Random Friday

Happy 3rd of July! I hope some of you are enjoying this day as a holiday from work (I sure am!) It's been a while since my last post, so here's a potpourri of observations from the past week.

A look in the garden the other day revealed that some thing were missing--like beet tops.......

and pea sprouts!

Since I'm reasonably certain Peter Cottontail and his buddies can't access the garden, my immediate suspect was Bambi's mom and sure enough, after very little searching, I found her hoofprint (several, actually!)
Obviously the greens provided a tasty diversion from the usual nightly feast of corn and birdseed and my 3-foot fence was no obstacle for Mrs. White-Tail. Liquid Fence to the rescue! I mixed up a fresh batch of this horrible-smelling stuff and applied a liberal dose to all of this tempting salad bar. And it worked! Here's some of the beautiful fresh lettuce and peas I used to make us delicious salads for supper last night. (those peas were so sweet--no wonder the deer liked them!)

There are lots of flowers blooming all over the place right now. Here are some of the sweet-smelling blossoms on the staghorn sumac bushes. This busy little bumblebee was loving it! See all the pollen collected on his/her back legs?

I'm starting to see some butterflies, but the butterfly activity seems slow this summer. I think this is a Pearl Crescent.

The common milkweed in my yard is starting to bloom. I actually saw a couple of monarchs checking out the flowers for nectar. The monarch numbers seem to be down this year too and I have yet to find any eggs or larvae on any of my milkweed plants.

Hopefully there's just a delay in their migration and things will pick up soon--I've got a brand new monarch ranch on the kitchen counter just waiting to be populated with caterpillars.

Two of my neighbors have beehives now and I'm guessing this might be one of their honeybees checking out the milkweed blossoms for nectar too.

Did you get your new "license to bird" yet?

The new duck stamps are available at your local post office and you don't have to be a duck hunter. "Federal Duck Stamp Dollars are used to purchase wetlands and other valuable habitat for the National Wildlife Refuge System, benefitting many different birds and other wildlife species."

Another plus: your duck stamp can be used as a season pass to any National Wildlife Refuge! (where you might be able to see the really neat Long-Tailed Duck pictured on this stamp)

I saw this inside my compost bin the other day.......

Thanks to Susan's post a couple weeks ago about slime mold in her yard, I was pretty certain that's what this was. So instead of being grossed out, I was pretty excited!

Two of the baby chickadees have fledged and have been seen hanging around the yard.

A nest box check last evening revealed two little ones still inside. I don't know how those overworked parents can manage it, but they're looking pretty frazzled when they stop by to pick up some mealworms.

Thus ends another nerdy post from the Nature Knitter. Since you've read this to the end, you may be a nature nerd too--check out The Nature Lady's blog and take the quiz. (I believe I answered "yes" to 15 of the 16 questions.) It's time to come out of the closet and declare yourself as a Nature Nerd too! Finally it's cool to be a nerd! Woo-Hoo!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Cute Birdorables

Here are some more pictures of the baby birds in my yard. The little chickadee chicks are growing so fast. This picture is from last night. I'm a little concerned about the chick on the left--it appears to be a day or two behind the other ones. Even though this is a pretty poor picture, you can see that its wing and tail feathers are not as fully developed as the other 3 chicks. It's still alive but I don't think it will be strong enough to leave the nest box when the other 3 do. I wonder if the parents will still feed it in the nest box if the other 3 chicks leave earlier?

Chickadees are the sweetest little baby birds. This one sat so quietly in my hand--no loud chirping like baby robins. This little one didn't even poop on me when I picked it up.

I got these pictures of the tree swallow babies the other day when I was mowing lawn. This is the nest box that had 6 babies in it. I can't even imagine how crowded it is now that they're all about ready to fledge. The parents are coming non-stop with food for all these hungry beaks. This little one was almost up to the entrance, waiting for another food delivery.

A little bit higher now. I wonder how many of its siblings it was standing on top of to get into the entrance like this.

And here comes mom......just in time with another insect to fill that patiently waiting little beak!

Here are the 5 little baby bluebirds. Sorry about the blurriness of this picture too......I was trying to take the picture as fast as possible because I was being buzzed by two angry bluebird parents! (It was a good thing I was wearing a hat--I could actually feel the wind from their wings because they were flying that close to me!)

