Yesterday was a great day at our camp. Labor day is usually the last big attendance day at Woodhaven, so yesterday 9/15, was very quiet, with maybe 150 campers out of the 6000 sites, and no one at all on our lake. The animals have taken back their habitat, and I woke this AM to see a deer outside my window. yesterday, just sitting down by the lake, saw about 15 species of birds, including four different kinds of woodpecker at the suet feeder. The great blue heron has taken up the corner of my seawall as his fishing spot. The geese are beginning their training flights... Vee's... running the length of the lake. Five flocks on our lake. Groundhog bumbling around the driveway ditch pipe and for the first time in three years, the chipmonks are back....Probably because our neighbors had the raccoon trapped, after a pair destroyed $1500 of A'C ducts.
He broke into my storage bin on the deck and took 20 packs of suet. Name was "Rocky"...
The big "hit" was the humming birds. Neighbors must have taken in their feeders, as I was inundated with a flock of 6 to 8... can't tell, 'cuz they're too fast. I filled the feeder yesterday morning, and by this morning, they had sipped about a half cup of sugar water. (Usually takes about two weeks to drink that much.) there were times when there were six birds fighting for space at the same time. They started this AM at about 5 o'clock, and I remembered I had an old camera with me, so took a short, 1 min. video... still kinda dark, but viewable.
I took some stills from outside. The little guys were so excited, they ignored me being there... 3 feet from the feeder, and one, actually landed on my shoulder before zipping away.
All in all a wonderful start to a great fall season. On the way home... more deer three small herds. The corn looks great... 7 to 8 ft tall, and the soybeans are the best in years... Thousands of acres of gold. Harvest should start this week. Rural North Central Illinois... Sublette.