Backyard fun

This post starts with an apology to Pavan Uncle and Deepti mami!

They visited the kids a few months ago and gave a gift. As is customary in the house, gifts are always opened at a later day. This one went to the garage shelf, thanks to San who doesn't believe in reading what the gift actually is before hiding it from the kids.

We reserve the right to hand over the gifts on days when the kids have to be bribed for something. We run out of bribe gifts and hence this rule! As it so happens, this gift was Christmas trees to be made of cookies which had an expiry date for the frosting and the cookies.

We still let the kids make the cookies with frosting, sprinkles, etc. but instead of eating it, placed it in the backyard..

Now that we have enough critters that visit us every evening and make it practically resemble the Fairyland projected in the latest Snow White movie. The kids and grandparents enjoyed watching the birds and animals come close to us to taste cookies..

It was great to watch them come and devour the decorated cookies, one piece at a time..

We are truly blessed with this 20 foot hedge that defines our backyard that makes any summer evening a pleasant evening!

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A special visitor

Not a single sapling we plant survives the first two nights in the backyard. We usually attributed the cause to be some Raccoon..

This week the mystery was finally solved.

We have a small furry visitor who has a tunnel from the neighbors backyard into ours and he(or she) is the culprit!

The kids wanted to catch and pet but we said "No". It could be a wild rabbit and might have rabies is what we said. The little thing did a hop skip and disappeared real fast.

We have to seal all those tunnels under the fence this weekend!

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Excitement in the backyard

We have had one busy week with the parents both being super busy at work to the point where we think it is going to be a 12 day week.

In the midst of all this god always finds a way to throw some excitement our way to amuse us and the kids even if we are cooped up in our living room.

A wild cat of some kind decided to visit our backyard today. San of course assumed it was a raccoon perched on the fence. We (the kids and me) were pretty sure raccoons are not that big and do not look that muscular!

So we mounted the 70-200 and the extender to make it a 140-400mm and decided to observe the cat.

It was very pretty (and dangerous I am sure). Could not hold the heavy lens with my hand steady as there was a 30 degree temperature difference between the living room and the backyard and was also worried about the thing having rabies or making a dash for me.

Here are some pictures and a video. The kids are now scared of going in the backyard alone. That will pass. The wild cat gracefully made an exit into the forest like area behind our house.

We were happy for the temporary amusement..

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Kaakaa Kaakaa (Crow Crow)

That was a photograph taken in Chennai two months ago!

We now have a crow in Cupertino that has a gray neck! Spotted it yesterday in our backyard. Have never seen it here. We usually get the all black "andan Kaakaa's" only. Then again this looks like a black crow that had its neck shaved off.. maybe an accident left it featherless in the neck and it appears gray?

Well a few coconut trees and we are in New Chennai!

We have a family of crows in the backyard now.. Daddy, mommy and two baby crows. They are cute but very difficult to capture on camera. They are extremely sensitive to my zoom lens.

Will try to get some shots this weekend...

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Robins - Photoblog

The backyard had a visit from two baby robins..

The older robins were watching from the roof line while the babies were getting the worms, just after the water sprinkler had finished.

Guess they are not old enough to understand the danger of letting humans come close.

Was very close to them and they were so busy with the worms that they didn't even notice me...

The backyard sure provides a lot of amusement for a few minutes every evening to take my mind off work and bring me back to house, kids, quiet, calm..

A big thanks to the baby robins and my babies who spotted them!

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