Happy New Year!

Happy 2014 Everyone! I hope all of you survived the "Polar Vortex" with no lingering difficulties. Minnesotans expect this sort of weather in January, but I feel especially bad for folks in other areas of the U.S. who don't have the resources to deal with extreme cold and snowy conditions. Earlier this week we hit -25, not a new record, but still TFC for most of us. Fortunately the cold snap lasted only a few days. Yesterday we had temps above freezing and some freezing drizzle early in the day which changed over to light snow in the evening. That soft ice coating on the trees caught and held the snowflakes quite nicely and we woke up to a winter wonderland. Here are some of the images I captured while filling birdfeeders earlier this morning. Hope you enjoy them from the comfort of your warm house!

The butterfly garden is waiting for spring -- hopefully only 4 more months!

 

Frosty asparagus remains

 

Highbush cranberries will be a tasty treat for robins when the come back in spring

These were purple coneflower blossoms last summer

Swamp milkweed -- seeds have scattered in the wind

 Kokopelli windchime still dances from a tree branch

The birds have picked all the seed from this small sunflower clean

 

Crabapples provide a treat for chickadees, cardinals & starlings

 

A lone oak leaf remains on this tree

 

Apples that didn't get picked provide a feast for bunnies & deer

 

Common mullein

 

A frosty apple ornament still hanging on the tree

 

Mountain ash berries -- we've found that deer love feasting on these!

 

Frosty evergreen

 

Enjoy the beauty of winter!

Winter Visitors

This past Tuesday was a beautiful and sunny mid-January day -- especially when you think of how awful January in Minnesota could be (and has been in the past).  While I had Holly out in the backyard for her potty break, I heard the unmistakable call of Cedar Waxwings.  Looking around I saw this small flock perched in the top of one of my crabapple trees.  I was thankful to see that they stuck around long enough for me to grab my camera and even continued posing while I walked around the yard to take advantage of the last afternoon sunshine and capture a photo of them in the best light.  I love Cedar Waxwings and what a treat to see them in the middle of winter!

Memorial Day Holiday Weekend

Looks like summer has definitely arrived in time for Memorial Day weekend here in Minnesota.  It doesn't seem very long ago that we were wondering what happened to winter and now summer is here.  We had storms on Saturday that dumped quite a lot of rain (which we needed) then a nearly record-breaking warm day yesterday (high of 89 degrees). 

Today has turned out to be a perfect day and I'm taking a break from getting my gardens in shape to do this blog post.

It's really nice to hear all the birds singing in the backyard again and I have some birdies taking advantage of the houses and nesting material I put out for them.  Here's the cozy little nest the chickadees made with moss, grass and some of the alpaca fiber I provided for their use.  There are 6 little eggs tucked into this fuzzy nest!

I took a look yesterday and here are 3 little baby chickadees almost ready to fledge.  They are just the cutest little things!  I'm not sure why the other 3 eggs didn't hatch, but 3 babies will be more than enough for the parents to take care of.

Mr. & Mrs. Eastern Bluebird also moved into one of my Peterson nestboxes.  They built a nice multi-layered nest with alpaca fiber on the bottom, then some grass and lastly a good layer of white pine needles.  This is the first time I can ever remember the bluebirds using white pine needles, but it definitely makes a nice, substantial nesting material for them.

There are 3 pretty blue eggs in here.  They should hatch sometime in the next week.

I've been working on getting some more native flowering plants added to my butterfly and hummingbird garden.  I bought this Golden Alexander plant at the garden center a couple weeks ago.  On the plant info card, it said Golden Alexander is a host plant for swallowtail butterflies.  I was happy to find this little swallowtail caterpillar on the plant stem.  Now I'll have to be really careful when I plant it so I don't dislodge the little bugger! 

I'm starting to see lots more butterflies in my yard already this season and I'm hoping that all the new flowers I'm planting will encourage them to stick around for the summer.  I had a nice Question Mark on the hummingbird feeder yesterday and also saw a couple of Mourning Cloaks earlier this spring.  Quite a few Monarchs are already flying around and the milkweed is coming in nicely, so there will be plenty of food sources for the monarch caterpillars.  I bought 2 new milkweed plants for my butterfly garden too -- one has orange flowers and the other has yellow flowers.  Probably won't be long and I'll have to think about getting the monarch ranch up and running again too......



