December visitors in Florida

Well, the decorating is finished and the gifts made or purchased. I think I'll share about all the visitors I have had in my yard this month. First the racoons came to eat bird seed from the plant saucers that sit on the ground. I feed the squirrels from the ground in these saucers so they don't bother my hanging bird feeders. I have one squirrel who comes up to my second story deck every morning and looks in my glass doors to tell me it's time to fill the feeders. I've named him Rascal, and he lives up to his name too. When the racoons came, Rascal hurried up to sit on my deck rail and make chirpy noises and look down, so I would come out and see the racoons eating his food. One racoon jumped up into a saucer nailed to a post and enjoyed his seed from a higher view.



Another visitor appeared one morning clinging to the trunk of a palm in my yard. A HUGE pileated woodpecker. For those of you who have never seen one, their bodies can be from 16-1/2 to 19-1/2 long and are black and white. Their heads are red and bold colored. I watched him for a few seconds and then it got better! A second woodpecker came around the trunk! I ran to get my camera from my PC desk where I had just downloaded some photos.....and they flew off just as I came back into my great room. So I don't have a photo to share yet, but I'll be watching for them. That's the first time I've seen two together.