Wonderful Nature - Thread

[Gator]

I’m sitting here on a rainy day watching a red tailed Hawk sitting on a fence post.

[Ponybookworm]

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SNOW!!!

[BlackCurtains]

The racoon is alive and well. There has been garbage strewn around the mailboxes again. Today there is quite a lot! I have no idea why he was making those noises that night. I am positive it was a racoon, they have a distinctive voice. I'm glad he's okay though

A logging company came the other day and dug up the stumps and turned over roots from the trees that didn't survive the hurricane (yes, they are still cleaning up after it, you still see mounds of debris and furniture on the side of the roads). My tree is officially gone. No stump, no roots. They did save the bushes that were planted around it though. That's good for the lizards. I feel sorry for the birds.

[Heart Of Midnight]

Ponybookworm, nice snowy landscape! 

BC, great that the raccoon is okay! 
I've looked through the photos of raccoon dogs I've taken, but I still haven't found one that shows the puppy.  I found pictures of a badger couple.  I'll put them up as soon as I have time. I'm trying to find a picture of the puppy/puppies.

[Heart Of Midnight]

  Uh, I forgot to look for puppy pictures... But here is one picture from 2016 with 6 Raccoon dogs! 

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Here are pictures from Sunday evening. There is snow and now it is -7 °C 
(I left out one picture... it's so poor..)

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I love the sparkle of ice crystals, but I can't seem to capture it on camera! 
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Paw prints of hares in the night... 
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[BlackCurtains]

Look at those cute raccoon dogs! Your pictures are so nice

[Beldarna]

Naturewise this is my favorite time of the year. I just love the crispy air, amazing sunsets, the return of the light and all this beautiful snow .

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Even when there's no sun there's beauty.

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[BlackCurtains]

You two are making me miss Wisconsin and the snow

[Heart Of Midnight]

Beldarna, wonderful snowy landscape photos!  Winter is my favorite season, besides autumn.

[Griffin]

What gorgeous photos, Beldarna! I wish we had that much snow! Do you live in the northern part of the country? I love snow but here in Southern Finland it's getting quite unpredictable. We rarely get snow that stays for more than a couple of days until late December or early January, but so far January and February can be expected to be white even here on the coast. This winter we suddenly got a lot of snow at the end of November, and a white Christmas. But after that it's been kind of on and off.

H.O.M. you seem to have plenty of snow as well! And omg those raccoon dogs! I've never seen so many, they are usually loners like foxes, aren't they?

I went for a hike today with a couple of friends/colleagues today and it started snowing! We now have a thin layer, I hope it won't melt right away.

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The mound of rocks is an iron age burial site (NB Iron Age in Finland = up to 1100s or even 1200s). This is actually the route I often take on my walks but I'd never stepped away from the path to find this site!

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There should be a larger Bronze Age burial site close by as well, we couldn't find it unfortunately as we didn't have any accurate maps. The one shown in the photo could be found with Google maps, which is pretty neat.

[Heart Of Midnight]

H.O.M. you seem to have plenty of snow as well! And omg those raccoon dogs! I've never seen so many, they are usually loners like foxes, aren't they?

There may be more snow on Monday because a blizzard has been forecast for that time!  I hope it would snow even more over there too, because February is just coming. It's not spring time yet. 

That was the first and probably the last time for me to see so many raccoon dogs eating at the same time. I believe that was a very rare situation. I would think they are quite hermits. They accept their spouses and their puppies, but usually if someone outside the family has come to eat at the same time, a fight breaks out. Raccoon dog politely dodges the badger and disappears back into the forest. At least this is what I observed at our old place of residence, when we lived in the countryside, where raccoon dogs and badgers were guests in the yard almost every night. Oh how I miss those times, the forest animals and that place...
Here, where I currently live, I have only seen one raccoon dog once. This area is home to a fox who apparently is "the king" here and keeps the raccoon dogs away. 

