Gold(finch) Rush

Have you noticed your thistle feeders being drained at an alarming rate the last couple weeks? American Goldfinches are just now raising their broods. And anecdotal evidence shows that they are becoming an extremely successful species, so there are lots of little beaks to feed! The reason they wait until late summer to breed is that their primary food supply in nature is thistle (nyjer if you buy it in bags). They are also quite fond of the down from the thistle to line their little nests with. That plant doesn't have seed until this time of year in the Goldfinch's breeding range.

As you can see from the photo, I always let some of the volunteer sunflowers grow around my feeders in the spring so there are also plenty of sunflower seeds for them. They love those, as well. If you look closely, you can see one of the males hanging over the top edge of a flower to get to a tasty seed. This is sort of a "Where's Waldo?" excercise, though, since the male American Goldfinches are just about the color of a sunflower!

You can continue your scavenger hunt of the photo to find the House Sparrows, the House Finches and the female Goldfinches all over the shot. When I accidently thumped the window with my camera, the sky around the feeders turned brown with birds! So keep your feeders full for the finches!

The Fungus Among Us

Ok, so this isn't technically a fungus. It's a slime mold - and it's not even quite a mold for that matter. In fact, their classification, it turns out, is quite a topic of debate among scientists who debate such things (ewww). They are affectionately known as "dog vomit mold" as well . . . further explanation unnecessary. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on them. I believe what we are seeing is Dictyosteliida .

Why am I putting such disgusting looking things on a birding blog? Well, these crazy things kept me from my favorite birding location for about a week in the last month. I have always had pretty serious mold allergies, but over the past 10 years or so my allergies and asthma have been almost an afterthought they are so mild. We have been seeing these things growing in our mulch most of the summer - it's been unusually wet. I hadn't given them much thought - they were an interesting curiosity and I just assumed they were a fungus and nothing to be alarmed about - they didn't seem to bother any of my flowers or other plantings. Then one night while I was lying on the swing, I had a very sudden onset of severe allergy symptoms and an asthma attack that was the scariest in probably 20 years! It even scared the kids. Fortunately, my inhaler opened me back up pretty quickly.

There had been 2 or 3 molds that had gone to "spore" stage right there by the swing. I had left them because I figured trying to clean them up in this powdery form would just spread them more. The dogs had broken them open, though, which causes a brown cloud of spores to release every time they are touched. We contacted our local Ag Extension Agent, who confirmed they are essentially harmless to plants and the best thing to do is scoop them up to get rid of them. Also, the best way to prevent them is to keep the mulch raked, which aerates it to prevent the growing conditions.

I made sure I was not even near home when my husband cleaned them out. I am now very cautious around them. The series of pictures here is of one that started yesterday and was ready to release spores tonight! It's a very cool process where the single cell organisms signal chemically that they have run out of food, they all collect together into an amoeba like state called a slug, "build" ladders out of themselves so the top organisms can release spores up (a whole 2 mm) higher. This process is what has the rapt attention of so many scientists.

My husband has now very dutifully (and carefully) removed them from the mulch around my favorite birding spot. Back to birding!

All-You-Can-Eat Cooper's Hawk Buffet

So many things to cover since the last post - right before a crazy month of vacation and weekend trips. But, for now, we will talk about the natural circle of life that might be going on right at your feeders. We all know that the neighborhood cat can be a threat to your backyard birds, but did you know there is a threat from the air, as well? Both the Cooper's Hawk and the Sharp-Shinned Hawk will prey on backyard birds. A pile of feathers near your feeder with no sign of a carcass is a tell-tale sign your feeders were visited by one of these birds of prey. The good news is that if they are hanging around for the birds, they may also be reducing your population of small rodents and other mammals and maybe even snakes.

