My yard looks like a war zone with thousands of little mortar shell divots. The squirrels have taken advantage of my wet, soggy back yard and have dug holes in nearly every square foot, burying seeds and nuts and probably squirrel time capsules.The climbing tree rats have also dislodged the soil from each and every one of Nancy’s potted plants Squirrels are born to chew, and they are born to … [Read more...]

We have a Cooper’s Hawk that has more or less set up shop in a large bush in our back yard. I think he may roost there, or at least he spends a lot of time there just hanging out. I can tell when he’s out there because the birds totally disappear, but not the squirrels. The other day, I saw the hawk perched on a limb and a squirrel scurried by, brushing up against the raptor. I often wonder … [Read more...]

eat I don’t really want to know how much I spend on bird seed each year. It’s an expensive hobby, for sure, but I guess it could be worse. If my hobby was skiing, a week at Aspen and a stay in a mountain chalet would buy a whole lot of birdseed. But I enjoy feeding and watching birds in my yard and they don’t go hungry. Recently, I have noticed in my bowl feeders that there are usually … [Read more...]

  I’ve said this before, but the two smartest bird varieties of birds to visit my yard are the crows and the blue jays. My crows have become regular visitors, usually 3 but occasionally 5. They eat most anything they can find but are especially fond of pieces of stale bread I sometimes scatter. Typically, a crow will pick up a piece of bread, fly to the bird bath and dunk the bread as … [Read more...]

Try this sometime. Climb out in a tree limb, put a seed in your mouth and open it with only your mouth and teeth, spitting out the husk eating just the seed and you can’t use your hands. That’s pretty much what many birds do every day. It almost makes hitting a 95-mile per hour baseball look easy. Almost. It’s fun to watch my backyard birds at the sunflower feeder where they munch … [Read more...]

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...]