Diseases in Goldfinches
17 years ago
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17 years ago- 17 years ago
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Chimney Swifts Came to Camp Nappy ....
Comments (37)Hey ChickaDDD, I know what you mean about Chicklet's story. He sounds super natural or something. Sleeping on roof, resetting his own arm, Typhoon or something and his birthday. WOW. But like you said if it is true your are surely helping them and thats all that matters. I must have missed it when the unwelcoming committee killed a catbird chick. That is awful!!! And it is not FUN to get rid of HOSP. I dont know why they would say that and it makes me sick. I cant believe they said it was fun, that is disgusting and shows how stupid they are. I hope you dont dislike ME for it but I have seen them with my own eyes terrorize my other birds and not just the cavity nesters, but i dont enjoy it. I just want to save my other birds. They were after Braveheart today when he and Scardycat would try to feed their babies AND they are building two nests in two of my boxes right now :-( When papa tries to bring food they jump him and fall to the ground. It is just pure harassment and today i noticed his right eye was closed up. I dont think it was the HOSP because he was fighting two mockers today too and they probably got fed up with him getting in the middle and decided to kick him around awhile. My blue is insane they are twice his size. But now he will be at risk of hawk attack because he cant see from that side. Ahhhhhhh SIGH. I am having such stress this year with the bluebirds. I love them and all the birds except the HOSP and it is hard on me because I worry so about the birds. My other little sparrows are building in my holly bush that the robins used three times this year ( they were busy ), you know the little ones that i keep blowing there little babies out of the bush. So at least i know where they are this time and wont blow them out. Birds are so funny. She fusses at me every time i go out there but then builds her nest right in my back steps. Go figure :-) Why would they kill a catbird? I dont understand that, it must have been before i joined because i dont remember seeing it. Do you know what month and maybe i can go back and find that post. That is very disturbing, maybe they are just animal killers? Maybe they do enjoy it. They almost had me convinced that the house wrens were evil till Bet got on there. Maybe they kill all birds except bluebirds. That's sick :-( Well im glad you didn't have any little jets get confused and end up in your house today :-) Maybe they realized that outside is where they belong. Hopefully for you and your families sake. All summer without air conditioning is a horrible thought for me. You are a very strong and sweet person to sacrifice your comfort for the little jets. I bet Daisy was hot too with all that hair. My Mary is very hairy like that ( 4 layers of fur ) and she doesn't even like to be outside in the summer. We are very spoiled. Im glad your kitties got bored with the swifts, i know you were blaming yourself for the deaths but you didn't know they were coming so im glad all is good now :-) I better go because this is long but i know i could talk a lot more!!! LOL. She who is to long winded~~~~~~~Bonnie...See MorePlease list your most disease resistant roses..
Comments (29)I don't know if Chinas and Noisettes grow as far north as you seem to be, but my Louis Philippe, Ducher, Spice, Champney's Pink Cluster, Old Blush, Prosperity also my Kordes and Drift roses all survived last summer with no BS, no Chili-thrips, and no Canker...which killed off most of my HTs and Modern roses.... I am getting more Drift and Kordes, and also Biltmore roses, to see how resistant they are.....seems the newer roses are being bred better than some of the older ones....sally...See MoreSunflowers
Comments (4)I've done it and while it is fun to have them growing there on the property, and fun to harvest the seedheads, unless you plant hundreds of them, you aren't going to harvest enough seeds to make much of a difference when it comes to filling up your feeders. If you have deer visiting your property as we do, they have a tendency to eat the plants....flowerhead (often before it blooms), leaves, stems, etc. This is a problem every year, but is a much more serious one in drought years. I've also found sunflowers attract a lot of pest insects. I used to grow them just inside my garden fence and finally stopped because of all the pest insects they attracted. Now, if I grow them at all, I plant them several hundred feet from the garden. When I grew them, I would just cut the huge seedheads and set them on a shelf or table in the barn to dry. (This will work well as long as you don't have rodents or squirrels visiting the barn to eat the seeds as they dry.) After the seedheads air dried, I stacked them on a shelf. In the winter, I would take one seedhead outside and place it on the ground. The birds picked it clean in minutes. At the rate of one or two large flower seedheads per day, my harvest lasted maybe a month. You can remove the seeds from the seedheads if you want to put them in a feeder, and it isn't hard. Just rub your hand back and forth over the dried seedhead and the seeds basically fall out. Some years, when I planted sunflowers with smaller seedheads, I left the plants standing because they were in an out-ot-the-way area where no one really noticed them, except perhaps for our dogs in the fenced dog run. The birds harvested the seeds as they wished. Of course, that means all the seeds were gone long before cold weather even arrived. Sometimes the deer harvested the dried seedheads and are them as well. The sunflowers that grow the really huge seedheads often need staking or the wind can really beat them up. I only staked them when I was growing them to form the walls of a sunflower house for the kids, and I used 6' tall green t-posts to stake them. Economically feasible? Maybe if you planted an acre or two you might be able to raise enough to fill your feeders all winter. A small patch won't produce enough to make a dent in your feed bill. Your mileage may vary, but for me, they weren't worth the trouble when it comes to producing seeds. Dawn...See MoreBirds and other mobile features in the garden 2014 #9
Comments (77)Molie: I would suggest a Great Blue Heron, perhaps a juvenile, for the darker bird. These are photos I took in August of a rather mangy looking Great Blue Heron preening in Ellisville Marsh. The dark crown is visible. Check out All About Birds - scroll down to the Field Marks section and then click on the arrow to see more photos. About five photos in is a juvenile. Claire Edit note: One thing that bothers me about the Black-crowned Night-Heron ID is the fact that they mostly hang around at night. According to All About Birds: "Black-crowned Night-Herons are common in wetlands across North America - you just may have to look a little harder than you do for most herons. True to their name, these birds do most of their feeding at night and spend much of the day hunched among leaves and branches at the water’s edge. Evening and dusk are good times to look for these rather stout, short-necked herons flying out to foraging grounds." This post was edited by claire on Thu, Sep 18, 14 at 15:06...See More- 17 years ago
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