Suzanne you left out the part about: The brown stinky stuff in the road you just ran over is manure either from the dairy farm down the road or the neighbor's horses. Great fertilizer also but it IS messy when it's thrown from tractor tires or it falls off the truck during transport. Don't put the top down on your cute little car and don't call to complain about it either. Welcome to the country. For Eagle fans here's a link for you. Click on live Eagle cam and enjoy. Here is a link that might be useful: Eagle Cam

I was in the 2003-2004 master gardener class at Middlesex County. All of the counties offer something a little different so if you are not looking at Middlesex County this will not apply. The classes are every Friday morning for almost the whole year. After the classes are done you need to complete a large number of volunteer hours as payback (60 or more). You also have to do a collection project which they didn't tell us about until the end of the class. To maintain your certification you have to do 25 volunteer hours a year and get 10 educational hours per year. The educational credits are regulated so this can be hard if you can't attend/afford extension approved classes. The positives at Middlesex is you learn a lot. They mostly use extension agents and people involved with Cook College. I enjoyed the collection project but I would have preferred to learn about it earlier than we did. Also several of my classmates were not certified because they couldn't get this done. The negatives for me (and these are probably very personal) that a lot of stuff at Middlesex takes place during the day. The classes are during the day and a lot of the volunteer opportunities are during the day. I work full time so volunteer opportunities are hard for me. I have figured out enough to do with greenhouse work (preparing for our huge plant sale) and such but it can be hard figuring it all out. If you have specific questions and want to know more send me an E-mail. -- Maria

I fully agree. I have a pair of birds apparently nesting somewhere on my property that I frequently see mating (or snagging birds from my birdfeeder. . . .) that I can't get close enough to with my binoculars to readily identify. Although I have fairly positively identified Coopers as being around, this pair could be either species. What's interesting is that I also have mated pairs of both Red Tails & Red Shoulders on the property, & the 3 pairs are always bickering between themselves. Even the crows won't get involved when they're going at it - lol!

For the last two years, I've been experimenting with methods used to deter hawks. I wanted to see if any particular method worked better than another and, I was hoping to find their achilles heel so I could perhaps create a method that would help people who want to enjoy the critters in their yard. I did this for not only songbirds but mammals, such as rabbits. I found that tape, for the hawks here, did nothing. I didn't try CD's but I would think they'd have little effect on a seasoned hunter. I tried that easily torn regular bird netting and fishing line. This did deter bigger hawks like a redtail or goshawk and definitely eagles. It did nothing to deter male coopers hawks, peregrines or sharp shins, assuming they could find a tiny gap between pieces of netting. Now if you get the holes small enough with the fishing line, it could have an effect but a quickier and easier alternative would be the aviary bird netting. I bought some on amazon. It's very strong, and the holes are 2" x 2" which is too small for any hawk to enter. That did deter them, as long as the netting completely covers everywhere the prey animal is located. So basically, a barrier is needed since gadgets used to 'frighten' or 'confuse' don't usually work. A bigger hawk, like a redtail, could possibly go crashing into the netting and if it isn't stuck in it, it would not only ruin your set-up, it would probably kill the prey but redtails here tend to avoid netting. For smaller mammals like rabbits, I recommend burying the surface of a solid corrugated pipe at least a few inches deep from the surface, not in a low spot where water can sit and possibly get in an entrance, covering up with the soil and putting a brush pile over top. Hide entrances in shrubs if possible. Make sure the pipe is pretty long at least 12 feet but preferably 18 ft or longer as hawks will try to flush the rabbits and this is less likely if pipes are longer. If you have larger mature rabbits in the area, I'd recommend you buy 8" if offered, or split the 6" pipe (that's the only size pipe our stores offer) and open it up a bit before burying, to allow a bigger rabbit entry. If trying to protect a small dog or other small animal, I'd definitely go with chicken wire whenever possible but otherwise, the aviary bird netting is strong and on a strong frame, should deter most attacks. It's also black which makes it blend in much better than chicken wire. I've tried water guns, nerf guns, clapping and yelling. Yelling is very effective if you see a hawk chasing down prey. It distracts them for a moment and the prey gets away but given you'd have to be monitoring constantly, that's not practical. But if you see it, a great big 'hey!' usually is enough to break up the chase. Nerfs work but again, you have to be there constantly. Recordings of owls or a peregrine falcon will work but usually only on juvenile hawks. I've buried pipe but found the pipe wasn't long enough and wasn't hidden well enough. All the hawk has to do is be able to put a talon at the opening of the pipe and the rabbits or whatever small animal is hiding, will flush from cover that the hawk couldn't possibly have accessed. So best protect entrances with brush or a large stone. In conclusion, hawks will go where the food is. They are also capable of retaliation when they think you're trying to stop them (confirmed by a falconer and my own experiences) and will try that much harder to thwart you. The best thing is to not concentrate any animal or bird to avoid attracting them and if you do decide to feed, hide feeders or mammals/buried pipe under trees and shrubs before they discover it because once you get on their radar, it takes a couple of years for them to forget you.