Great photos of a great place!  Back then, when I lived in the countryside, there were also two areas near my home where there are ancient remains from the Iron Age. One area has a grave area and a residential area in a field (similar piles of stones)and in another area there is a hill is burial-ground. A sword with a bronze handle was found in 1911 when the stone piles were being destroyed on that hill. During the inspection, a cremation field cemetery from the Viking and Crusade era and two burial graves from the Crusade era were found at the site. There is one fine cupstone near the hill of which I may have photographs.

According to the information on the internet, the first mentioned has 15 such piles of stones and a possible residential area. In connection with one of the Iron Age mounds, there was also the remains of a building. Today, the area is mostly uncultivated fallow land, and some of it is still used for grazing. Some of the mounds are on the summer cottage plot and a couple of mounds are in the cultivated field area. The whole area was a field until a few decades ago, and a lot of stones from the field have been thrown into the mounds. In addition, mounds of rubble have been destroyed by clearing.  I don't have any photos from that area, even though I often passed by it to the forest and the lake.

[Griffin]

That was the first and probably the last time for me to see so many raccoon dogs eating at the same time. I believe that was a very rare situation. I would think they are quite hermits. They accept their spouses and their puppies, but usually if someone outside the family has come to eat at the same time, a fight breaks out. Raccoon dog politely dodges the badger and disappears back into the forest. At least this is what I observed at our old place of residence, when we lived in the countryside, where raccoon dogs and badgers were guests in the yard almost every night. Oh how I miss those times, the forest animals and that place...

Ooh I'd love to see a badger, I've never seen one in the wild! Sorry you had to move from the old place, I loved reading about your nature observations in the Finnish forum.

[Heart Of Midnight]

That was the first and probably the last time for me to see so many raccoon dogs eating at the same time. I believe that was a very rare situation. I would think they are quite hermits. They accept their spouses and their puppies, but usually if someone outside the family has come to eat at the same time, a fight breaks out. Raccoon dog politely dodges the badger and disappears back into the forest. At least this is what I observed at our old place of residence, when we lived in the countryside, where raccoon dogs and badgers were guests in the yard almost every night. Oh how I miss those times, the forest animals and that place...

Ooh I'd love to see a badger, I've never seen one in the wild! Sorry you had to move from the old place, I loved reading about your nature observations in the Finnish forum.

Oh, it's great to hear that you still remember my writings! 
It's really sad that the forum ended and now you can't get there at all, because it has apparently disappeared?  Fortunately, I copied almost all of my nature observations and other nature writing from there! 

[Beldarna]

What gorgeous photos, Beldarna! I wish we had that much snow! Do you live in the northern part of the country? I love snow but here in Southern Finland it's getting quite unpredictable. We rarely get snow that stays for more than a couple of days until late December or early January, but so far January and February can be expected to be white even here on the coast. This winter we suddenly got a lot of snow at the end of November, and a white Christmas. But after that it's been kind of on and off.

Yes I do.. or more in the middle of the north perhaps, same lattitude as Vaasa actually, we have a ferry that goes between my city and Vaasa. But we do have the midnightsun in the summer and snow and Northern Lights in the winter .

It's so sad with the no snow in the south nowadays. Like in the 1650's Sweden and Denmark were at war and the Swedish army marched accross the ice towards Denmark. That sort of walk over is not possble these days as the sea never freeze and if snow falls in the south of Sweden it comes as little as in your picture Griffin. But we have less snow here as well. Scientist has concluded that our winter is about 16 days shorter than it used to be 20 years ago .


I love reading about your burial grounds! The history buff in me sits here with a bowl of popcorn.

[Heart Of Midnight]

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It's full moon time and I'm not sleeping, because I've been running around outside even though it's night... Well, there aren't many hours until morning, but on Sundays you can sleep for a long time. 

I tried to take a photo of the moon, but I was unsuccessful. I have also been looking at the starry sky, but I have not seen a comet. Just when the sky is clear, it is weakly visible.  I've been trying to look for it with binoculars. I also have a telescope, but it's somewhere in the attic. Other nights it has been cloudy and sometimes it has also snowed.
It is possible to see the comet until the 10th of February. Has anyone else seen that "green" comet?