I can't tell what's going on in the first picture. Sorry. Too fuzzy. In the second picture, I've emasculated flowers as far gone as the one on the left and still gotten a good cross. If you emasculated the bud on the right at an even earlier stage, great. What I do is emasculate one or two of the most robust and best supported green buds in a cluster and wait two or three days until the other buds that were of about the same stage and in the same cluster almost open fully and indicate almost readiness to self-pollinate. Then I remove them from the cluster so the only thing left is the one or two emasculated and waiting pistils. Then I carry two, three or four blossoms over from the pollen donor plant and apply pollen using the plucked donor blossoms like Q-tips and very gently apply pollen to the receiving stigma. Then I break open the anther cones on the donor blossoms and carefully smear some more pollen on the receiving stigma. I do this two or three days in a row at about midday. Look on page 3 of This PDF and in photo number 4 ... that's about the stage of blossom that I try to emasculate then wait 2 - 3 days to pollinate. I most frequently am successful emasculating blossoms of beefsteak types like Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, etc. where the blossoms are nice fat daisies like the one with the fat pistil you show in the second picture of your original post. And yes, I like to use the potato leaf parent as the seed parent and then whatever more delicate flowered and regular leaf variety as the pollen donor. But then I've had success with Juane Flammee x Sungold and Indian Stripe x Sungold too. Just had to wait 'til the fruit showed size and color in the first and until the flowers showed cherry trusses in the second. However, either of those two crosses were detectible as successes by the aroma of the leaves almost matching Sungold. Another thing ... do a bunch of attempts on each of your pairings since not all of them will take, especially where you accidentally bruise the pistils. Also, I keep the seed from each individual cross stored separately and labeled like CP x Bradley 07A, CP x Bradley 07B, etc. just in case I got stray pollen or a no-cross on one of my attempts. Good luck ... it's great fun. Bill

Swifts are on the decline too because the types of chimneys they require are seen less and less in homes. The town nearby is quite old with lots of Victorian age homes and older and you see swifts frequently. We used to get all sorts of birds down our chimneys here (1820s house with fireplaces in each room) and swifts were one of them. I left them be, pulled the glass doors shut and usually the parent fed them and they disappeared when they got old enough, prolly back up the chimney. This is bizarre, but we had a brick loose in our original kitchen hearth and before we repaired it, somehow starling babies ended up in the adjoining cabinets in my linen drawer. Don't ask me how! I did evict them! We have even had ducks drop down the chimney. LOL. We do not use the woodburning fireplaces anymore and the chimney are all capped. You can search the net for instructions on how to build swift towers to replace the chimneys they used to use more easily. They are insect eaters. Good, good birds to have around.

I'm glad your bird problem turned out to be seasonal but just in case you ever face this problem again (or any bird infestation problem) I thought it might be helpful to just mention a different angle on this. The problem is not that the birds are pooping (or whatever they're doing) in your pool. That is simply a symptom of your real problem: that your environment is attractive to birds. If you really want to keep birds from being destructive to your property you have to make it so that your land is a place they don't want to hang out on in the first place. There are a lot of different approaches to this but yes, stopping the food supply is one of them. Another would be the mylar balloons someone else mentioned up above. There are also specialized bird scare balloons with 'eyes' that follow the birds wherever they fly as well as holographic tape. These incorporate movement so they are usually more affective than static decoys. There are other senses to attack as well: taste/smell, touch, and hearing. Birds hate methyl anthranilate (a chemical derived from concord grapes that has long been used for grape flavoring)--it gives them a similar sensation to what we feel when we encounter bleach. This comes in commercially available sprays. Also, there are sticky gels, netting, or spike strips that keep birds from roosting on certain surfaces. Lastly, there are sound devices that utilize recordings of predators/distress calls that scare birds away. For a partially or fully enclosed area you could use an ultrasonic device as well (one that can't be heard by humans but is annoying to birds and bats). Make sure that you switch up whatever you use from time to time. If you use balloons, move the location (but always keep it near where the birds are nesting). If you're using a sound device change the interval between effects, try to randomize the effects being used. Also, using the products together in a synergistic way will create a more effective and longer-lasting reaction. I'm glad to hear that no one has mentioned killing or injuring the birds...don't do that. As mentioned before that would be reacting to the symptoms rather than truly solving the problem. Furthermore, it would be very easy to accidentally tamper with one of the MANY birds protected by the Migratory Bird Act of 1918 (and then you'd be in big trouble). Just a side note: be careful when cleaning up the bird poop. Birds can transmit over 60 diseases to humans. Some of them are fatal. Bird dropping particles can be unknowingly inhaled and lead to serious health problems. Good luck in your future bird encounters! Here is a link that might be useful: click for examples, case studies and FAQs about bird pest control

I'm not sure about putting a range under the window. That seems like a recipe for goop and splatter on the window, and also seems likely that, assuming you live in an area with winters, your window is liable to crack/shatter with the temperature extremes of hot from the range vs cold outside. I had that happen in my house when I first moved in, actually, and it didn't even have a range under it, just a sink! So, I'd imagine it being a high risk event with a serious heat source under a window. I think it'd be a lot easier to figure out a good layout with the right side of the diagram filled in. Can you repost a diagram showing what is over there? That way, folks can see traffic flow and imagine any options for that end of the area.