Backyard Birdnests

One of the neat things about having so many birds in the backyard is the opportunity to watch their activity -- especially nesting activities. I've found several active bird nests in the backyard and thought you might enjoy seeing some of them too.

Last weekend, I watched a robin picking up the grass mulch from my garden and flying over to a nearby crabapple tree. Sure enough, she was building a nice little nest conveniently at eye-level in that tree. Can you see her on the nest in the photo below?

Isn't this a beautiful nest? We've had a fair amount of rain this week, so she was able to build a sturdy mud layer in this nest and then line it with the grass mulch from my garden. Looks there will be only 3 eggs in this nest. I love that beautiful turquoise color!

In the front yard, I have a wren house and a bluebird house. Both of these houses are currently occupied. I love this wren house because one side of the roof opens for easy monitoring. There are six eggs in this nest. This is one of 3 active house wren nests in the yard. I know wrens can sometimes be very territorial and destroy the eggs of other nesting birds, but to the best of my knowledge, my wrens have behaved so far.

The bluebirds have 4 eggs in this house. It's right next to the driveway and they don't take very kindly to my nest checks. These eggs should hatch sometime in the next few days.

There are 5 active Tree Swallow nests in the backyard too. Two pairs of Tree Swallows have made their nests in bluebird houses, so I can easily monitor their progress. Here's one of the nests with 4 eggs in it. I'm always amazed at the variety of feathers they're able to collect to line their nests. Looks like they even found a bluebird feather.

This female Tree Swallow wouldn't leave her nest, even after I opened the door. She moved to the back so I was able to see that she had 5 eggs. I quickly took the picture and closed up the door again so she could get back to incubating her eggs.

Earlier this year, I showed you the first active bluebird nest in the backyard. Unfortunately, I think a raccoon got the eggs from that nest box. A couple weeks ago, another pair of bluebirds decided to nest in the other house at this location. This time I decided to fabricate a raccoon baffle (from a stovepipe) to give my bluebirds the best chance at successfully raising a family. So far, this baffle is working.

Unlike the bluebirds in my front yard, these bluebirds have all-white eggs!

I'm so happy to have 2 nesting pairs of bluebirds in my yard this year. It's been quite a few years since this has happened, since my trees have grown up enough that the backyard isn't really ideal bluebird habitat anymore. I'm hoping this is another positive sign of bluebird population recovery here in Minnesota and that I've been able to contribute to that recovery in a small way.

A Backyard Walk With Sophie

Finally we saw the sun for a few short hours this morning (first time since last Friday!) Here's where working part-time is great because Sophie and I got to take advantage of a nice morning and go for a little hike in the backyard. Come on along and I'll show you some of the things we saw.......

In spite of being almost 12 years old, a heart murmur and hind feet with no feeling in them, Sophie still loves to get out and run in the backyard. I don't take her for long walks anymore and she spent the rest of the afternoon napping after this adventure, but I think you can see how much she's enjoying being out here!

There's nothing wrong with Sophie's "sniffer" though. I bet she was smelling a bunneh under this tree.

When we were exploring at the farthest end of our yard, I noticed this fresh deposit of deer droppings.

Very close to where I found these droppings, we have an area of the yard that we've never mowed or done anything else with -- in fact, it's where we dump tree trimmings and other yard waste. It's grown up into a pretty dense thicket, but as you can see below, there's a little path going into this thicket......

and when I followed the path into there, I spotted this fresh deer hoofprint also.

Sophie was checking out all the good scents in there too, but I didn't let her snoop around too much because I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a doe hasn't hidden a fawn or two in that area! Wouldn't that be a real treat to see someday? I'll definitely be keeping a closer watch on this part of the yard now.

I've got quite a few cavity-nesting birds occupying some space in the backyard also. There are three active Tree Swallow nests. This little female Tree Swallow was reluctant to vacate her house, but I wanted to see if her eggs had hatched yet.

Not yet! Just 6 pretty little white eggs in a lovely bed of feathers. I'm always amazed at the variety of feathers the Tree Swallows can find to line their nests. Does anyone know if that stripey feather right down in front is from a hawk? (click on the photo to enlarge it)

I also have Tree Swallows nesting in two of these plastic super gourds, but they place their nests against the back wall of the gourds, so it's impossible to see how many eggs there are and whether they've hatched or not. But I know the nests are still active because I see the swallows going in and out.

