This has been a strange year for bluebirds. My bluebirds started very early.  They were on their first nest in late March. They pulled off a successful hatch, though, they had three young ones and all survived. All three have stayed in my yard since then. But almost immediately, the hen was back on the nest, then left. Later, she was back on again, and I saw one bird that fledged, then I … [Read more...]

We’ve lived in our house over 45 years and there has always been one mockingbird that visits. Usually, they have nested in thick bushes in our neighbor’s yard and stop by our place only for a sip of water or when the blueberries and blackberries ripen. I feed all my other birds, but I’ve never been able to draw the local mockingbirds to my feeders, until a few weeks ago. I wrote recently about … [Read more...]

A hummingbird showed up at our feeder a few weeks ago, and it’s the biggest hummer I’ve ever seen. It has an enormous wingspan, maybe five or six inches. Naturally, the hummingbird has staked out our feeder and woe be to any rival that tries to sneak in for a sweet sip of nectar.  Most every hummingbird I have ever seen has been sweet, tiny and delicate. This hummer is a stud. I think he’s been … [Read more...]

  My long-time friend Wayne Ferguson lives in Charlottesville’s Dunlora subdivision and has been plagued by deer since the ink was dry on his real estate contract. Wayne, like me, is an amateur vegetable gardener and loves flowers in his yard, but so do the deer and there are a ton of them in Dunlora. But this year, Wayne decided to stop the thieving whitetails and built a nifty cage … [Read more...]

Among the friendliest birds in my yard, or perhaps I should say the least-spookiest, are my catbirds. I can approach within a few feet and they pay me little mind. For years, I have had a pair, one single pair of catbirds. They have nested behind my house in the hedges, raised their young, then took off around September. This year has been different. For starters, three catbirds showed up this … [Read more...]

  Each spring, we are always surprised to see things growing in our yard and gardens that shouldn’t be there. They are our “squirrel plantings”. One year, a very strange looking plant popped up in Nancy’s flower garden. It didn’t look like a weed, so we let it grow. It grew and grew, blossomed, then died. I finally pulled it up and found a cluster of peanuts. An enterprising squirrel had … [Read more...]

“Come see this bird,” Nancy yelled from the kitchen. The last time I put down my paper and coffee to get up and see an alleged bird, it was a leaf, so I was not hopeful. But dutifully, I went to the window and saw a snow white bird among a big flock of grackles. I went outside to investigate.  When the grackle flock flew, the white bird went along. It was the same size and had the same … [Read more...]

  Nancy has done some amazing work landscaping our yard. About all I do is mow the grass and sit back and enjoy the lovely flowers and plants, so I take no credit. One of my favorite parts of the yard, though, is a little wildflower patch around our bird bath. There was once ivy there, that took over everything,  but Nancy pulled it all up and planted a little patch of perennials that … [Read more...]

Goodbye and good riddance to the flocks of grackles that have invaded my yard and decimated my feeders since late March. Slowly but surely, their numbers have diminished. Now, there are just a few remaining that pound my sunflower heart feeder and they will soon be gone. Grackles are more of a marsh-oriented bird, but they come inland to breed and nest during April, May and June. Their nesting … [Read more...]

  I have a pet robin. Well, I had a pet robin, but now I’m not so sure. It began about a month ago as I was feeding mealworms to my bluebirds in a guarded feeder with a dome on top that allows small birds entry, but not larger birds, like robins. But every time I went to feed the bluebirds, a robin showed up, gobbling any meal worms that may hit the ground. Mr. Softie here felt sorry … [Read more...]