Where We Go, Nature Follows

My husband and I both love nature. We enjoy going to parks, hiking, gardening, etc. Nothing too wild, just the peace of being outdoors. Over the years we have had many wildlife sightings around our home. We have always had the usual blue jays, cardinals, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, finch, butterflies, bees, deer, fox, etc. But occasionally we have been blessed with some unusual visitors. These are some of my favorites!

A Praying Mantis on our Bee Box.We thought she had possibly left an egg case, but never saw any babies.










A large green frog on top of our hummingbird feeder.

     This beautiful family of barn swallows nested in the curve of our rain gutter.

 It was amazing to watch the parents make the nest, lay eggs, and eventually watch

 the babies crowding the nest as they learned to fly.

And these guys were my all time favorite. Our neighbor had an abandoned silo that a mother hawk decided was perfect for nesting. That summer, we had the privilege of watching the babies grow and fly around our home. You could hear their screeches each morning as they rested on the phone lines along our road.

Today, we were eating lunch and I looked out the window and noticed something moving in one of our trees.   Brian and I ran outside to find this big guy making his way to the ground. From what we could tell he is a rat snake. I'm not a huge fan of snakes, but he was pretty cool.