December 2019 Activity

Rainy weather has arrived, but not much rainfall, so the ground is still dry.  Maintaining the water trough, but cutting back on food to just the kitchen vegetable scraps.  (better this use than the landfill)
We have not seen much deer hunting activity, but on the other hand, have not seen any bucks since opening day.
The annual Christmas bird count has been completed and the bird population is way down from last year when we had a bumper count of birds.
Here are the three sheets of results, this year and the last two years.   Bryan Tarbox interprets the low bird count being caused by the lack of rain for most of the mid year.

November 2019 Activity

Most of the activity in November has been to provide supplemental feed and water up through mid month and then we received some rain which should ease the need for feeding.
Bought 50 pounds of sweet feed, 40 pounds of corn and 40 pounds of sunflower seed from Tractor Supply.
Hauled two loads of brush to the main brush pile.  This particular plot of land is quite well balanced between open space and cover from juniper and oaks with not much brushy material underneath.  So, these stands of trees and evergreens offer good cover for wildlife.   We had to cut back on the clearing of brush to maintain this cover, so brush pile building has been cut back somewhat.  The main contributor to brush piles currently is prickly pear cactus.  We are trying to reduce cactus coverage by 10 % this year.
November is bird inventory recap for the last six months.  Here is our listing:

• Cardinal
• Mockingbird
• Bluebird
• Vulture
• Red-Tailed Hawk
• Cara cara
• Phoebe
• Barn Swallow
• Titmouse
• Chickadee
• Painted bunting
• English sparrow
• Bobwhite Quail
• Inca Dove
• Turkey
• Cuckoo
• Warbler
• Scissor Tailed Flycatcher
• Lesser Goldfinch
• Carolina Wren
• Ruby throated hummingbird
• Raven
• Roadrunner
• Kildeer
• American Kestral
• Summer Tanager
• Poor Will
• Purple Martin

Missing this year:

• Great Horned Owl
• White winged dove