Camping in the Great Outdoors

Well, maybe not so great, but outdoors anyway. Last week my daughter decided she wanted to sleep outside in our backyard. Since we have a reasonably large backyard, a large tent, and a queen size air bed, I figured what the heck. My husband tucked us in with our popcorn, flashlight, and a Little House on the Prairie book, and said, "See ya in a couple of hours." He figured she'd either get bored or scared and that we'd be back inside soon. Not so...we spent all night out there where I discovered that the Anderson dairy plant a block down the street is very loud and that it's darn cold at night in late September.

Because it is almost the end of September, I asked her if she wanted to sleep outside one more time before we put the tent away. That would be how we wound up sleeping outside last night after we got back from D&D, this time with the Little House book and flashlight but no popcorn. And this time we discovered that the best part about sleeping in a tent in the backyard is having access to a long extension cord and a space heater.

At any rate, while we were out there last night, Evie noticed how many stars there are out here at night. Okay, so every constellation she sees is "the Big Dipper", but every astronomer has to start somewhere, right? And while I was trying to get to sleep, I heard an owl. Actually, I heard a screeching, and then an answering "hoo hooooo" series of calls, repeatedly. Kind of nice to know we have owls living nearby, probably in the large trees overlooking the creek behind the neighbors, at least from the sounds of it. After poking around a bit online, I think what I heard was a Great Horned Owl answering its owlet's screeches for food. Pretty nifty. Some night when it's not so chilly out and my kid is sleeping, maybe I'll go out and sit and see if I can spot any other wildlife out there. Apparently tonight while Todd was sitting outside, he was buzzed by a bat...but we already knew we had bats in the area, so while it was a cool encounter, it wasn't really unexpected. Wonder what else we have hanging about in the yard?

Birdies Birdies Everywhere

Today was apparently the Day of the Birds around here!

Last week, a gal posted on PDXBackyardChix that she had three "escape artist" hens she needed to rehome. She got an offer in Oregon City, but she lives not too far from me, and that's a long ways from where we are. I happened to see the post then, and offered to take the girls to enhance my flock. They were delivered today; two Buff Orpington girls and a little game hen which apparently lays bluish eggs. They will be added to my three Buff Orpingtons and one Rhode Island Red tonight after dark. (Mama and the four chicks are still sequestered, but they will be integrated eventually as well.)

While I was chatting with the gal and her husband, I happened to glance over and saw a flailing thing in the potted fuschia. I thought at first it was a mouse, but it turned out to be one of the baby House Sparrows which had fallen out of the nest. Its eyes were not yet open, it was not feathered at all, and it was chilled. I picked it up, and with the help of the chicken folks, tried to put it back in the nest. I got it back inside, but after the folks left I watched the Mama Sparrow try to figure out how to get past the baby and into the nest, so I decided to work on it some more.

I got up onto a ladder (NOT my first choice in any event) and took down the nest. I didn't think the lid came off, but the little neighbor girl suggested undoing the main screw on the front, and lo and behold, the lid does come off. The nest box was literally stuffed to the rafters with dry grasses, moss, and feathers. Turns out it was a good thing I opened it up; the actual nest cavity was in the very back of the house, with a little tunnel leading to it. The baby would never have made it back that far, and I'm not entirely certain how it got out. I pulled some of the nesting out, picked up the little escapee, and snuggled it back into the nest with its siblings. I got Todd to rehang it, and I've seen Mama bird coming in and out of the nest, probably trying to figure out how all her babies got upside down and why the house is such a mess. Hopefully all is well inside the nest tonight!

House Sparrows

Apparently my yard is ideal House Sparrow breeding ground. Well, given how prolific they are in general and how adaptable, I'm not sure that's any great distinction, but it's certainly no less true. On the eaves of my front porch there is a battered old bird house, which came with the house when we bought it. The former owners said the bird house was occupied every year, but they didn't know what kind of birds used it. Early this spring, I found out it was a pair of House Sparrows. And now months later, they're still using it.

So far, I've seen them hatch out three clutches of eggs. The last clutch fledged a few days ago, and I happened to step out onto the porch just as one of the babies was contemplating a maiden flight. I tried to be quiet and unobtrusive, but those words are not in the vocabulary of my four year old daughter. The sparrow ended up leaping from the little landing pad on the birdhouse and taking wobblingly to the air, aiming towards the dogwood tree. It made it to the tree, and after crashing through the leaves, it did manage to land. I tried not to laugh, and I was glad it looked like it would be okay.

Not too long after that, I started hearing the peeping sound I've come to realize means either 1) chicks are hungry or 2) mating season is back. The sound that the female bird makes during the courtship rituals is, to my human ears, very much like that of the chicks in the nest, to the point that if I hadn't known for sure the chicks had fledged, I'd have had to go look to see whether it was feeding or mating activity. The sparrows will mate off and on, all over my porch and gutters, for a couple of days, and then start their fourth clutch. I'm assuming it's the same pair, as they seem to be marginally territorial about their nest and the immediate environs, and I've seen them fight off other birds interested in the nest.

