We gave our daughter and son-in-law a birdfeeder for their wedding anniversary. They were delighted. We filled it with black oil sunflower seeds and hung it on their backyard fence. It didn’t take long for the local House Finches to discover the new food source. My daughter enjoyed watching the pretty red birds gather around the feeder, politely taking turns at the narrow tray.
Then, a few weeks later, a huge flock of red-winged blackbirds realized dinner was available in my daughter’s backyard. They seemed to know every time she filled the feeder. As they jostled for position, they displaced the more subdued finches. Within minutes, the feeder was empty. Clearly, something would have to be done. (more…)
With temperatures dipping into the low 20s and our first (finally!) snowfall, the bugs in our gardens are either dead or in hiding. But before we collapse into that comfy recliner with a garden book and a cup of tea, we need to take a good look at our houseplants. It might be winter outside, but indoors the bugs are having a field day.
The seasons have changed. The grosbeaks, hummingbirds, and other birds of summer have left for more tropical climates, but they’ve been replaced. Ducks, loons and grebes that spent the summer in the far north are showing up on local ponds. Rough-legged Hawks sit where Swainson’s hung out a month or two ago. Sandhill Cranes are headed for their winter feeding grounds in New Mexico. Instead of Chipping Sparrows at my millet feeders, I have flocks of Juncos.
I recently posted my 
Just the title evokes images of a Japanese horror movie with giant beetles running down the streets of Tokyo, grabbing screaming people and crunching them between its mandibles.
You’ve never noticed the shrub before. Its rounded green leaves and vase shape let it lurk unobtrusively in the background, where it may eventually grow to 15 feet tall and wide. Then, seemingly overnight, there’s a neon-fuchsia beacon glowing in the landscape. Fall has arrived, and the Burning Bush is on fire.
Gardening in Colorado is not easy. Late freezes, early snow storms (though not this year), hail, drought, torrential rainfall, over 100 species of grasshoppers… there is plenty to complain about.
My houseplants had been looking fine all summer, but now they were obviously ailing. No leaves were drooping, no obvious critters were chomping on the leaves. It was more of a general sense of decline—and a dappled, grayish pallor to the foliage.
Mountain Plover 