The Cooper's Hawk is larger and especially known for raiding poultry yards - so it's not always the fox's fault! Your grandmother may have called them a Chicken Hawk, in fact. I always remember the Sharp-Shinned from the Cooper's by the alliterative trick of the S's in its name - it is Smaller and has a Squared tail. The Cooper's has a Curved tail. Other than those two things, they look remarkably alike in their markings. Don't be fooled by the color in this photo my Mom took at her backyard feeder this weekend. Photos frequently cause much debate amongst birders because colors can be so strongly affected by the ambient light, the camera settings, and in this case, the fact that the photo was taken through a screen. But the key reason this one is brown is because it is a first year juvenile. According to both Sibley's and Stokes, the 1st years of both Hawks are brown on the back and their eyes are not yet the distinctive red. What Bird does not show juveniles. The adults are much more slate gray on the back and rustier mottled brown on the front. Look for the distinctive horizontal dark and white streaks with the white stripe on the end of the tail of either bird, juvenile or adult.

Fledglings!

I just watched the birds fledge right before my eyes! I went to take a photo of their progress today. After I took the first one, I went to move another branch for a better look. That startled two of them and they flew (sort of) into the bush squawking at me. Then the third startled as I tried to take another photo, leaving one rather smashed and confused looking baby in the nest! I only wish I had been using a video camera to capture it. I am really glad it happened this way. If I had gone out one day to find an empty nest, I would be really worried that the babies became victims instead of fledglings. This way I know exactly what happened. They are quite safe in the bush - it is big and has lots of great hiding places. Their parents will be able to locate them by their squawking. Now, to try to find them out and about to finally confirm they are Song Sparrows. It could be easier now because they will follow their parents around. When they are in the nest, mom and dad are not going to get caught there when they know we are around. It risks giving away the location of the nest to predators.

My! How They Have Grown!

I wasn't able to get photos over the holiday weekend. They look like totally different birds now! They are covered with feathers - and finally some brown ones to support the theory they are Song Sparrows. These guys look like they will be at least jumping up onto the edge of the nest as early as tomorrow or the next day. Stay tuned!

Baby Birds - Day 4

WOW! They are just growing like weeds! (sorry for the cliche) Oh, and by the way, I didn't count beaks correctly that first day. When I went back to zoom in closer on the first photos, there were only 4 then, so we haven't lost one. I am having serious doubts about the Song Sparrow theory, though. They are just so gray. The field guides aren't very helpful with juveniles - especially pre-fledgling. My Sibley's does show that the juvenile Eastern Song Sparrow has a lot of gray on its back compared to the adult. So, it still could be the Song Sparrow I saw coming and going from the nest area.

Baby Bird Update - Day 3

I plan to check on the birds as often as I can so we can see how they grow. I expect they will fledge after the long weekend coming up - notice the little wing feathers they are already growing! Oh - and a tip: when you are going to go into a juniper bush to take a photo of a nest - wear long pants and long sleeves! The needles must have something really irritating on them - we come out with stinging bumps all over any place that contacted the bush.

Baby Barn Swallows and the "Baby Answer"

From contributing Blogger, Nancy Baney

While several family members were visiting last evening, including my niece from Boston who had just arrived, my husband noticed baby birds on the edge of the neighbor's roof. We first thought they were tree swallows but soon identified them as young barn swallows after grabbing the binoculars. The parents were flying over the meadow catching insects and bringing them to the young. What a fun event to watch!

My five year old granddaughter was fascinated and even grabbed the camera after I was finished. Because she dared to walk over closer to take a picture, my niece was able to get a nice close picture of the three sitting all in a row.

They did not seem to care about us being there and the parents continued to feed as we watched and took pictures. We were not even being very quiet.

My seven year old granddaughter came out and looked then went back in to finish reading her Aunt Kristin's blog about the babies in the nest she had found.

Update from Kristin on the Baby Birds....

And

The

Baby

Birds

Are.....

Song Sparrows!

We have both been proven wrong!

Everytime I watch the bush, I see one coming up out of the bush and singing to me. Make sure you listen to the song on the What Bird link above. It can vary in the pitches, but it is a really strong song for such a little bird! This nest does fit the description for their nesting habits. I don't have a picture of one in my files that I can find - they are little more shy than a Chipping Sparrow and a LOT more shy than a House Sparrow. I did get some more photos, though. In the first one I intentionly left my hand in the shot for a size reference. Then they opened their beaks hoping I was bringing dinner! I will try to get some more photos of them as they grow - they can fledge in just 10 days, so they are growing really fast.

Guess That Baby Bird!

