My two suet feeders have been getting more and more attention with the arrival of winter. I have had nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, red bellied woodpeckers, sparrows, chickadees, titmice, bluebirds, and wrens squeezing in and out of the suet cages. Cardinals, and mockingbirds will also come to suet feeders, but I haven’t seen them at the feeders in my yard. Maybe later. Suet is an inexpensive … [Read more...]

Almost every morning, our resident pair of bluebirds samples a few sunflower hearts from our feeder, visits the birdbath for a drink of water and then flies to the fence to check out bird houses. We have three choices, and they visit each one. The male peeks in while the hen perches on top of the house. They began their home inspections not long after they finished nesting. It seems to be a … [Read more...]

When the weather cooperates, I enjoy a late afternoon visit to our firepit to smoke a cigar, have a cocktail, and listen to soothing music on You Tube. It’s a nice way to end the day. I have a friend that often joins me. A male cardinal. Cardinals, I have found, are the last birds in my yard to call it a day. While the other birds have long gone to roost, cardinals often opt for a late-night … [Read more...]

“What bird is that drinking at the pond?” Nancy said. “Come see.” It was a black-ish bird with an orange breast and a white head. “I guess it’s a robin with a white head,” I responded, and I had never seen one before. It’s a result of leucism when defects in pigment cells cause afflicted birds or animals to become whitish, or more commonly, a mix of whitened zones along … [Read more...]

They left last year around mid-March, and like clockwork, they returned in early November. My snowbirds are back. Each year I have a small flock of snowbirds, Dark-Eyed Juncos if you will. The 10 or 12 birds shelter in our thick bushes, making occasional and regular darts beneath our feeder to scratch for dislodged seeds. Rarely do I ever see them at the feeder, only below. Snowbirds spend … [Read more...]

The Autumn Leaves   Wham, bam, thank you Ma’am. That’s what our leaves did this fall. They stayed green forever, then quickly changed colors and then said, “Okay, guys. It’s time to fall.” And they did. Nearly everyone at the same time, Leaves march to their own drummers. Some years they will be vibrant and some years not so much. Some years they fall here and there over a period of … [Read more...]

Holy Chiroptera. It’s Bat Week! Naturally, it’s Bat Week. It’s Halloween week, too. In actuality, October 24-31 is an international, annual celebration designed to raise awareness about the need for bat conservation. Bats are amazing creatures that are vital to the health of our natural world and economy, but like Rodney Dangerfield, bats don’t get any respect, and many are scared out of … [Read more...]

A few weeks back, Nancy and I were treated to a live production of one of nature’s most amazing shows. We watched a spider at work. My wife is not afraid of many things. I once saw her try to catch a snake with her bare hands in our goldfish pond. But Nancy is definitely afraid of spiders. If there is one around, she knows about it. We were sitting on the porch at our rental cottage at … [Read more...]

“Rat-A-Tat-Tat” is a common backyard noise for us. That’s because we have lots of mature trees, which attract woodpeckers. Occasionally, we’ll have a pair of Pileated woodpeckers fly through, but more common are our Red-bellied woodpeckers. Their rate of pecks per minute is over 100, thus the “Rat-A-Tat-Tat”. Red-bellied Woodpeckers are pale, medium-sized woodpeckers common in forests of the … [Read more...]