Sunflowers & Squirrels

Last summer I planted some sunflower seeds in my garden. I didn't plant the giant sunflowers because I didn't think that anything growing 14 feet tall and with a heavy seed head could withstand the strong winds we sometimes get in our backyard and I didn't want the sadness of seeing those flowers on the ground after a summer thunderstorm. So these sunflowers I planted only grew to about 10 feet tall with much smaller seed heads, but they sure were purdy!
I planted them right by the clothesline so I got to enjoy them every time I went out to hang up laundry for drying. It was also really neat to see who visited those sunflowers -- goldfinches seemed to like them the best!

And once fall arrived with the first killing frost, other birds flew in to take advantage of the sunflower seed bounty, including this handsome male cardinal who really had to work for his treat!

Before the frost arrived, I harvested some of the fullest seeds heads and dried them in the garage so I could put them out for the birds in the wintertime. I added a few to the feeder pole on my deck next to the finch's tube feeders, but never noticed that the finches were too interested in them. However, now that we're getting early spring weather, look who's back from hibernation under the storage shed and found my sunflower seed heads.......

One afternoon last week in a pouring rain, I looked out the patio door and saw this hungry little red squirrel on a very precarious and slender perch helping himself to sunflower seeds.

It was such a rotten day that I didn't have the heart to chase him away and grabbed my camera instead.

I was amazed at his ability to perch on the smallest of branches with just his hind feet and eat his fill of these seeds while seeming to hang out in mid-air.

Here's the branch he was perched on! I still can't believe it was able to hold him -- especially after eating almost all the seeds on this sunflower head!

I have a few of last summer's sunflower heads remaining in the garage to put out for the birds. Hopefully the finches and cardinals will still have an opportunity to enjoy them, but I think their chances are much slimmer now since the red squirrels discovered this treat too!

Nuthatch Love

Chickadees are cute and fun to watch, but you know what bird I really enjoy visiting my feeders? Yup, it's the nuthatch! They're not too common in my backyard, not enough trees I guess, but I have 1 nuthatch who visits fairly regularly and sometimes a second nuthatch comes along to check out the feeders. On the weekends when I'm home, I turn on my outside speaker to hear the birds chirping and that's how I know the nuthatch has arrived -- I can hear its squeaky little chirps and "yanks" as it searches for peanuts in the birdfeeders. Let's watch......

Hey, this feeder looks like it's full of peanuts!

Wow, from this perspective all's I can see is peanuts! Is that for me?

Dang! That's a tight squeeze! Must. Get. Peanut!!
Finally got it! Making sure I don't drop this peanut.....

Let's go & find a quieter spot to enjoy this peanut -- the paparazzi's making me nervous!

In addition to feeding shelled peanuts, I put out a birdseed blend that contains peanuts and sunflower hearts in a couple different feeders. This little seed ball that my dear friend Lynne gave me works great for this seed blend and accomodates only the clinging birdies -- nuthatches included!

The Yankee Tipper is where nuthatch usually heads first at feeding time -- four ports in which to search for peanuts!

Years ago when I worked at Wild Birds Unlimited, we once had a customer come in and asked us to help him identify a bird that was coming to his feeder -- obviously new to birding, the best way he could describe it was that it looked like a "miniature bluejay." After several minutes of questions about the bird's habits and more description, we finally showed him picture of a nuthatch and he said, "yeah, that's it!"

Miniature Bluejay? Really??
(I guess that's an honest, novice birding mistake.....)

A Winter Treat for the Birds

My neighbor cut up a deer for one of his buddies today. I went over and asked him for the rib cage and he delivered it to me a couple hours ago. There's quite a bit of nice fat and meat still left on the bones, so this will provide lots of high energy food for the birds. I did this a few winters ago and the birds loved it! It looks kinda nasty, but the birds don't mind. Plus, none of my neighbors can see into my backyard, so no one else will be offended by this bloody carcass hanging in a tree.
And lookit where it is -- right outside the dining room window! As I'm sitting here at my computer typing this blog post, I have a fabulous view and can hardly wait until tomorrow when the birds discover this rare treat in my tree!