While cleaning out our gi-nourmous juniper bush row today, my husband found a nest, complete with 5 tiny little babies in it. The nest is too neat and too small, and probably too low to the ground to be a robin's nest. We didn't have any birds swooping down on us for going near the nest, either.

So, time to do some detective work. Based on the birds we have on our property and the size, location and type of nest, my Mom and I started narrowing it down. She has a really good book of nests to help, Peterson Field Guides - Eastern Bird's Nests. I quickly ruled out Chipping Sparrow, House Sparrow and Carolina Chickadee because they all like to put lots of soft stuff in the lining - there was none in this nest. The Carolina Wren was ruled out, too. Nuthatches are cavity-nesters. We are down to the following possibilities: Catbird, Indigo Bunting and Cardinal. Mom is betting it's the Indigo Bunting.

So now we watch and wait. I don't face that area much when I am birding, but I will have to watch that area now to see what type of birds come and go from that area. All bird ID methods fail when looking at little pink finger-like things with a little slate gray fuzz on them! If we get it figured out - I'll post it.

The Birds and the "B" Key

My husband works in software. Today was a "system test" day, so he decided to have the team come to our house and set up on long tables under our 3 giant oak trees to reduce the tedium of system testing. It was a great idea and everyone seemed to like the tranquility of our property and the chance to get away from the distractions at the office.

Unfortunately, though, one of the women on the team got an early indoctrination to our wildlife habitat. Shortly after they set up under the trees, a bird did its business overhead, which landed right on the "B" key of her laptop! Yuk! From the reports, she was good-humoured about it at least.

While we were shooting the breeze outside with the last person here, I heard what sounded like a playful child scream, not a mad or getting-hurt scream. My younger son even play-screamed back, thinking that's what it was. Right after that, a Red-Headed Woodpecker flew over my shoulder towards the woods I was facing! I have that on my life-list, so I immediately recognized it, but it was the first time I had seen one on our property! Cool!

If you listen to its voice on the What Bird site link to it above, you will see what I mean about a child screaming! My mom reports the first time she saw and heard these was a large flock of them apparently migrating. Imagine 100 or more of those voices all together. WOW!

Of Owls, Baby Birds and Kids

Well, I finally gave up watching for my Barred Owl tonight. It is so light this time of evening still, I was sure I could find him when I heard him already out. They are just so stealthy, though, they are really tough to find. In the meantime, I got to hear and see quite a healthy new brood of Titmice and their raucous squeaking. They just make such a fuss at feeding time! They follow mom and dad around from the feeder to the dogwoods and back into the woods - all making enough noise to make sure they are the next one fed.

Speaking of kids, we took our older son up to Purdue today for a computer camp - such sacrifices a mother will make for her child! (I'm a 2-time IU grad). It was so cool, because on the way to his Aunt's house up there, I pointed out a Meadowlark on a wire. Both kids were so excited. My older son said "well, there's another one I can cross off my list!" Now, mind you, I don't think he has ever put a single mark down in his field guide - but I bet he has the entire list in his head! He's kinda like a computer himself! I really enjoy sharing my love of birds with the kids. It has helped make them more aware of the natural world around them - and respect for it.

Getting them interested can be done with some easy birdwatching. A hummingbird feeder is a great start. They are really easy to attract with a simple feeder and a solution of 1 cup of water with 1/4 cup of plain white sugar dissolved in it. No need for fancy store-bought blends (and DO NOT add food coloring! - they don't need it and it may actually be harmful). Here east of the Mississippi, we only have the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, but they are great to watch. The nice thing about these is that it is pretty safe for the birds to put the feeders right near a window where kids can watch from inside. This is key when they are young because it is hard for little ones to stay still and quiet enough to watch birds outside. They are just too wiggly for birds (and some people!) to be around.

Here are some fun facts to get kids interested:

• get a frozen pea out of the freezer and tell them that is the size of their eggs!
• they can fly forward, backward and hover - like a helicopter
• just like bees, they feed on the the nectar of flowers
• they eat twice as much nectar a day as they weigh!

Once you get them watching the hummingbirds, it's on to other feeder birds like the Northern Cardinal and the Chickadee! Soon, you will have a little bird-watcher in your home! Have fun keeping a list (of words or pictures) of all the birds you have spotted together.