Next spring, I will be studying the one house we have for dimensions and construction, and putting up more around the yard, probably on large poles or up in the dogwood and cedar trees. The only difference I want to be sure to make is the ability to clean out the house, as this one doesn't have any way to open it. We have a whole flock of the little critters, so I'm hoping to encourage more than one pair to mate and hang out where I can watch. I hadn't realized how many we really had living on the property or nearby until a couple of days ago when my husband directed my attention to the patch of dirt he'd shoveled out of the front yard and spread over a patch of ground we're preparing to turn into a berry patch. There, on the dried-out dirt, dozens of little House Sparrows were taking very vigorous and chatty dust baths. This morning I peeked out the living room windows and the entire flock was at it again, having a party in the dust.

Birds, Birds, Everywhere

The baby robins have fledged. They sure grew quickly!

This was taken June 4th. Little more birdlike and less fuzzy than the first pink things that came out of the eggs...

And June 7th. What a difference a few days makes!

And finally June 13th, the evening before they all fledged and spread out. Way to go, Momma Robin!

Things keep rolling even when I'm not...

I've been sick for over two solid weeks now. I came down with my husband's cold the Saturday I was in Boise for my second cousin's graduation. And then it just hung on. Coughing, lost voice, fatigue, lots of fun. Apparently I had some severe allergy attacks on top of the cold, which triggered my mostly-latent asthma. I ended up having to go to the doctor to get a Proventil inhaler, then hit the MucinexD hard. (Side note: in my state, you practically have to sign over your first born child to acquire MucinexD, due to the pseudoephedrine content. I don't care. It works.) Then the cottonwood bloomed like a summer blizzard, and took me out again. Finally got smart and slept the entire day on Saturday, and almost felt human today. Almost. I'm getting there.

But while I was sick, things kept moving along, as they tend to do. Last Friday I got a call from Will Dart letting me know he had another huge swarm of bees for me, to try again. This time I was home to see the installation, though I had to watch from inside because I was feeling so awful. Fortunately, we put the hive directly below one of the screened living room windows, so I could chat with Will and Todd while Evie and I watched from inside. After the bees were offloaded into their home, I went out with a plate of honey water as an offering, and went back inside to watch them drink it all up. The good news is, this time the bees seem to have approved of their new home. They are still there a couple of days later, doing their bee-thing.

I went out tonight and moved the false back of the hive to the second to last top bar slot, vastly increasing their home space. While I was doing this, the neighbor kids came over to watch, and I let them all look inside the viewing window briefly since it was cool and late in the evening, so almost all the bees were inside and completely disinterested in any goings-on outside the hive. I've been deemed "cool" and asked if I had any more interesting things in my yard. So, I showed them the empty robins' nest and where the bumblebees live.

Yes, the robin nest is empty. The three baby robins have grown over the last couple of weeks, and finally fledged this morning. The mother robin was chasing one of the "teenagers" around the yard and into the arborvitae hedge, still trying to stuff it full of worms. Silly momma. I'm leaving the nest for now in case she decides to reuse it, but in the fall I'll bring it in the house.

The second batch of Old World Sparrows has fledged out of the front birdhouse as well. The mother and father bird are making overtures towards one another and the nest that make me think we might have a third clutch coming up very soon as well. Prolific little critters; explains why we have so many of them in the yard!

We have babies!

The robin eggs have hatched. Weirdly, I only found one little tiny piece of shell under the bush, even though I'm sure I peeked in the nest very very shortly after the hatching. My guess is that momma robin either ate the shells or disposed of them elsewhere to disguise the location of the nest. (On eating shells...my chickens get eggshells and oyster shells as a calcium supplement, as the act of making eggs draws a lot of calcium out of their systems.)

So these are the eggs, last Thursday. Note that Momma Robin is apparently in to recycling, as she's used part of a plastic bag in the nest design:

And these are the weird little balls of pink-and-fluff that resulted. Taken today:

I always wait until Momma Robin is off getting food or doing whatever, but she's never far away and she always scolds me and comes to see what I'm doing. I don't even move the branch, I just hold my camera up above it and shoot until I get the right angle to see in the nest. Should be fun to see them progress over the next few days and weeks!

And here's Momma Robin, sitting on the nest. She's hard to see, and that's how she likes it!

We also have a second family of Old World Sparrows nesting in the front birdhouse, but they've built their nest so well I can't see the babies through the front door! I'll try to snap a picture when they get big enough to gape out the door at mom and dad returning with food!

Eggs!

I found eggs today! Okay, that's not amazing, considering I have five chickens who lay me eggs on a regular basis. However, the eggs I found today were not nice brown chicken eggs, nor were they in my coop.

