Today's prompts from Eden Hills are: Starts with "U," week's favourite, and nature.
Starts with U
I recently installed a suet feeder in my bird feeding area. I love to watch the chickadees using it because they often eat upside down or at least underneath the feeder! It's fun to see their different poses and positions. I'm getting a number of woodpecker visitors as well, which are also great to watch.
I was excited this week to have the opportunity to photograph a shrew in my yard. I was watching the chickadees through my office window when I saw the movement under the bird feeder. At first, I thought it was a mole, but upon closer inspection, I realized it was a shrew. It's fairly rare to see shrews, at least for me, unless they are ones that my cat has dispatched. I believe this one is a short-tailed shrew, which is the most common species in my area. It has a little tunnel under some leaves and it comes out to get seeds and takes them back inside. The fur looks so velvety-soft, and although I'm sure many would disagree with me, I think this shrew is really cute!
These are not great photographs in a technical sense, especially since they were taken through a window, but the subject matter was the exciting part for me!
You can see how tiny the eyes are - like little pin-heads! Shrews can eat up to twice their body weight each day. Remarkable little creatures.
Nature
I think the majority of the photographs I put on this blog are nature shots! All of today's pictures are nature photographs. Here's another one I took that I like - a fall leaf on the grass covered in water droplets. Nature has so much beauty for us if we slow down and look for it.
10 comments:
Lovely, as usual!
I've never seen a shrew - I would have been excited too. Here it's mice and pocket gophers. The leaf is a beautiful composition.
Claire, I love your upside downs.
I've never seen a shrew wither!! My husband might state I should look in the mirror LOL!
The upside-down bird feeder is as unusual as the chickadee's feeding position...I've never seen a shrew, the only wildlife we see in our suburban CT home are squirrels and the occasional cat. I think this one is an exciting sighting too!
When I think of shrew, I think of the Taming of the Shrew. Your shrew is cute and cuddly, unlike Kate until the end of the play. :-)
I like the picture of the chickadee looking askance at the velvet shrew - "What are you doing here?"
I had to look up the word "Shrew" I also thought it was a mole ! You were lucky to be able to take the pictures !
I love watching the birds on the suet blocks. I really need to get mine put up now that I don't have goats in the yard. The shrew is cute. I'm fine with rodents as long as they are not in my house. Beautiful shot of the leaf. Thank you so much for joining Friday's Hunt. Hope you have a great week!
A nice grouping of Nature pictures here, Claire. I don't think we have shrews here n southeast Texas. Just this year, for the first time, I saw a picture of one.
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