Well, it's been a long time between posts. Not that there hasn't been any birding action here. We have just been busy outside with all the good weather. I actually enjoy being serenaded by all the birds while I work outside. The excitement of migration season is over. Probably my favorite bird this spring - even though it's hard to pick, would be the Indigo Bunting. They hang around here all year and I sometimes hear them calling during the summer. They seem to only show up at the feeders in the spring, though. They must be really hungry after migration. Once food is plentiful, they shy away from the feeders. I found one at the feeder along with a Red Bellied Woodpecker and Gold Finches.

The same must be true of the Baltimore Orioles. They haven't been back since that week or so they were eating from the suet. I even put a little jelly feeder you can see in the photo out for them. My husband claims that by "rolling out the red carpet," I actually scared them away! However, there is strong evidence by serious birders that they actually have a pattern of what they prefer to eat during the various parts of the year. I imagine that, like the indigo bunting, they need pretty dense nutrition sources right after migration. The raisins in suet would be just the ticket. Sort of like a Power Bar for athletes.

I have many more photos and from the spring. More to come soon. Oh, AND, before I forget, our little tail-less wonder wren is finally growing his tail back - it is ALMOST normal length, but I can still tell when he is here from his tail.

Of Tail-less Wonders, Orioles and Hummingbirds

We have christened the Carolina Wren the "Tail-less wonder." He seems to get around just fine and I was actually able to catch a photo of him just before he hopped up onto the suet feeder. This is what a Wren doesn't look like!

We saw our first lone Ruby-Throated Hummingbird at the feeder yesterday - he looked so skinny from the migration. I know, I know, they are so diminutive, how could you possibly tell he was skinny? It just looked thin compared to what I last remember in the Fall right before they migrated. Now we are virtually overrun with hummingbirds, chirping at each other and chasing each other around. I got a photo of one right above me in the corkscrew willow tonight.

And this next photo is totally aimed at making my Dad jealous :) He has tried everything to get Baltimore Orioles to his feeders. I got one to come to my standard feeder - not even the special Oriole feeder with the jelly and the orange half! You can just see him flying away as I finally snapped out of my awe to grab my camera. He actually went for the suet feeder, which at first I couldn't figure out - they aren't really known as nut eaters. They love fruit, berries, etc. Then it dawned on me. To fill out a full order of the suet I usually order, the Wild Birds Unlimited owner gave me a cake of the Nuts and Raisins. I usually don't buy that because the woodpeckers leave the raisins behind and they go to waste. I had just put a new cake in last night of the Naturally Nuts. The raisins, as usual, were left in the bottom from the previous cake. I just left them there. That's what the Oriole was going for! They were all gone, so I put out some more from my personal stash. He has been back since to get them. So, Dad, just throw some raisins in your feeder and they will come!

Wren Update

Well, ever since our Carolina Wren fiasco, I have been watching expectantly for signs that it survived our rescue attempt. I keep putting my binoculars on the Wrens that come to my feeders hoping to see some sign that it is the one we rescued from the sticky trap. I have focused on the feet, the wings, the beak, hoping to see some missing feathers somewhere. Tonight, I was looking at the one at the feeder, noticing that even its tail looked fine. . . wait a minute, it had a tail!!!! Suddenly, it dawned on me that I had been seeing one with no tail!!!

So, tonight after my run, I sat on the bench in the back watching and listening. Then I heard the male singing in the woods and clearly saw another one in the dogwood by the feeders. So, I had established that we still had a pair hanging out . . . now if I could only spot the male without a tail. Suddenly, a Wren with something in its beak flew across from one set of woods to another . . . and it had no tail! Mystery solved. What a relief. Our little Wren survived! And he could fly pretty well, even with a bunch of material in his beak for a nest.

I will try to get a snapshot of him soon to post!

Turkey Vultures and Black Cats

Ok, so I am struggling to get back into good running condition this Spring. I had a good run Monday night, though, so I figured tonight should be pretty good, too. I get 2/3 of the way into it and I am totally struggling to make myself keep going. Then, what should appear overhead - no more that 25 feet up? A Turkey Vulture swooping over me! I could see every distinctive marking on it. The whitish color under the back half of the wings and tail, the red head, the legs. I see them circling high over farm fields around here all the time. But this one seemed to be mocking me! He was just waiting to see if I was going to end up dinner!