There is an American Robin nesting in a rhododendron right outside my bedroom window. It's a fairly protected little spot, tucked under both the rhodie and under a large, overhanging cedar tree. Only disadvantage is that it's low enough that predators and curious homeowners can access the nest.

I saw that the mother Robin was out of the nest a bit ago, and took the opportunity to stand on tiptoe and gently tug down the branch to peer inside the nest. (I'm about 5'3", so the nest isn't very far off the ground.) Three beautiful sky blue eggs! Fantastic. Now I hope all the yardwork and the periodic invasions by passing people doesn't bother the mother enough to make her abandon the nest. I am hopeful, though; yesterday my husband was not 10 feet from the nest, chopping wood and making all kinds of racket, and yet the mother bird was sitting calmly on her eggs.

I'm going to try to get a picture of the eggs, and then of the chicks when they hatch. Hoping I can find the eggshells after they hatch too, so I can bring them inside!

Life Around the New Place

It's interesting, the changes from living in a thoroughly suburban area near major roads and a freeway to moving to what amounts to a suburban-style strip surrounded by farms and woodland, even though it's blocks from town. We still have neighbors, we actually live on a busier road than we did before, but with the surroundings, we have a lot different ecosystem going on out there!

This morning when I went out to dump the accumulated water off the top of my soft-shelled greenhouse, I was startled by a rabbit sitting between it and the chicken coop. Apparently Thumper lives in the hedgerow of arborvitae between us and the west neighbors. Cool! Well, cool unless he develops a taste for my veggies and whatnot. Even then, as long as he only eats his share, we're good...I always plant too much!

And yesterday while I was standing in the living room, I happened to see a robin outside picking up bits of twigs and straw and random things. I've seen that robin (or another one) hanging out in the woodpile out back, so I watched to see where this one went. It flew and went out of sight around the corner of the house, so I switched windows, and it looked like he was in the giant rhododendron on the corner of the house. Today I got a chance to peek, and sure enough, there's a nest about 4' off the ground in the rhodie. Cool! If I get a chance and can do it without bugging the parents too much, I'll try to take pictures as things progress.

In other birdie news, the little finches that were nesting in our front porch birdnest have fledged, and the parents seem to be busily building a new nest for a second brood. Sweet! The birds out here are surprisingly unafraid of people, and usually let me get within a few feet while I'm filling the feeders. Been up close and personal with a downy woodpecker and many little finches, sparrows and chickadees in the last couple of days.

I've also seen bats circling around in the evenings, and have put "build bat house" on the mile-long list of projects for the near future. Haven't yet seen raccoons or possums out there, but I know they're around...just a matter of time before I have a close encounter!

Twitterpated!

When we moved out here, I set up our bird feeders next to a giant Rose of Sharon bush, across the driveway from the kitchen window. I can see all the activity at the feeders while I'm puttering in the kitchen, and when I whip out the binoculars to look more closely, I have the added bonus of appearing to be spying on the neighbors.

Up until recently, I've thought of the birds at the feeders in these basic groups: Robins, Jays, Woodpeckers, Little Brown Generic Birds, Starlings, and Random Other Things I Don't See Often. However, in the last couple of years, my father has become a more and more avid birder, so he has also become my go-to-guy for all things avian. For example, a conversation a few days ago went like this:

"Hi Dad? Yeah, what looks like a robin, but isn't? Yeah, I know that sounds like the setup to a joke. No, I'm serious. It's got red eyes and a speckly back, but it's the size and shape of a robin, with the same movements."

"It's a Towhee. Used to be called a Rufous Sided Towhee, but is now called a Speckled Towhee."

"Okay, thanks. Just saw one under the feeder."

"Remind me to get you a bird book."


So, true to his suggestion, he bought me a copy of The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America. And this morning, I sat out by my dining room window with my binoculars and my book, and watched birds for half an hour.

In that time, I spotted:

A mated pair of American Goldfinches

A metric ton of Pine Siskins of both genders

The nesting pair of White Crowned Sparrows we have living in our birdhouse

A couple of solo Black Capped Chickadees

An American Robin

Several House Sparrows

A Scrub Jay

A pair of European Starlings

My bud the Spotted Towhee

A pair of House Finches (an Old World finch, and the little buggers that get all poofed up and shiver over the warm driveway periodically.)

A Brown Headed Cowbird

A Mourning Dove

A Steller's Jay (whose hairdo was all flopped over and droopy in the rain)

A Downy Woodpecker

I suspect part of this whole countrification thing is going to include learning about the houses that various birds prefer, in an effort to entice more of them to nest on the property. Next year I'm hoping to attract the Tree Swallows by hanging a house up much higher; my boss has one hanging way up ridiculously high above the shop, and it's occupied every year.

Yay for Avian Diversity!

