After a fox attack last spring, we’re down to only three aging hens and six five-month-old pullets. Instead of giving eggs to all our friends, I’ve had to buy them at the market. So this morning, after being out of town for the weekend, I walked out to the coop hoping to find an egg, or maybe two. Instead, there were close to a dozen!
Yup. A month ahead of schedule, our new pullets have become egg laying hens.
Male ducks don’t look anything like female ducks, at least during the breeding season. And you can easily tell the boy Black-headed Grosbeaks (right) from the girls (below)… in fact, they don’t look like they even belong to the same species! But with lots of birds, from Steller’s Jays to Canada Geese, it seems that only they know who is who.
I’ve often wondered just how they do that. What is it that tells male Red-tailed Hawks who the ladies are? How do California Gulls avoid courting a gull of the same sex? Well, I just read some fascinating articles that solved this mystery, at least when it comes to Black-capped Chickadees.
It’s time to clean out the chicken coop. All summer my little flock has been happily picking weed and grass seeds out of the straw I spread in their coop last spring. At the same time, they’ve broken down the big pieces of grass stem into finer shreds. And, best of all, they’re balanced all that carbon with some nice, hot chicken manure.
Now that the weather has cooled a bit, I’m willing to venture out to the coop with a rake, scoop, and wheelbarrow. All that compostable material is heading for my veggie garden.
Honk, honk! When I first heard them, I thought I was hearing bicycle horns. A brand new birder, I was checking out Denver’s Cherry Creek State Park, and there were certainly bicyclists out enjoying the brilliant fall day. I wondered why they were honking so much, since they had their own bike paths, and there really wasn’t anyone to honk at.
A couple of weeks later, I heard the honking again. This time I was strolling around Fountain Creek Nature Center, south of Colorado Springs. No one else was around, and besides, cyclists aren’t permitted in the nature area. Now I was really confused.
Today is the 5th Thursday of the month, so it’s time for a break. I thought I’d post some fun garden photos I’ve taken over the last few years. No one ever said you had to be serious in your garden! I hope these put a smile on your face, and perhaps inspire you to create your own unique garden feature.
To start with, how about some ladybug garden clogs? These are so cute, I’d hate to get mud on them! One of our Colorado master gardeners was wearing these.
This year, the birds planted themselves a garden.
I have half a dozen bird feeders scattered around our yard. Some hold millet, others contain suet, and a small feeder near the house is full of tiny, black nyjer seeds specifically for the goldfinches and Pine Siskins. But the most popular feeders are the ones full of black oil sunflower seeds.
House Finches, jays, nuthatches and chickadees, magpies, grosbeaks—all are attracted to the sunflower seeds. (So are squirrels, but they only get the spilled seeds on the ground.) While the finches sit contentedly on the feeder, munching away, the jays, nuthatches and chickadees tend to swoop in, grab a seed (or three, in the case of the jays), and hightail it to the relative safety of a convenient branch. There they open the shell and extract the seed before returning to the feeder for their next bite.
I just avoided a war.
Yesterday morning, I went out to tend my flock, and realized that my new pullets, hatched around June 1, were nearly the same size as my mature hens. When they were mere children, they fit just fine in their twelve square foot cage (above). (For their safety, it’s important to separate young birds from the main flock.) Now, however, it was clear that they needed more room. Although I had planned to wait until next month, I decided this was the time to release them into the main coop.
In an attempt to improve my skills, I’ve signed up for a Wildlife Photography class at our neighboring community college. I have starry-eyed visions of rutting elk, growing grizzlies and other impressively large mammals adorning the paneled walls of our family room, not to mention the pages of Outdoor Photographer or National Geographic.
Our first assignment is to take four photographs of wildlife (defined as including insects, but excluding naked party-goers). I spent all week on this. What have I got to show so far?
It’s almost September, National Chicken Month. I adore chickens. Put those two facts together, and I have the perfect opportunity to enlighten you with some chicken trivia.
This is the third and last part on how my daughter the anthropologist looks at birders. Don’t miss Part 1 or Part 2!
Taboos
The Code of Birding Ethics is essential reading for every birder. Some topics covered include the excessive playing of recorded bird sounds (or playing these recordings at all, in many places), disturbing nesting birds, trespassing, and other ways of being considerate to the birds and to one another.
I’ve already mentioned clothing, but in general, wearing white is frowned upon. It scares many birds, thus annoying many birders. The same thing applies to loud noises. Most birders talk in hushed voices, at least while on the trail.
