Kria the Icelandic Sheepdog takes a Winter Swim

Kria my matronly Icelandic Sheepdog, who turns fifteen this spring, fell through the ice into the fish pond today. Hearing the splashing I quickly ran to the pond and pulled her out by her collar. The other Icies were fascinated by her fish and frog smell and they all were running around excitedly. Then I noticed that her whole body was shaking uncontrollably from the cold so we raced inside to dry her with towel and the hair dryer. She is the first and hopefully last dog to pond plunge. Clicking on photos will enlarge them. *

The first Flicker, Colaptes auratus luteus, returned today. He(?) was hungrily feeding on the suet which will hopefully sustain him (her) until ants reappear. Unlike other woodpeckers, they do not dig into trees, dead or alive, for food; the majority of their diet is ants which they find primarily in the soil. An average meal consists of hundreds even thousands of ants. We have black wood ants and black and red wood ants in large mounds here and I've seen flickers feasting on ants as they dig into their hills. They also consume beetles and some vegetable material including some fruit from wild cherry trees.. However, even though they don't dig into trees for food usually, they do excavate nest holes about three feet (one yard or one meter) in depth in dead trees for their nests which have from six to ten eggs. They may be our most abundant woodpecker. While most woodpeckers stay year round, flickers migrate as ants are unavailable during the winter. I've always called them yellow shafted flickers because of the yellow on the undersides of the large feathers. Note the spots or freckles on the belly and the yellow feathers.

Some of the ice was tinted tannish the other day. If it had been later in the winter, I might have guessed the color came from spring tree pollen. I saw my first ship too.

*Kria was VERY upset with her photos - - 

so this one is "Apres le Bain"