Isn't it amazing how bright the inside of their mouth is? Shows up really good--even inside the darkness of the nest box, so the parent birds know exactly where to stick the food! Nature is sure an amazing thing.

Master Naturalist Capstone Project Completed

Today's post is going to be the story and pictures of the completion of my Master Naturalist Capstone Project, which if you remember was adding flower and fruiting plants to the Bird and Bee Study Area as a memorial tribute to a gentleman who passed away last year. Some friends and members of his family were going to help with the planting which took place last Saturday (Father's Day weekend).

So I started digging some woodland wildflowers at the residence of another Master Naturalist alumni who volunteered some of his native plants. On June 4th, we dug up wild ginger, wild columbine, white violets, and some Canada mayflowers. (They also gave me a small hackberry seedling that I still need to find a spot for in my backyard.) Because it was still weeks till the planting day, I had to keep these plants somewhere at my place that was cool, reasonably shady and close by (so I wouldn't forget to water them!) The perfect staging area turned out on the sidewalk right outside our front door.
As you can see, it got a little bit crowded once the entire collection of dug-up and purchased plants was complete!

I also was able to dig up and divide two huge hostas from my gardens. This is Hosta "Krossa Regal." It has lovely pale lavender-colored flowers on an almost 5 foot stalk.

That sucker weighed a ton! I was wishing I had a bigger wheelbarrow.

Here's the other hosta that went: Hosta "Royal Standard." This one has the most fragrant and beautiful white flowers -- again on a really tall stem.

The planting party was set to take place from 9:00-11:00 on Saturday morning, so I got up early and started loading everything into Mr. Johnson's Tahoe. Holy Cow! It didn't look like that much stuff outside! And there's no more room for the hostas!

Well, hopefully the hosta tubs will fit in the second seat.......

......and they did. It's a good thing we have this enclosed truck for transporting plants; I think they would have gotten pretty beat-up in the back of a pick-up.


I wrote the names of the plants on orange flag markers so I could stick them in the ground and people would know which plants went where. These are the main viewing windows from the nature center out towards the little pond and bird feeders. The hostas were going here. It's my hope that once they start producing those tall flowers, the flowers should come right up to the bottom of the windows and visitors will be able to get some really close looks at the hummingbirds and butterflies that come to those flowers.

This is another area that was going to get a couple of hostas, plus the jack-in-the-pulpits that I had dug up from under my deck. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you will see a little green square on the center frame of the window down towards the bottom. This is the entrance/exit for an indoor beehive (look at the left side of the window and those big dark squares you see inside are the actual beehive--encased in clear plexiglass so people can watch the bee activity).

Fortunately, the morning was still pretty cool so I went ahead and planted these flowers early so as not to disturb the bees too much.

Under this sign, there were a couple of wild asters to be planted (this area gets a little bit of afternoon sun). There's also a yew in the background to provide cover for the birds and a bit of color in the wintertime.

Along the backside of this little pond, we planted the wild columbines. They will grow pretty tall but won't interfere with any views of the pond. In the background is another yew to be planted and in the foreground are a couple more jack-in-the-pulpits that didn't fit in the other spot.

In the front of the pond, there was a box full of wild ginger to be planted. Wild ginger is nice and low-growing and this was a perfect spot for it because it wouldn't obscure any views of the pond from the inside viewing area.

Underneath this tree, the white violets would find a new home.

Under this window and receiving a bit of afternoon sun, were two lobelia plants: one red (cardinal flower) and one blue (Great Blue Lobelia). I hope these make it as their tall flower stems will be quite attractive to the hummingbirds, bees and butterflies here.

This is the main sign at the front of the garden. I purchased a bee balm ("Petite Delight") and two Violet Dusk Bearded Tongue (penstemon) to be planted by the sign.

And lastly, there was this sunny, south-facing part of the garden where all of the flowering/fruiting shrubs were to be planted. For this area, I purchased: 2 each of Cardinal Red Osier Dogwood, an Autumn Magic Black Chokeberry, and 2 viburnums--Blue Muffin and Emerald Triumph.

