping over.

 

[Dave Shepard]

I was driving on a very narrow woods road a couple hours ago when what I thought were two bear cubs ran out in front of me. Turns out it was a pair of very chubby black labs that had just taken a dip in a pond nearby. I think they were on a mission to get back to the front porch for some nappin'.

 

[cory]

I am at war with the damn deer.

Mrs B, my wife has very good luck using deer repellent called Deer Out.