I have a white-tailed blackbird in my yard. You don’t see many of those, and I wish I didn’t see mine. She’s a grackle, a big thieving grackle that eats my expensive sunflower hearts and she has lots of friends. We noticed this bird a few weeks ago. When she’s pecking around on the ground, it looks like she has just one or two white tail feathers, but when she flies and fans out her tail, half … [Read more...]

I now have grand birds – lots of grand birds. In the last two weeks we have had three nests of cardinals to fledge, a nest of bluebirds, 2 nests of robins, a nest of sparrows and I don’t know how many batches of house finches. There are baby birds flying in all directions and fluttering their wings as they beg for food. Naturally, as a good grandparent, I am readily supplying my feathered … [Read more...]

Our bird feeder filled with sunflower hears has been busier than the Kohrs Ice Cream Store on a “Nickel A Cone Day.” Birds of all shapes and sizes have been lined up, ready for their turn at the seeds. That’s because many of them have babies and the one seed baby birds can all eat and digest is a sunflower heart. Sunflower hearts as commercial bird seed are a fairly recent development, … [Read more...]

For the past month, my small flock of 10 goldfinches has been clutching at the thistle cage and jockeying for position at the feeder with the sunflower hearts. I have been able to watch as their Midas-like plumage intensifies. And then one day, when I thought the little golden beauties could not be more spectacular. They disappeared. Vamoosed. They do this to me each year - they tease me with … [Read more...]

  Recently, Marsha Boggess, my sister-in-law was able to take a cell phone picture of an owl, just outside her window and sent it to everybody in the family. We all oohed and aahed, of course. My son, Jimmie, thought it was a Barred Owl. It is really unusual, however, to ever see an owl, especially in the daytime. They are most certainly nocturnal creatures. Most of my dealings with … [Read more...]

  “Made in the shade” was an expression from the 1950’s when the “cool cats” were cruising the drive-ins, combing their ducktails and listening to rock and roll on the juke box. You still hear this phrase from time to time, but usually from those 50 and older. Made in the shade is also a gardening term, but mostly it’s “not made in the shade.” Very little seems to grow in shady areas, … [Read more...]

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can develop a relationship with the birds and animals that live in your yard. Since I’m the one who does the feeding, many come to know me as a friend, in a way. I have such a relationship with one male cardinal. He’s my friend, Red. This cardinal and his mate nested in an azalea bush in my front yard last year and perhaps the year before. But last year, as I … [Read more...]

  Now is not a good time to be a dog or cat outside sunning on the porch. Birds, you see, are quite fond of animal hair as nesting materials and will swoop down, grab a beak-full of fur  from your pet and fly off to build their nests. Chickadees, especially, employ this kamikaze tactic. The next few weeks are the busiest time of the real estate year for birds as they construct nests to … [Read more...]

  When I’m at home, I spend as much time as I can at the kitchen window checking on my birds. It is always a great joy to see special visitors. They were there this morning, a flock of Cedar Waxwings, stopping by for a drink of water from our bird bath. They flew down, then back up into the tree. They did this five or six times. One bird landed on a limb just outside our kitchen window. … [Read more...]

  As a backyard gardener, nothing makes me madder than planting a row or two of beans, only to have squirrels dig up half the beans, then rabbits taking down the survivors.  I have tried squirrel and rabbit keep-out sprays and they work, sort of, until the first rain or until the varmints get really hungry. So….. I have bought myself 20-feet of Garden Tunnel Netting. If the squirrels … [Read more...]