Holly got part of a tasty leg bone out of the deal too!

After I got my bloody carcass secured to the tree, I got a little bit more fall yard clean-up accomplished. The weather's been so mild lately -- quite unseasonable for the end of November in Minnesota. This little honeysuckle with a sheltered southern exposure has been fooled into thinking spring's on the way. Unfortunately, our forecast of rain and snow for tomorrow will certainly guarantee that these tiny buds won't be getting a chance to bloom this year!

It's time!

I took the cage protector off my suet log a few weeks ago once the grackles left the yard and raccoons were no longer a problem. The woodpeckers loved having easy access to the entire log -- especially the bigger Hairy and Red-Bellied woodpeckers.

But look who I caught eyeing the suet log yesterday.......did you notice the top hole was completely empty?

Yupper!! And here's why! That big ol' crow beak can clean out a suet log in a quick hurry compared to a tiny little Downy woodpecker beak!

So right after I took these pictures, I went out and put the cage back over the suet log. I know the woodpeckers aren't happy, but at least it's not a crow feeder anymore!

A Life Saved

I got back from my walk this afternoon to find a juvenile Cedar Waxwing just sitting on the downstairs patio -- the apparent victim of a collision with this dining room window.Believe it or not, despite what the birds are seeing on this window, there are surprisingly few window strikes here and those that have occurred are almost never fatal. I think the fact that the tree is so close to the window helps to keep the birds from hitting at full speed.

Anyway, as soon as I saw this little bird, I put the butterfly net over him to make sure I could rescue him. He didn't resist the net at all and I was easily able to scoop him up and give him a quick physical examination which revealed no obvious trauma or broken bones. His loud squawks indicated he was pretty aware of his situation, so I was confident that he wasn't injured seriously.

I admitted him to St. Alegria for a short convalescent period.
After about 10 minutes in the warm, dark and safe confines of St. Alegria, juvenile Cedar Waxwing was ready to be released.

After opening my hand, this youngster quickly winged his way to the top of the nearest evergreen tree. There are plenty of Cedar Waxwings hanging around the backyard this time of year, so hopefully he'll be reunited with his family soon. And just maybe, he learned a valuable lesson about staying away from my dining room window!

The Wren Family

Underneath my deck, I have a little wren house (shaped like a mailbox). Every year since I put it up, the wrens have had a family there.
Since there's no way to look inside, I have no idea how many babies are squished in there, but I do know there are at least two.

And they're very noisy babies!
All day, every day, Mr & Mrs Wren spend every waking hour searching my backyard for bugs to feed these noisy babies. Sometimes they find bugs in the garden......

They perch on the clothesline before feeding the bugs to the babies (because their house is right below the clothesline).

But they really like to perch on the edge of the hanging basket holder that's right next to their house.

Their babies hear them chirping when they fly home with a bug and since those babies are always starving(!) the parents never get a rest.....

"More please, NOW, Mom!" ("Sigh," thinks mom)

During my photo session yesterday afternoon, one of the wren parents arrived with this epic-sized grub!

Let's see how the baby likes this treat......

Mom obviously considering whether to eat this tasty morsel herself or try to fit it in Junior's beak.

OK, let's try it again.......open WIDE!

Much wider, please!
That's good, you've almost got it!

OK, now get ready to swallow.......are you ready? I'm going to let go.

Oh No! YOU DROPPED IT!!

And Mrs. Wren goes back to searching for more insect treats in the backyard.

Watching these birds feed the insects they find is the main reason for never using pesticide sprays of any sort in my backyard. Having once inadvertently killed a family of bluebirds by spraying tent caterpillars with Raid, I learned a difficult (and valuable) lesson. Now I rely on the birds to do all the insect control work in my backyard and they seem to be managing the job very nicely.