Successful Hummingbird Flirtation

I brought my new hummingbird feeders home on Tuesday, and filled them with homemade sugar nectar that afternoon. I hung the fancier set off the front porch, where they can be seen from the kitchen window, and hung the more utilitarian set off the bathroom window, where they can be seen from the backyard, and more importantly, can't be seen from the other set of feeders.

By Wednesday, I had hummingbirds.

By Thursday, I had to refill the smaller utilitarian feeder.

This morning, just standing around getting ready for work, I saw two hummingbirds visit the smaller feeder, and at least three different hummingbirds visit the larger front porch feeder. At one point, one of the hummingbirds was spooked by the chickadees building a nest 5 feet away, and the hummer flew over to the giant rose of sharon bush where I keep most of my birdfeeders and the birdbath. It actually perched on the top of the bush, and let me check it out with my binoculars. What a beautiful iridescent red bib it had! From flipping through my bird books, I'd have to say it was an Anna's hummingbird, but it also looks like we had some rufous hummingbirds this morning.

In my area (the great Pacific Northwet, just north east of Portland, Oregon), we have Anna's hummingbirds all year round, and we have rufous hummingbirds in the warmer parts of the year. There may be others, but those are the ones I've been told to keep an eye out for.

Didn't think the little guys would find the food so quickly! Makes me doubly determined to plant some actual plant-type food sources for them soon.

Hummingbirds

A few days ago I was standing at the kitchen window and was surprised to see a hummingbird investigating the porch. The former house owners left a ton of cup hooks up on the roof part, so I'm thinking they might have had hummingbird feeders there at one point. Who am I to argue with a hummingbird? They are so much cooler than I ever thought about being!

Did you know that hummingbirds...
* have heartbeats up to 1,260 per minute, and take up to 250 breaths a minute
* consume half their weight in sugar daily
* eat small flying insects as well as nectar
* flap their wings 80 times per second
* can fly forwards, backwards, up, dow, sideways, and even upside down, at up to 60mph...but can't walk

So today I went to the Backyard Bird Shop in town, to find a decent hummingbird feeder and potentially a dripper for my birdbath (another story.) I had no idea there were so many types of hummingbird feeders! I still think of them as the bulb-shaped containers filled with red liquid and with a little glass spout at the bottom, which attracted more bees and wasps than birds and was generally kind of a bust.

Apparently hummingbird feeders have come a long way since my childhood. They now are generally drip-free, as they are designed to allow the birds to perch and feed from above, instead of hover and feed from below. They may come with ant traps to deter ants from stealing the sugar water, and probably attract fewer bees because they don't drip or leave sugar on the outside of the container as much as previous designs. It's now also recommended that you clean your feeders weekly with vinegar and rinse in hot water.

After wishing I could afford to buy them all, I purchased a decorative, three "flowered" feeder with glass bulbs set into driftwood and topped with bright red tin "flowers" possessing yellow centers for feeding. I also purchased a window-attached feeder with two glass tubes with red caps wrapped up in copper wire and attached to a suction cup for sticking to a window.

The lady at the shop told me that hummingbirds are territorial, so it's best to set stations up a fair distance apart. It wasn't until after I was on my way home that I wondered, what then is the purpose of having two or three "flowers" on each feeder? Just for the bird's entertainment? In case he brings a date?

One way to attract more of the little hummers into your yard, and thus have more visitors to your feeder, is to fill your garden with plants that hummingbirds happen to like. Since I'm looking at planting a new yard this spring, I have sheets on attracting various critters. For hummingbirds, attractive plants generally possess tubular flowers, in colors of red, orange, scarlet and gold.

Plants that attract hummingbirds include:
* (Perennials) Columbine, Foxglove, Fireweed, Bee Balm, Clarkia, Salvia, Trumpet Vine, Honeysuckle, Fuschia
* (Annuals)Petunia, Nasturtium, Red Salvia, Snapdragons, Scarlet Runner Beans
* (Shrubs/Trees)Butterfly Bush, Hardy Fuschia, Salal, Flowering Currant, Salmonberry

At checkout time, I noted that the shop was charging $4.00 for a small box of "nectar" powder. When I investigated, it was merely sucrose. Sugar. Fortunately, the gal at the counter also gave me a recipe for Homemade Hummingbird Nectar:

* Boil 2 cups of water for 1-2 minutes
* Remove from heat, add 1/2 cup white sugar
* Stir to dissolve, and allow to cool
* DO NOT add food coloring, or use Honey or Sugar Substitutes

Fill feeder with only as much nectar as will be consumed in 4 or 5 days (or fill to the top if you are willing to throw it out if unconsumed.) Store remaining solution in refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Take the feeder down, rinse with hot tap water and vinegar, and refill with nectar every 5 days at minimum (more in hot weather). Spoiled or moldy nectar can kill hummingbirds.