Mrs. Chickadee is still sitting on her 5 eggs in this front yard nest box. According to my incubation calculations, there should be baby chickadees hatching by this weekend and I'll keep you posted on any new developments.

I have bluebirds in a nestbox in the backyard too. There was an unsuccessful nesting attempt earlier in the season and I'm not sure what happened, but that nest had been abandoned. Now a new nest with 5 eggs is being tended by the bluebird pair. Another neat thing about this is that I've finally found a nest that incorporates some of the yarn scraps that I put out in the backyard every spring!

Here's a nice shot of Mrs. Bluebird waiting for me and Sophie to get the heck out of her territory!

A quick check on the vegetable garden revealed these broccoli sprouts from the seeds I planted a couple weeks ago.

The garbage can potatoes are doing pretty good too.

Remember the scenes of the wildflower garden that I burned on April 13th?

Here's what it's looking like today. No buds or blossoms yet, but everything has grown back very nicely. With all the rain that we've had recently, once it gets sunny and warms up again, these flowers are really going to take off.

The wild grape vine has really taken over the dead tree in my front yard. Right now it looks there's going to be a good crop of grapes later this summer and the dead tree isn't quite so unsightly now that it's covered with green leaves again.

The house sparrows finally took over the nesting cavity that I showed you in this tree earlier this spring. I wasn't real happy about that, but a windstorm a couple weeks ago blew the top part of the tree off right at that nesting cavity, so the sparrows lost their home anyway. (I'm so glad the bluebirds weren't nesting there when that happened!)

I've got a bumper crop of common milkweed growing next to my driveway this year. I have only seen 1 monarch butterfly in my yard so far this spring, but hopefully when they come back, they'll find this milkweed patch along with several others that are growing in different spots in the yard.

And finally, a couple weeks ago I cleaned out some dead plants and replanted some new perennials in my hummingbird and butterfly garden. One of my new plants is this Foxglove. It's the only one blooming so far, but isn't it pretty?

Thanks for coming along with Sophie and me on this walk.....we had a good time and hope you did too.

Killdeer!

I went on a couple of birding hikes this past weekend and have some stories and pictures for you, but I'm still trying to get those organized. Our weatherman is predicting rain for the next couple of days, so hopefully I can get caught up on my blogging activities soon. But for now, I have this quick post and pictures to share.

It was a nice warm afternoon, so I walked over to visit my neighbor Matt and see how his big garden is coming along. Matt and his wife have 5 kids and raise almost all of their own produce and I'm amazed with his huge and well-organized garden. They're also going to be acquiring some chickens soon and I'm looking forward to buying fresh eggs from them.

I also found out last week that one of their little boys (Shawn) is an avid birder. That was exciting news for me and I gave Shawn one of my rarely used field guides and the Stokes Guide to Bluebirds that has been sitting unused on my bookshelf for several years. He was pretty thrilled and so was I knowing that I can help get this guy turned on to birds and birding at the young and impressionable age of 9!

While I was over there, Matt told me that they had recently found a killdeer nest in their backyard......would I like to see it? I could hardly contain my excitement and asked if he would mind if I ran back home for my camera to come and take a couple pictures. Here's the nest containing 4 eggs.
Their lot is 5 acres just like mine, but they only have a fraction of the number of trees in the backyard that we do, so the open habitat is perfect for killdeer. The nest was made in the wood chip mulch covering a little landscaped flower garden in the middle of their backyard. Aren't those eggs just the cutest thing?

As I knelt down at the edge of the landscaped area to photograph the nest, the parent killdeer got really agitated and came rushing across the lawn to perform the "injured bird" display. I stayed only long enough to snap these couple of photos.

If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you can see that his/her beak is open (scolding me!)

After about 20 seconds, Shawn and I hurried away from this nest to avoid stressing this poor bird any more. I was glad for the opportunity to take these pictures and to share the experience with Shawn too.

BTW, these pictures were all taken with my new little Canon PowerShot A1000, and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Weekend Update

Gosh, I can't believe it's been over a week since my last post and we're over halfway through July now! Although it's been pretty warm during the days, it cools down quite nicely in the evenings and I can't even bring myself to come inside once it gets close to dark because there are fireflies everywhere in my backyard and I just love watching them winking all around me. So the consequences to that are no time for doing a post or reading other blogs either. I really thought I could get back into regular posts, but I was so wrong....... I've even got a couple saved and awaiting completion, so the intentions are there, but the willpower is not. Anyway, I'll make up for it today by showing you some random images from the past weekend.

