Speaking of Cooper’s Hawks, one dropped a large rat into my friend’s chicken pen the other day, moments after she locked her birds in the coop. Yes it was really most sincerely dead.
This winter I have noticed reduced numbers of winter birds at my place. Usually I have several towhees and Oregon juncos haunting the chicken compound. Several times a week one would get stuck in the coop. That has happened only once so far this winter.
I’ve been happy to not have so many wild...
About 6 maybe 7 years ago my neighbor Jack hung a shovel in a plum tree, probably so he could find it. He ended up getting cancer and never made it back up the hill. He’s been gone a couple years now and every spring a Red breasted sapsucker drums on that thing. Jack was retired Army and was...
We are still being asked to not feed wild birds because of salmonellosis killing large numbers of them. I heard that some species that normally disburse into Canada didn’t for whatever reason so the large congregations here in Washington State are problematic.
I have to admit after I got...
Anna’s are the year rounders. I almost said rufous but decided to look it up first. Seasonally we have Calliope, black chinned and rufous. They are amazing!
I guess there are unintended consequences when we try to ‘help’, in this case causing birds to crowd and linger when they should be spreading out and moving along as they were designed to do.
Local authorities have asked the public to stop feeding wild birds. There is an outbreak of salmonellosis that is killing little guys. I guess the gathering of large numbers in small spaces is causing alarming mortality. They even said to take the hummingbird feeders down for a bit.
I saw a red breasted sapsucker a few days ago. Our native big leaf maples tend to have lots of dead branches and in fact the whole trunks can hollow out. We see pileated woodpeckers frequently.
A few years ago I hung a suet feeder on my clothesline for the little winter birds. I saw the whole...
We love ‘em! They are succumbing to I believe anthracnose in alarming numbers. We have them sprout right next to the house, DH tries to move them but so far no luck.
Today must have been Thanksgiving Day for the robins. We have a couple large Madrona trees on the edge of the woods and they have the most beautiful red berries. They have been red for Weeks but I have a theory that they need a frost or two to get them conditioned somehow and start fermenting...