To make matters worse, as I continued around the corner, the neighbor's black cat decided to cross the road in front of me. I am not extremely superstitious, but I did get enough superstition from my great grandmother on my Dad's side to seriously consider calling off the rest of the run at that point!

On a brighter note, I had a White-Crowned Sparrow at my feeder tonight. They are just gorgeous. If you see one, the first thing you will notice is that its head looks like it has zebra stripes on it. They are truly striking to look at. I didn't get a photo - in fact I knocked my camera on the floor grabbing for my binoculars (yikes!). But if you click on the link above, it will take you to the What Bird description of it. They aren't year-round residents here. They pass through on the way to their Canadian breeding territory, but I see them at the feeders at least once a year.

Oh, and I was able to finish my run with no great calamity befalling me.....for now!

Grosbeaks at My Feeders

This morning I had a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak pair at my feeders. I had positively identified a female one yesterday with my Mom (they can easily be mistaken for an overgrown sparrow!). We could then hear the male in the woods, but never found him. Today, he not only came to the feeders with the female, he posed for a photo for me! They seem to like the safflower seed in the hopper feeder. Actually, the male liked to scrape around in the tray feeder for dropped safflower seeds more. The males have really striking markings.


So what kinds of birds can you expect if you have feeders in your backyard? Well, if you live in a suburban area in Southern Indiana and put out a variety of feeders, including nuts and suet, you can attract quite a variety. If you live in a rural area with some sort of water and woods nearby, the list is longer. I have 122 birds on my life list and 56 of them have been right here in my yard or on the lake. I'm working on getting that list on the blog.


What do I mean by a variety of seeds? Well, I have a feeder specifically for the finches that I keep nijer seed in. I have two different suet feeders, one upright "tail prop" feeder and an upside down one. My woodpeckers are particularly fond of the Naturally Nuts suet from Wild Birds Unlimited. Of all the ones I have tried, it attracts the most variety of woodpeckers: Downies, Hairies, Red-Bellied, and Flickers. Other birds like Chickadees and Titmice like it, too.


A basic hopper feeder with a blend of sunflower, safflower, and black oil sunflower seeds attracts a wide variety of birds. Everything from Sparrows (English, Chipping, Song) to Wrens (House and Carolina) to Cardinals. If you live in a rural area or at least in a suburb near the rural areas, it may be worth trying an oriole feeder. It usually has a place to put some grape jelly and a spike to put an orange half on. We get Orioles here, but I have never actually seen them come to the feeder yet. Of course, anywhere you live you could attract hummingbirds with a hummingbird feeder. Don't bother buying the commercial food. I just microwave a cup of water to 1/4 cup of sugar to dissolve it, let it cool and pour it in. NEVER add food coloring. It isn't necessary and there are some who believe it might even be harmful to the birds. The bright color of the feeders will attract them.


Wow! I now have two Grosbeaks here at once, as I write this! That's a first for me. This is what is fun about feeding birds. Research shows that even birds that frequent feeders still get the majority of their food from natural sources. There isn't any danger of them becoming dependent on the feeder food. The primary reason to feed them is to get a chance to see them up close instead of having to search them out far and wide (and high up in the trees!). I frequently just sit at my kitchen table watching them at the feeders.

Confession of a Carolina Wren Lover

I love Carolina Wrens. In fact, it was discovering them around our home in the country when we first moved here that got me hooked on backyard birding. They are so elegantly shaped. They look like they would fit nicely in a teacup. They have that beautiful streak above their eyes and the reddish brown coloring on their backs. I hear their calls all the time when I am working in my yard, "Teakettle! Teakettle! Teakettle!" We have had many stories over the years involving them ---- mostly getting into our house when we open the front door and they are nestled into a decorative wreath on the door! One Christmas, we got one in the house twice. One time, we had two in the house at the same time. You know what they say, a bird in the wreath is worth two in the house! Hmmmm....maybe I have that saying wrong.

