Deer and a less frequent visitor.

Wildlife depend on reliable water sources to stay alive when they live in central Texas. This summer was especially dry from June through September, with plants turning a light crispy brown color in the natural landscape.

A fox passes by the water feature.

Luckily for the wildlife near us, we have a water feature that provides a good source of water. Because of that water source (and an area where native plants allowed to grow wild) we are visited daily by all manner of natural creatures big and small.

A toasty brown landscape that is forced to go dormant. (No animals in this photo.)

  

As you know from my previous blog posts, deer are the most frequent daytime visitors, followed by birds, and then insects like wasps, bees, and butterflies. But the nocturnal creatures also need to get a drink once in a while.


It's a rare occurrence to spot foxes, raccoons, possums, coyotes and other nocturnal visitors during daylight hours. But the game camera never sleeps, and keeps watch at the water feature for these creatures of the night.

Recently the camera caught the first night photos of a coyote visiting our water feature, which is exciting for us. We had spotted a coyote in our yard a couple of times, but had not captured a photo of one yet. These first coyote photos are embedded in the picture selection below.

The first photos, though, are going to be our deer visitors. 

A nice 8-point buck stops by for refreshment.

This season's fawns (most are born in May/June) are losing their spots before the winter season starts.

Can you find all ten deer in this picture?

Look at this deer's ears as it tries to listen to a noise coming from behind.

The same deer is now pointing its ears forward like a dog, which is a behavior I had not noticed in deer before.

The bucks visit less often in the daytime.

Some does also get into the act.

  


Now on to our recent coyote photos. 

The animal looks well fed in spite of the intensely dry weather for the summer.

This could be a fox rather than a coyote streaking across the background.

Here's my favorite photo because the coyote is out in the early morning.

  

A buck stopped here

The deer have not been out in force in our yard as in previous years. Even less frequent are visiting bucks. But we did get a buck visitor recently, so I snapped a few photos. 

If you make it all the way to the bottom of the photos, you'll see two butterfly pics.

This summer was really dry, but our fall has been very wet. The late season bloomers have benefited from all the recent rainfall. Our Ageratina havanensis plant, common known as white mistflower, is attracting lots of pollinators. Butterflies are among the many types. 

QUEEN Butterflies.

MORE Queen  Butterflies.

Buck visits us on a cold day

We were visited by a few deer the other day. Nice to see them back after not visiting very often this winter. Coldest winter we can remember! Saw a rare buck in the backyard.

Where's the buck?

Over there!

Here he comes, looking good!

I'm here now, everybody take notice! 

Look to the left.

Head to the right.

Hey, do you come here very often?

Well, maybe next time, right now it's time to eat.

Not much here, time to move on.

Adios chicas, hasta luego.

Doe and fawn, and a hawk

Haven't posted anything to B/B in a while, since it seems like only deer are visiting the backyard. And it's not very exciting to see the same type of animal over and over again in the blog. But we did have a hawk pass through today, and last month I took pictures of a doe and her fawn interacting.....

Here's the fawn

Fawn finds something to eat, I cannot fathom what that might be

Here's the doe, also finding food

Doe and fawn find each other

Clean-up time!

The fawn seems to like the attention

Okay mom don't overdo it

The hawk turns out to be a red-shouldered hawk. I had to take this quick picture first, because to get a better picture (without the branch in the way) required that I move the camera tripod. We knew that the hawk would see us moving (inside the house, at the window) because of their superior vision. Hawks are said to have vision that is about eight times more acute than humans.

He's looking at us inside the house, we're about 80 feet from him

Sure enough, as I moved the tripod he flew away. Luckily he flew at an angle where we could appreciate his nice wide wingspan.