I saw a post this week on a Neighborhood site that said Black Oil Sunflower seed was the best buy because all birds can eat it. Not true, Sunflower for birdseed comes three ways: whole, hearts and chips. The whole, black-oil sunflower seeds are ideal for cardinals because cardinals have beaks equipped to break the hulls and then eat the hearts. Doves swallow the seeds whole and their craw … [Read more...]

The State of Louisiana is a sprawling system of bayous. We call them creeks in the east, but there are tens of thousands of interweaving and connecting bayous in the Pelican State and each has a name. While we were in this part of the country, Nancy and I had a chance to explore some of the bayous and it was fascinating. From our first Port-of-Call at Darrow, LA, we went aboard a river craft with … [Read more...]

Who would ever name a bird “titmouse?” The poor little tufted titmouse has nothing in common with a mouse, or the other part of its name. The regal little bird with the crest should have been named the silver prince or something equally as distinguished. But its name is the tufted titmouse, and we always have them at our feeder. About 10 years … [Read more...]

I am on the Next-Door mailing list, which lets neighbors share tips, warnings, and general messages. One of the neighbors wrote about late nesting bluebirds and others chimed in that they had seen more bluebirds this year than ever.  And I agree. My bluebirds had three successful nests, including a late hatch, and my feeders and birdbaths have since been filled with the cheerful … [Read more...]

A saw a familiar bird in the yard this week, one I had not seen in a while. It was a snowbird. They left last year around mid-March, and like clockwork, they returned in mid-November. Each year I have a small flock of snowbirds, Dark-Eyed Juncos. The 10 or 12 small gray birds shelter in our thick bushes, making occasional and regular darts beneath our feeder to scratch for dislodged seeds. … [Read more...]

They come and then they go. Some of my backyard birds, that is. Catbirds, for example. They sneak into my feeders around April, build their nests, have their babies, feed up and then leave. Interestingly, I saw a catbird just last week – a late traveler. Perhaps he wanted to see what the rain was going go do and where it would go, but he’s gone now. And the hummingbirds. Typically, my backyard … [Read more...]

About once a year, I’ll see an albino or a leucistic bird in my yard. Last week, I saw a white sparrow. At least I’m pretty sure he was a sparrow because he was flying with a small flock of other sparrows. The flock of 7 or 8 flew to the fence at my garden, then something spooked them, and they flew off to the back hedge. I thought that maybe since they had found food and water, they’d stay a … [Read more...]

No. Not that kind of “grass”. Real grass, like comes on a lawn – or did before last summer’s smoking hot heat and lack of rainfall. Grass on almost every lawn now has brown patches and scads wire grass, which doesn’t mind drought conditions or intense heat. Driving through our neighborhood, lawns look like war zones – except for lawns that have zoysia grass. They look just fine because zoysia … [Read more...]

We had two families of bluebirds to visit our yard, bird houses, and feeders this year – one in the front yard and one in the back yard. Early on, they settled squatters rights with spirited battles. I don’t know how many babies were actually produced between the two sets of parents, but I think a lot. I am now seeing juvenile birds at all the feeders and in the bird baths. While I fed them … [Read more...]