listened to house sparrows, chickadees and a few crows… I am just loving the sound ID on the Merlin app…
spotted the wild turkey that had been wandering the street yesterday, thanks to my neighbour knocking on the door…
and apparently the turkey frightened one of the neighbourhood bunnies…
there was no sign of the raccoons and the fish appear happy and all present… one of the biggest ones has been scraped up though… not sure if it was from the raccoon the night before last or from hiding under a rock, sigh…
the red and gray squirrels have been wandering around and threatening one another…
but the sun was out, except for a ten minute shower, and I was able to eat outside…
I hadn’t seen anything on the camera until a few nights ago, when the camera caught this…
the night view makes it a bit hard to recognize, but the rings on the tail were the confirmation that it is a raccoon… it didn’t appear that any fish had been caught…
I think the fish are being careful to stay hidden under the bridge…
on Sunday night they came by again and the camera caught them right in the pond…
I spotted one of the fish sort of wedged under a rock, so I moved the rock and the fish swam away… it looks a bit scraped up, so I hope it will be okay…
I put two chairs across the spot where I think they are going into the water and then sprinkled Epsom salts around the rest of the pond…
last Thursday night I think a raccoon (or more than one) came into the garden and attacked the pond…
they got at least two fish and tossed around the water lilies… they don’t care for fish scales, so end up leaving them on the ground… I found two piles on the stepping stones alongside the pond…
the fish were clearly traumatized and have barely come out from under the bridge…
after doing some research, I put down epsom salt all around the pond and hoped that would dissuade them from finding their supper in my garden…
I also put on the motion sensor at the back door and the one on the garage…
since then, they have come back a few times, although I am starting to wonder if it might be the coyote that has been wandering in this area… the plants have been disturbed, but I haven’t found any fish bits…
this Thursday I put up a new wireless camera to see if I can spot whatever has been coming by…
I have been working on the fish condo for weeks now… spent a good portion of a day cleaning the fish tank… lots of scrubbing and emptying…
I researched a second tank and we went out and got the tank and two pumps so that they were on the ends as opposed to the back of the tanks…
after numerous measurements, we set the new tank up on the counter along the North wall of the dining room… then the bottom was filled with rocks and water and the new pump set up… this tank will be for the baby fish as the other tank won’t be able to hold all of the fish…
I worked with my grandson and we were able to move the big tank to the spot beside the small tank… it looks good there and it almost appears like one single very long tank…
after putting river rocks in it, I ran the hose from the outside tap through the house and was able to fill it up in nine minutes… it probably took me that long to fill the small one as I used a pail and walked back and forth to the kitchen sink for that one, lol…
had a bit of an issue with the pump as there wasn’t quite enough room in the large tank for it on the edge, but we were able to remove a piece of plastic and now it fits perfectly…
once the water was in and circulating for a few days we began catching the fish… we have been at it for quite a while… we started on October 22nd and today I think we caught the last one… I had to break ice for the last few collections, lol…
it was quite a process because since about the middle of October the water has been brown as leaves have fallen into it so it has made spotting fish difficult…
we also brought in some of the water lilies, which hopefully will survive until next spring when they can go back into the pond…
the tanks look great and I am pleased with all of our work…