Well, this spring they have been hanging out a lot in the big Hemlock just outside our garage. There have been multiple times I have seen them in the garage this spring. They seem quite adept at finding their way back out, so I don't worry too much about it. Tonight, as my husband was heading out for his bike ride, he came back into the house, poked his head through the kitchen door and said, "we have a situation." My first thought was that there was an unwelcome critter in our garage . . . not a totally unusual event out here. It was a Carolina Wren. Unfortunately, even though we have switched to a humane mouse trap, we still had some of the terrible glue traps sitting on the bins I keep the birdseed in. One of my sweet little wrens was stuck on it!!!! It was horrific. We grabbed a clean shop towel to put over his head to keep him calm. I held him while my husband gently, carefully pried him off the trap. He settled down as long as we had the towel over his eyes. We ended up having to use a little vegetable oil to free the one wing that was pretty stuck.

I checked him out to make sure his feet and bill weren't too sticky. He was anxious to get away. I hated to let him go back out into the world, but he seemed in pretty good shape. I put him under the Hemlock where there's a bunch of dead leaves from the fall still. He flapped about, then scurried to a bush by our front door. I tried to keep an eye on him but he eventually disappeared. I really hope he's ok because I feel horrible that we try to keep our property as a haven for the birds and it almost became a death trap! We promptly threw away our remaining glue traps in the garage to prevent another tragedy.

A word to the wise, even traps that are poison free can have dangerous consequences for unintended critters.

A Heron in My Tree

I have always thought Herons and other large water birds like Egrets, look a bit out of place in a tree. They are just huge compared to the other perching birds! Anyway, the other night when I was trying (once again) to catch a snapshot of a Blue Jay "stealing" a peanut from the feeder by my back porch, I noticed our one of our resident Great Blue Herons flying low across the lake. They are usually pretty reclusive and keep to the island at one end of the lake. We have seen them a lot more this year - even wading just off the shore behind our house. Then I saw it. There was a large gray blob in a tree at the edge of the woods! It was the back of a Great Blue Heron perching in one of our trees! They are so funny looking from that angle. They sort of remind me of Snoopy sitting on the edge of his dog house assuming his "vulture" pose!

Ours must not vocalize very much. I listened to the vocals on the What Bird site - never heard them before. What I do hear now when the window is open at night is the little peeper frogs. They have arrived now with the warmer weather. I am sure the Herons must love the frogs here. We have always had a large, healthy population of frogs here. We also have a slew of crayfish, which my Peterson Field Guide says is also part of their diet.

Speaking of sounds in the night - I heard the Barred owl again this morning around 5:40. Wanna know why I was awake at 5:40 this morning? We had a 5.2 magnitude earthquake here! Yes, right here in Indiana! I actually bought earthquake insurance many years ago because we live well within range of the New Madrid fault system. This one came from a nearby adjacent fault to the New Madrid. Anyway, I lay there after jumping out of bed from that jolting experience and listened to the owl for awhile. It's nice to know they like to hang around our place. I love knowing we provide a home to so much wildlife. Our place is a refuge for us from the everyday rush of life, and it provides refuge to wildlife from the rapid pace of development.

Well - tomorrow I'll put more whole peanuts in the feeder and try to get a shot of the sneaky Blue Jays and do a post on them. Oh, and for any who have checked out the Falcon Blog link here, they are expecting eggs to start hatching next week, so stay tuned!

Robin Feeder in Training

A pair of Robins in my Dad’s neighborhood have him trained. Each night one of them is waiting near the door to the screened in porch for him to put out the meal worms for them. He bought meal worms to attract Bluebirds, but none came. Knowing that Robins eat about fourteen feet of worms a day, he decided to see if they liked the meal worms. They gobbled them down as soon as they discovered them and kept coming back for more. He puts out about 30 of them each night in a plastic feeder tray on the ground. You have to use plastic so the meal worms can't crawl out. You can keep them in the fridge for weeks in their dormant state - though I suspect Dad's Robins go through them too fast to worry about it! Even though the Robins fly away when he goes out the door, they come right back for more as soon as he goes back in. He enjoys sitting inside and watching the Robins eat. He also scares off any other birds that try to steal the worms. The Robins usually build a nest nearby, so last year he watched them fill their mouths with as many worms as they could hold and fly away to feed their babies. This year they came back about 2 weeks ago. Off Dad went to buy more meal worms. Yep, they have him trained. (story contributed by Nancy Baney)

Here, Birdy, Birdy, Birdy, Birdy!