So once everything was marked, I was ready for the family to arrive and get to work. Fortunately, my teacher Kirk was the liaison with the family and he did a great job of remembering everyone's names and making sure all the equipment they needed for digging, watering, etc. was available. I was more worried about getting everything done in the allotted time and usually am more comfortable staying in the background being a "worker bee" anyway.

Once everything was planted, it was time to start watering. Here are a couple of the grandkids with their water buckets watering one of the yews.

The kids did a lot of planting of the smaller plants in the pots, but the novelty of that chore wore off as they discovered the wonders inside the nature center and also the chance to play in the pond. Here, one of the dads takes over to finish planting the wild ginger.

This little girl was so cute! She and her mom got these plants by the sign into the ground. There was a lot of fascination with the worms discovered while planting; I think that's what the little girl standing up has in her hand.

I sent the big guys up to the front to dig the big holes for the shrubs. As you can see, there were plenty of 'supervisors' out there to help them!

And here are a couple of looks at where my hostas will be enjoying their new home. I think these spots will be perfect for them!

This was a fun project for me. I created a little hand-out for the family that thanked them for allowing me the opportunity to work on this project on their behalf and for giving me the chance to improve some habitat for the birds, wildlife and insects. I included a listing of the flowers and shrubs we planted that day and also invited them to come back in the future and visit this garden planted in memory of their loved one.

The grandchildren had created stepping stones and we added them to this garden.

I had a great time planning and choosing plants for this garden and was really happy with how well the project went. I can't wait to see how beautiful it will be next spring when all of the flowers are blooming. I will be keeping an eye on this garden and will be sure to get some pictures to share with you as everything continues to grow.

Teach Your Children Well

Some people stop feeding their backyard birds in the summertime, thinking there's more than enough "natural" food sources around for the birds to take advantage of. Not me! I get lots of birds at my feeders during the summer with the added benefit of watching the adult birds teaching their babies where the best places to eat are.

Baby Downy gets a suet treat from his mom.

There's grape jelly in this dish for the orioles. However, I found out this summer that some robins also love grape jelly. This little robin doesn't quite know for sure what to do yet though.

Mourning dove parent teaches "Junior" the best place to find safflower seeds.

All of these photos were taken from the dining room window. Having bird feeders close to the house definitely maximizes your viewing and photo opportunities, plus it's fun to be able to hear them chirping too. I wouldn't have known that baby woodpecker was on the deck except for his loud, insistent chirping for mom to "hurry up with that suet!"

Father's Day Weekend 2009

I hope you all had a nice Father's Day weekend. We had a little rain today, but that didn't ruin our traditional Father's Day picnic at Forestville State Park. It was a good celebration for Dad/Grampy and a fun day for all of us.


Here are some pictures from the backyard. The bluebird babies just hatched and as near as I could tell, all 5 of the eggs hatched. As you can see from this picture, one of the babies is still a little damp from being newly hatched.

The wrens have completed their nest and Mrs. Wren has laid 2 eggs so far. I really like this house that allows me to view the birds via the hinged roof.

Here's a look at the baby chickadees. They're starting to get pinfeathers on their wings and tails. I couldn't find information close at hand to learn how many days until they fledge, but I guess I'd better find out so I know when to watch for these little guys making their way into the real world!

The weather has finally warmed up and according to weather forecasts we're looking at 80's and 90's all next week. The garden is really starting to grow. I'm even starting to see blossoms on many of the plants. Here's one of the tomatoes.

The peas are flowering too.

I'm also starting to see some blossoms in the wildflower garden. This is a Daisy Fleabane.

And the first Purple Coneflower is blooming.

I have one giant Common Mullein plant in my backyard. I read that this plant is a biennial and takes two years to reach maturity. Last year was this plant's first year in my backyard and it got pretty big then, but it's twice as big this year.

I've been waiting and hoping that it will produce a tall flower stalk (birds and insects love them!). On closer inspection when taking this picture, I noticed the beginning of the flower stalk. I can't wait to see how big it gets and look forward to watching birds taking advantage of it this winter.

I'm starting to see a few more butterflies in the backyard and more perennials are starting to bloom too. Here's one of the daylilies.

And this new poppy plant I just planted this spring has lots of flowers on it.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and I hope you all have a good week.