Gardening by Mistake

I’ve had it with the starlings. They are greedy bullies. They haven’t been too bad until the past couple days with the snow. Now, they are here in large numbers and they chase and scare off the other birds. They scarf down food so quickly and they wastefully fling it around. If I don’t do something, their numbers will only continue to grow. Having seen some of the flocks around here, that’s a terrifying thought.

So, after wrestling with it for a while, I went ahead and ordered a trap. It’s a live trap and designed so that I can release any native birds that might get themselves caught. The sparrows and starlings, however, won’t be so lucky. Both of these species are invasive (not native to North America) and unprotected by state or federal law.  Both steal nests and both will (and do) destroy eggs of other species, peck nestlings to death and even the parents trying to protect them. I want to begin trying to get bluebirds (and other natives) to nest in my yard. I don’t want sparrows or starlings taking their nesting spots or destroying a nest with eggs.

The flicker is quite a shy bird but he came around a lot:

The Northern Mockingbird also stopped by, although I didn’t have any fruit out for it. If I’d known he was stopping by, I would have tried to have something for him.

A Carolina Wren has been enjoying several feeders and the suet.

And finally, a mourning dove:

When I got up this morning my husband said, “Go look out the kitchen window.” I did and was delighted to see a hawk. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to figure out what it is. My best educated guess is Northern Harrier, although my father thinks it’s a red-tailed hawk. It’s too bad that I couldn’t get better, sharper pictures of it. For one thing, I should have gotten all of its tail feathers in the image, and I didn’t. It’s clear, too, that the pictures were taken through the window. I opened the door to the deck quietly but as soon as I appeared (I was moving slowly), the hawk flew away. I felt bad about causing it to feel like it had to move.

I’m sure the hawks are keeping an eye on our feeding station. After last night’s blizzard, we’re bird central. The birds haven’t really had to contend with any snow until now. Our feeders have been popular. Even the normally shy mourning doves have been on the deck twice this morning. I threw out some chicken feed for them– and my dogs ate it. Silly dogs.

Here’s a picture showing the fence. Maybe that will give a bit of scale.

And my second surprise was a gift from  my husband: the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America. It was on my “wish list” for books, but he had had no idea of that. So now I have two excellent bird identification guides and, embarrassingly, I still can’t say for sure what this hawk is. Whatever it is, it’s on my list as bird #18 to my back yard this winter, joining the Yellow-shafted northern flicker, the Carolina wren, goldfinches and others as welcome visitors.

Growing it is still boring.

I’m up to 16 kinds of birds who’ve visited the feeders now. I don’t yet have pictures for several. But here are a few pictures:

Downy Woodpecker female

Blue jay and Red-bellied woodpecker

I’m going to give winter sowing a try this year. I was familiar with the idea but never particularly interested in it until a gardening friend talked me into it. I realized just this week that time had gotten away from me. It’s almost time to get started on the business, and I haven’t yet figured out exactly what I want to try. I am quite sure I’ll want to try more than I’ll be able to, so I’m going to have to do some prioritizing.

I still plan on growing plants over the winter using grow lights as I have other winters. I figure for this, I will do the perennials I really want to have for the garden this coming year and also any that I want to make sure will be mature enough to bloom over the summer rather than a small bloom at the end of the year (or no bloom at all) like many first year perennials.

I don’t yet have pictures of all my bird visitors. A new kind of bird shows up every day or two, which is exciting. My most recent visitors were the Carolina wren (a fiesty little guy!), two house finches, two tufted titmice, and two beautiful Yellow-shafted Northern Flickers. I know that these birds are all considered commonplace, but I’ve never seen most of them. So, each one is very exciting to me. They aren’t common place to me, at least not yet.

I’m having a great time taking pictures of my guests. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised at how well most pictures turn out even though they are through the window. I’ve even been surprised to find that the birds don’t mind the flash at all. (I don’t want to use the flash as it reflects off the window and into my picture, but sometimes it fires off even when I don’t intend for it to do so).

Here are just a few of my pictures.

One of my blue jays:

A male red-bellied woodpecker:

Red-bellied woodpecker

A male house finch:

Male purple finch

And, as my husband once referred to a squirrel, the face of evil:

The "Face of Evil" headed toward the bird food

In my usual fashion, I’ve gone full-tilt on my new interest of bird feeding/watching. It all started simply enough: two trays of food and a suet cake. That was about 3 weeks ago. My small bags of bird food that I started with were about out, so I got more today. And that is when things got crazy. I left the store with a cheap tube feeder, a nyjer sock, a cool metal mesh feeder, 2 suet cages and tons of seed. Oops. Then I got home and looked around, trying to figure out where it was all going to go so that I could still watch the birds as I have been from my couch. For now, I have things hanging on different ends of my plant racks, but it’s far from ideal. So, then I had the idea of creating a bird feeding station with a central stand from which arms extend and from which I can hang my various feeders. My wonderful husband went out and got the lumber and within the next couple of days, I’ll have a new bird feeding station to try out. I hope it works. I’ll be Bird Central with all the food I’ll be able to put out on it.

The goal of all these changes is to provide the seeds and foods that will attract everything that’s already visiting plus even more without attracting the (*&^! squirrels. If the starlings visit less, too, that won’t break my heart, either. The thing I mind most about them are their voracious appetites and, more importantly, that they crowd out the other birds. To that end, I’ve got bags of nothing but pure black oil sunflower seeds and safflower seeds that will appeal to most of my birds but not to squirrels or starlings (or so I read, anyway).  I hope I don’t end up limited to using only that because I like offering the mixes with the nut meats and fruits, too.  I’ve got a mix of stuff in the mesh feeder which will at least keep the squirrels out. The only thing that will attract the squirrels at present are the trays I started with and which are still out there for now.

I almost feel bad for my dogs. They’ve had tremendous fun and excitement with the many squirrel incursions. Every time we open the door to let the dogs out, they tear out full speed, ready for a chase.  Our more laid-back dog hasn’t had exercise like this in I don’t know how long!

Until this morning, only the downy woodpeckers had noticed and partaken of the suet. This morning, a female cardinal noticed. While all the other birds were competing for access to the seeds, she sat quietly next to the suet, eating happily. Some time later, I saw a female house sparrow had also discovered the suet.  Smart girls!

Interestingly, the red-bellied woodpecker has ignored the suet. His main interest is one of the nuts meats.

This is my first year making an effort to feed and watch birds. One year I did feed them but ended up feeding more squirrels than birds. Last year I ended up feeding only the cardinals. I had a flock of about 10 or 12 that were always on our around our deck. This year, though, I decided to get organized. Sort of. I don’t have a “real” bird feeder. Instead, I have a Rubbermaid container and a plant tray, both of which are sitting on the wire shelves of a plant stand along with a package of suet. This is just a few feet away from the couch in our family room, so I can watch the birds easily.

For the first week or so, there was nothing. Then a blue jay discovered the food and brought two of his friends. The three of them caught the attention of a male and female cardinal and then suddenly birds starting coming from all over. So far, we’ve had about 3 male and 2 female cardinals, two nuthatches, a house wren, at least one Carolina chickadee and Black-Capped chickadee, a male and female house finch, a red-bellied woodpecker and two downy woodpeckers.

I’ve been taking pictures through the window, from the warm comfort of the house. Surprisingly, the flash hasn’t bothered the birds, although it does wreak havoc with my pictures. I wanted to post some pictures here, but I’m having trouble with that. Perhaps soon.