I mowed the lawn on Saturday and that's a good time to see a lot of different things in the backyard. Here's the most unusual thing I saw on the underside of some milkweed leaves: I've never seen anything like this before in my life. Does anyone know what these things are?

We're approaching peak bloom in the wildfower garden.

I forgot I had planted this Bee Balm several years ago. I love the gorgeous magenta color.
I saw a Great Spangled Fritillary land on one of the coneflowers while I was mowing, but when I came back later with the camera, of course, it was gone. However, I did spot this cool little spider on a Queen Anne's Lace blossom. Can you see it?
Here's a look from a different angle--you can see its legs on either side of the flower. I consulted my Kaufman Field Guide to Insects and found out that this is a Flower Crab Spider. "Females can change color from white to yellow to match the flowers where they wait in ambush for flies, bees, and other pollinators." How cool is that? In fact, when I checked the Queen Anne's Lace blossoms this afternoon, I spotted one of these spiders with a little fly in her jaws.

I found another wren nest. I like this little wren house because it opens from the top and you can actually see their nest. There are 6 eggs in here.
We had a little rain Saturday evening and Sunday morning dawned bright and cool. While Mr. Johnson was out on the deck enjoying a cup of coffee, he alerted me to a bunny rabbit in the garden. Here's a picture I took from the deck......
And when I got a little closer, I could see this naughty bunny parked right in the middle of the carrots! Know how he gets in? Right through the fence! I DISAPPROVE! The adult bunnies can't get through the fence....just these teen-age bunnies.

Check out this beautiful lady who showed up at the backyard birdfeeder around 10 AM.
I've never seen a deer in the backyard during the daytime! It makes me wonder how often they're here during the day while we're at work? She hung around for quite a while and we were hoping maybe some fawns would show up, but they never did and when I went around the house to try and get a better picture, she spotted me and ran away.

Here's a little red squirrel I caught inside the "squirrel proof" cage on my birdfeeder.

Know how he gets in? Through the top! Can you sense his desperation as he tries to squeeze back through while I was a few feet away taking this picture? I can see a trip to my Wild Birds Unlimited store in the near future to purchase a guard to put over the top of the squirrel proof cage.

While weeding the garden, I harvested a few of the "Cylindra" beets. This is my first attempt at growing beets and I'm curious to see how they cook up and taste.

I'll try to get caught up on those couple of posts I've got saved......I've got a good story and pictures on the development of my backyard wildlife habitat and also a book review on the Smithsonian Field Guide to Birds, not to mention more pictures on the camera that are just waiting to hit the blogosphere. So check back again and thanks for your faithful visits and comments.

Just Miscellaneous Stuff

Because our turkey hunting season starts early tomorrow morning, Mr. Johnson and I decided to leave work early today so we could get our weekend errands taken care of and get our turkey blind set up so that all we have to do tomorrow morning is set out the decoys and wait for the turkeys to arrive.

While we were out in the woods this afternoon, I finally saw a few spring wildflowers starting to bloom. I didn't think to take my camera along and boy was that a big mistake! In addition to the wildflowers, there was a pair of bald eagles flying around and calling back and forth to each other the whole time. That would have made a really neat little video. My only consolation is that I'll be spending the next 3 days down in these woods, and I'm packing my camera tonight, so I don't miss out on any other photo ops.

While walking back to the car, I found some newly sprouted catnip and picked a little handful to take home for Miss Penny. Was that ever some potent stuff!

First Penny rolled all over it on her right side (note expression of "kitty bliss!")

Then she rolled to her left side to rub in this super smelly catnip.

Look at her messy face--all wet from drooling on the catnip and then rubbing on it. I finally took it away from her after about 90 minutes, but she's still laying on the carpet where it had been. I'll have to pick some more for her tomorrow before we come home.

Here's a ID question for the 'egg'-sperts: Do you know what bird laid this egg?

I found it on the front lawn this afternoon. I know it's not grackle or robin and I'm thinking maybe mourning dove? I can't think of any other bird in my backyard that might already be nesting and also lay an egg this size.

How much is that doggy in the window?

"uh-oh, I'm busted!" (she even looks guilty, doesn't she?)

This is one of Sophie's favorite places to lay in the afternoon sun. I was surprised the first time I saw her up in this bay window and immediately shooed her down. Now she sometimes hops up and lays on the little rug when she can't find a sunny spot anywhere else. As soon as she heard the camera turn on though, she was ready to take off (she's terrified by the camera). Goofy hound!