Besides bluebirds, the most welcomed guests in my backyard are Monarch butterflies. They are like miniature, fine-art paintings flitting from bush to bush and flower to flower. They are magnificent creatures and they are threatened. Their fiercest enemies happen to be human beings, who are rapidly destroying meadows and the milkweed plants that Monarchs must have in order to survive. One … [Read more...]

  Damn! My bluebirds are nesting again. They started early in April and fledged four babies, then they were at it again in May and added three more little puffs of blue to the world, and now the hen is on the nest again. Only once have I had bluebirds build three nests, and that was because the second nest failed that summer. I hate to see the birds in those hot boxes in the intense … [Read more...]

  It’s been a strange year, weather-wise. It was summer-like weather in March, then rain, then cold, then more rain, then hot. My garden doesn’t know whether to start producing or give up. But stuff is growing, My tomatoes aren’t producing Jack-In-The-Beanstalk stalks this year, which is a good thing. The plants are shorter, but healthier. Last year it would have taken Shaquille … [Read more...]

Two for two means you’re batting 1.000, not a bad average, and that’s the current stat for my resident pair of blues. Two successful nests in just over two months. The babies from the second nest fledged last Saturday. The parents were feeding the noisy youngsters in their house when I left at 10 AM, but by 3:30, the little fellows were high in the treetops. Four fledged from the first nest. … [Read more...]

  About a week ago, Nancy and I were in the back yard enjoying one of those rare, non-raining afternoons and saw a rabbit near our patio. The rabbit kept eating and stuffing her mouth with grass. Her cheeks were puffed out so much that it looked like she had bushy whiskers. We could tell we were disturbing her, so we remained quiet and watched. In a few minutes, the doe (female rabbit) squeezed … [Read more...]

  I was mowing the grass last week so my wife would let me play golf the next day and I saw a honeybee. A real, live honeybee. Not a bumblebee or another pretender, but a honeybee. Last year, I didn’t see a single one in my yard. Honeybees, as most are aware, have been having a hard time of it in recent years. No one knows for sure, but their decline in numbers has been blames on … [Read more...]

It’s always exciting to see a new bird at your feeder. Not that the old faithful’s aren’t worthy visitors, but to see an unfamiliar bird is special. About two weeks ago, I saw such a bird. It was a cloudy day and early in the morning, so the light wasn’t good, but I did not recognize the bird on the sunflower heart feeder. I had a hunch and looked it up and it was, as I thought, a female … [Read more...]

They were there one day, about 15 beautiful goldfinches in my backyard, flitting from thistle feeder to thistle feeder and jockeying for position. And the next day, they were gone, not a golden feather in sight. A big rainstorm had passed through and I suppose it was more than my little yellow friends could handle. They skipped town, heading for wherever goldfinches go when three inches of rain … [Read more...]

My backyard nest of bluebirds has fledged – four beautiful gray and blue chicks. They are all healthy and flying well, but have become worse beggars than the fellows who hold up cardboard signs along Rt. 29 North, saying something like this: “I once knew a fellow who was veteran. Personally, I am on drugs, but if you give me a few bucks, I promise I will buy fresh spinach.” My bluebirds don’t … [Read more...]

“Come look at this woodpecker at the feeder,” my wife Nancy called to me last week. “What about it,” I replied, fully expecting it to be a red-bellied or maybe a pileated woodpecker. But when I glanced out the window, I was stunned. It was a genuine Red-headed woodpecker, the first I can ever recall seeing in our yard. There are many types of woodpeckers and most have red or at least some … [Read more...]