Still no rain, feeding birds and providing water via the front tank and birdbaths. Water in the bird baths disappears each night. Mostly deer are drinking it dry at night.
Aside from the cottontail rabbit, essentially no sighting of any wildlife--perhaps a deer or two every four or five days.
With these drought conditions and the mid-day temperature of 103 degrees, here is when it is important to have natural cover, dense shaded areas where the sun seldom shines, for wildlife to hunker down on the ground- the coolest spot for them to find until nighttime comes again. Undercutting brush eliminates all this important daytime cover. If one does not have natural heavy brush near the ground, the only alternative is to create it via half cut cedars and carefully stacked brush piles---brush piles that have a lot of open areas underneath.
Hooray, the bobwhite quail are still here.
Week 32
Rain today, the 15th of August-- brief shower in the morning, perhaps .50 inches.
Resumed feeding kitchen greens to the deer in the far back feedlot area. The deer hang so closely to this nightly feeding that they must be waiting for fresh food every night.
Week 33
The metal tub under the eave in the front is turning out to be popular with the birds and the Leopard Frogs during this dry weather. Especially, they both like the "beach" provided by the 2x6 on a slant into the water. Here are two photos, one of birds, one of frogs:
Very dry on these specific acres, maybe more droughty than at the worst of two years ago.
Feeding the deer corn, sweet feed and kitchen vegetable scraps. The deer were selective on the vegetable scraps they ate last year, but this year, they eat everything provided.
