Found this guy trying to eat my plants
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That looks like a monarch butterfly larvae.
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hmmm,the one you showed got tentacles/“horns”…the one above don´t
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Just younger - less developed … 
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I went to town on Friday and saw a score of these critters in the “backyard”
There were 3 pretty large bucks hanging together, thought that was strange
enjoy,
pine
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They do group together almost all year , except for breeding season.
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This is a departure from the normal deer, turkeys and pond critter pics I usually post, of which I have thousands.
Birmingham Roller Pigeons and Mourning Doves.
We live in a rural area in the upper part of Michigan’s lower peninsula. We have birds constantly crashing into the windows. When the bird is unresponsive or disoriented to the point of not being able to stand, we will pick the bird up and try to get it to grip one of our fingers. One can feel the strength coming back into their grip as they come around. We will try to talk softly to it from behind while holding it in hand, from one side and then the other paying close attention to the movement of the head.
What we are looking for is movement in both directions from the bird to let us know the neck is not hurt. All the while, softly stroking the bird with a finger along the grain of the feather. Head to tail. It sometimes just takes a few minutes, but we have had them in hand for over a half hour before they finally flew off. It’s a great feeling to see them leave.
My wife has done this much more than I but it’s wonderful to see them fly off. I call her the bird whisperer.
Coo, coo they said.
The sad thing about Mourning Doves is they have a short life span and seem to be on earth to feed the raptors, as Hawks and Eagles love them.
Birmingham Rollers are used in competition and falling at terminal velocity is what they do in competition. Here is a Birmingham Roller that does just that.
Birmingham Roller
This young pigeon showed up one day a couple years ago. We have bird feeders, but this guy would not go to them . We finally started putting out a little food and water for him as he looked like someones pet. There was a band around one of his legs , and although he would let us get close, he would not let us handle him. After numerous pics enlarged of the band on his leg, and using online media, we tracked him back to his owner who lives about 3 miles away.
This bird is used in competition for what is called rolling. 20 birds are released and scored by how many of them “roll in a dead fall”. The ones that are falling look like they died mid air and free fall for quite a distance before pulling out of the dead fall. It almost looks like they are going to crash into the ground. At least 5 of the 20 have to do so in unison to be able to score points. I had never heard of it, but the owner was very happy when we finally got him into a live trap and he got to go home.
Lost Pigeon Gets To Go Home
We tracked him back to it’s owner after about a week of him hanging out. After numerous close up camera shots of the band on his leg, we were able to piece together all but one numbers on the leg band. Social media and this number led us to it’s owner who was very grateful to get him back. He had flown about 3 miles in a fog bank and storm that followed and ended up at our place.
He would not feed at the bird feeders, even though he watched other birds doing so. I think he would have died of thirst if we had not put out a small bowl of water for him,
even though the pond was 40 feet away and he watched other birds drinking from it. We finally put out a little dish of bird seed and a small bowl of water for him.
I had never heard of Roller pigeons and the competitions they have with them, but a quick youtube search explained it for me. He would let us get close to him. Up to a couple feet , but would not let us touch him. The owner brought over a live trap and we finally tricked him into going inside of it with some food. So after a week away from his coop and companions, he finally got to go home. He was very grateful that we were taking care of him and took the time and effort to track down where he came from.
The guy who owns him is a retired State cop, and we had made plans to go fishing some day, but we’ve yet to do so. He’s a very nice guy and posting this has me thinking about giving him a call for some local lake fishing. Bluegills and Perch.
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It’s actually the norm for most of the year. You may only notice it when they have their antlers, but I almost always see multiple bucks together, especially brothers.
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Wow - just noticed that I got, like - 4 pips taken away…
Here’s your green dot. Enjoy!
also…
After more consideration, you don’t deserve those dots!
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I also lost some pips. Oh well, there only pips. Two or three of them, but I hardly ever count them. I just noticed there are less than I had before.
Here is some branch licking behavior from a couple of twin bucks.
Wood duck ducklings have grown fast. They will be ready to migrate in about 2 months. It’s been fun watching them grow this summer. Their mom had 11 of them this year which is a new record. She beat the old record from a couple years ago of nine of them. They were spread out all over our pond today. The most I could capture in one pic today was 5 or 6 of them.
Here are a few of them hanging out with the painted turtles.
The log on the left is one I added a few days ago.
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When you lose 4, seemingly at once, you don’t have to count to notice they’re missing. I only counted to see the number that Joe took away.
I get lots of deer and turkey gatherings, too - but it gets crazy in the winter when I put some munchies out for them
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That is so cool!
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Is there a reason for this. Is there something that we did or said. I’m curious as to why.
Thanks for any answer. Should I dm Joe to see if it was something I did or said as
I’m clueless as to why.
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Everything you want to know is in this thread. Pips disappearing
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