The Bluebirds (click the link to go the WhatBird site and learn about the Eastern Bluebird) have been hanging out around here for a couple weeks now. The first night I heard their call, I ran into the garage and selected my favorite dried out gourd, cut a 1 1/2" opening in the front, along with some vent holes at the top, cleaned it out and hung it on a post close to the woods. I did one last year, too. We ended up with a house wren in it, which was perfectly fine, but what I had really hoped for was a bluebird.

Want to try your own gourd house? Most farm markets will have decorative gourds in the late summer to fall. You can put them in a decorative arrangement on your porch for the fall, then when you are done with it, store it in a cool, well ventilated place for the winter. I tried hanging them from under my balcony two winters ago. That didn't go too well. They got knocked down by the winter storms, which broke several of them. I ended up with one good one by the end of the winter.

The bonus was that apparently some of them left their seeds behind in my landscaping! More likely, a greedy chipmunk collected them and buried them there. Anyway, the next spring, I noticed something growing in my new landscaping that looked a little like a squash or cucumber plant. Curious - and because I hadn't planted anything in that area yet - I let it grow. Then it got curiouser and curiouser, as they say. It started developing white blooms. Still convinced it may be a squash or a melon, I started pinching many of the blooms to force the energy into the few fruits I let grow. And WOW! did they grow! The vines completely took over that tier of my landscaping - stretching at least 20 feet with multiple vines. I ended up with a bumper crop of very cool decorative gourds. After they had hardened off (the stem starts to die away from the vine), I brought them into my garage workbench.

The key is to keep plenty of air around them (don't bunch them up) and to remove any that start rotting to the compost pile immediately. It's sort of the rotten apple effect. One bad one will start them all rotting in short order. Don't worry about surface mold or other icky stuff. That brushes right off with a stiff brush once they are dried. Only worry about the spots that go through the skin. The tops of the gourds near the stem seem to be the most susceptible to rot. Some people say they will stink up a garage or basement. I have never noticed any smell, but our garage gets a good airing out every time we open the door for a car.

By the time you hear your first soft warble of a bluebird call the next spring, they should be ready to cut. I use a hole cutting bit on our drill to do the trick. It would be ideal if you have a 1 1/2" hole bit, but we happen to have a 1" bit, so I use that and then a file and a measuring tape to open up the hole to 1 1/2". Don't go any bigger than that, because even if a small bird such as a wren or a bluebird were to take up residence there, a Cowbird could get in and lay her eggs for the poor little bluebird to raise! Place the gourd somewhere out of the way of the daily activity in your yard, but make sure you have a vantage point to get your binoculars on the entrance to see who is using it! I spent hours last year watching the wren pair raise two nestings.

Whatever type of house you use to attract the birds, enjoy watching what devoted parents they are as they come and go feeding their young. I especially like that most birds share the baby-rearing duties almost completely evenly! Their survival usually depends on it.

My Friend the Barred Owl

It's that time of year again. The windows are open at night and I can hear the wonderful night sounds from our woods. It reminds me of sleeping in our camper in the Hoosier National Forest when I was growing up. We went to sleep the other night listening to a Barred Owl. The owl seems to like the top of a very old Sycamore tree that got broken off decades ago. We suspect a pair nests there, but have never been able to prove it. It started as a loud call right outside our window in the area of that tree. Then a couple minutes of silence. The frogs haven't come out yet this year. Then another call from a little further away around the edge of the lake. Then another pause. Then a little further around the lake. "Whoo cooks for you - Whoo cooks for you-aaaallll?" That's how you tell the Barred Owl.

This morning, when it was still very quiet, I could hear two talking back and forth. One just outside my window on the other side of the woods from the Sycamore tree, calling a shortened version of the call, and another from across the lake answering with the full call. How sweet! They finish each other's sentences. But that's how it is when you have a mate for life, isn't it? I think that is why I enjoy observing nature so much. There is so much we can learn about ourselves - the good, the bad and the ugly - from the natural environment around us.

Well, it's time to call it a night and listen for my owl again. I am looking forward to posting to this blog - I hope you enjoy it, too.