Paying Attention, Part Two

Daily News-Record, March 7, 2023

Paying attention to the outdoors by looking through windows can bring you many surprises.

One time I glanced out a window when I had gone into my pantry to get food. At first, I thought a vulture was walking down the driveway because there was certainly a big dark bird heading my way. But I couldn’t imagine a vulture doing that.

As I strained my eyes to recognize what I was seeing, I reached for my binoculars in a nearby closet. The big bird was a female wild turkey!

Although I’ve seen and heard turkeys in the woods around my house, I had never observed one just strutting along all alone out in the open. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my camera on the tripod and focused in time to get a shot before she took a turn near the house and went down into the woods.

Another rare daytime visitor to my yard is the red fox. One summer afternoon, my wonderful husband was rinsing dishes for me when he peered out of the window over the sink, having learned well the lesson to always be on the lookout. He immediately called to me that a red fox was crossing the backyard through my day lily garden. Again, it happened too quickly for me to get a photo.

Although not a rare animal in any sense of the word, voles are small rodents that aren’t often visible. They are related to mice, but voles have chunky bodies and short tails, whereas mice are more streamlined with long tails.

Voles are active day or night, but they usually stay in runways that they build beneath thick vegetation. Yet one sunny morning, as I went through my living room and perused the south side of my yard through the large windows, I was amazed to notice a meadow vole run quickly across the lawn from my deck to my little man-made pond. It was the first time that I had ever seen one of these creatures, and I only saw it because I looked out the windows on my way by them.

It’s easiest to look for wildlife during the daytime, but you should also check your yard as dusk is falling. Many animals become active at just this time of the day.

Early one evening, as it was getting dark, I peeked out my bay window before putting on a light. To my surprise, a tiny gray fox was eating sunflower chips — sunflower seeds without the shell — that had fallen onto the ground below a bird feeder. Gray foxes are smaller than their red cousins, sometimes barely larger than a big domestic cat.

So don’t let your windows go to waste. They let light in, but they also give you a view. If you don’t look out them every chance you get, you’re missing the wildlife pageant that could be unfolding before your eyes!

Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). You can read her blog at https://InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com