Brown Thrasher

Our summer residents, Ike and Tina are parents again!

They are baby Brown Thrashers.

They’re in the Holly bush in the front yard.  The nest is only about 5 feet off the ground, so I can easily see in.  I just hope they survive.

This is Mama (or Daddy) having a bath.

They come every year, and have about 4 broods in the same nest.  She used the exact same nest for several years until last year, something got the last batch of babies.  I think it was the black snake Al captured a few months back in the snake wrangler episode!  So this appears to be the new nesting spot.  How smart of her to realize the last nest spot was no longer safe? I expect if all goes well she will use this nest every year.  We’re pretty sure its the same pair because of the fact they use the same nest. I don’t know where they go after they leave here, but we only see them in the summer.  It’s interesting how different birds are.  The Carolina Wren’s only use a nest once.  Their nests are amazing how neat and round the nest cavity is. The Bluebirds go from one nest box to the other and don’t seem to use the same box twice in a row, but will come back the next time. They make a very neat nest out of pinestraw. Mockingbirds throw together a bunch of twigs and the nest is kind of sloppy and doesn’t look very comfortable.  All of these birds raise their babies together, with Dad working as hard as Mom.  They are amazing parents and it’s fun to watch them raise their babies.  The Bluebirds seem to be learning to fly.  Quite often when we go outside we will see a bunch of Bluebirds flying around together from tree to tree following each other.  It’s like they are practicing their take offs and landings. You can usually tell a youngster by the way they land.   When birds fledge from their nests its very difficult to tell them from their parents.  I read that it takes Bluebirds about 2 weeks to learn to fly well. They are at least as big as their parents and often even larger when they leave the nest. One thing I do notice is many times they don’t have many tail feathers at first.

We cleaned the back porch last night and had to take the Hummingbird feeder down.  Someone was angry and very glad when it got put back.

Can We Come Out?

Another batch of baby Bluebirds almost ready to fledge.

There were 4 eggs in this nest.  This will bring our total to 21 once they fledge.  We have another box with 5 eggs.  It’s been a busy year at the farm :)

I love my Zinnias.  We always have plenty of cut flowers.  Last year I put Zinnia seeds all around the vegetable garden.  I thought it would make it look prettier.  Unfortunately the flowers got larger than I thought and spread a little…Al was not too happy my flowers took over his garden.  I was told NO flowers were going to be allowed in this years garden.  Well I didn’t plant any (honest) but it seems the seeds from last years flowers came up anyway…and you guessed it.  Al has flowers in his garden…again :)

He knows better than to kill them, so he just grumbles a lot!

 

bunny

dinner time

bath time for Bluebird

Yesterday, while I was inside reading blogs, I heard “Ivan the Terrible” squawking like crazy.  He’s our Mockingbird and he was after a squirrel.  It seemed the squirrel was in the peach tree trying to steal a peach and Ivan didn’t want him there.  I was a little concerned that the squirrel may have been after a baby Mockingbird, so I went outside and helped Ivan scare off the squirrel.  Once the squirrel left the area of the peach tree, Ivan went about his business. 

We certainly have a nature lovers paradise here and we will certainly miss it when we go on the road in the motor home.

A fox picture to end up with :)

Bluebirds Everywhere!

We have 5 Bluebird nest boxes that we put up on our property and they are well used this year.

Our 4th batch just fledged which make 17 babies.  There is one box that has youngsters that appear to be about ready to fledge and one more box with 5 eggs.  That same box successfully fledged 5 babies when we were camping in Keaton Beach.  I have to think this is the same parents because they normally don't lay 5 eggs.

So assuming the two nests we currently have successfully fledge that will bring out number to 26, so far for the year!  I think we're doing our part to help bring the Blue Bird population back :)

Birds and Flowers

You can sure tell it's "baby" season here.  We have more nests and baby birds.

We have two Bluebird nests with eggs, and one with 4 babies.  We have LOTS of adult Bluebirds flying around from previous nests. They are getting more used to us and don't panic when they see us.  When we first moved here, we would see them up on a power line and if we got anywhere near, they would fly off.  I think they now realize we won't hurt them.

We have another Carolina Wren (Nancy) nest in a flower basket on the front porch.  When the eggs hatch, we will have to sneak in on the front porch so as not to disturb them, or use the back door!  They are such sweet and interesting birds, we always enjoy having them nest on the porch.

We think there is a Brown Thrasher nest  in the front Holly.  We've seen mom and dad (Ike and Tina) flying in and out a lot, so we think they're feeding babies.  We haven't found the nest though.  The bush is very thick.

Al is back in Tampa for a few days, so I am trying to do some house work and of course my daily mowing.  I usually try to take the mower for a ride every evening.  I enjoy it, but am having to watch my grip to avoid any more issues with my thumb.

Some pictures of my Hydrangea bush.  It's actually about 4 different plants and I guess they are all different because they are different colors.  They are beautiful early in the summer, but as it gets hotter, they tend to droop.

I believe this is a type of Ginger.  The pink flowers just sprout up from the ground and then later the leaves appear.  We have them all over the place and I always forget about them until they pop up!

Cut flowers from my flower gardens.  I love Zinna's and have tons of them.  There are always plenty of flowers for cutting, unfortunately the kitties LOVE to EAT my cut flowers (and of course spill the water), so I usually just leave them on the porch where I can see them!  It's safer that way :)

Blue Bird Nests

We currently have two Blue Bird nests on the property.  There are 4 eggs in one nest and 3 in the other.  I think 4 is their limit, as we’ve never seen a nest with more than 4 eggs. They seem to be able to lay one egg per day, so I expect their will be another one today.

I had forgotten how long it takes for the eggs to hatch, so I pulled out my trusty Blue Bird book.  It says egg laying is 5-7 days, nest building is 1-6 days, incubation is 12-14 days, brooding is 6 days.

I’m not really sure the difference between incubation and brooding, but I think brooding is when the eggs are sat on 24/7.

Here is a picture of “Junior” from last year. He was the only egg that hatched from the 4 that were laid.  He survived and fledged.  He was only one day old here.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Here he is eleven days later.  Notice the 3 unhatched eggs?

He is almost ready to fledge.

Gold Finch Watching

Al attached a bird feeder to the kitchen window. It makes a great place to bird watch.  We still have Gold Finches here and they are starting to really turn yellow.  They are winter birds here and normally by the time they turn real yellow, they migrate north.  Not very nice is it?
The cats enjoy the window.



Tufted Titmouse

House Finch


Gold Finch




Cleveland Flowering Pear

Miss Squeaky “camping” in the motor home and on the new bed.



More Wisteria

Cat Bird Watching

Al put up a bird feeder outside our kitchen window.

The cats love it!

The screen was causing problems with my camera, so we took the screen off.  Unfortunately when Al took the screen off, the birds got scared off.  We’ll try again tomorrow.

Chattanooga up close.  We call him Chatty for short…isn’t he cute?

Hummingbirds

The middle of March is typically when the first Hummers arrive back in south Georgia.

I put up a feeder of sugar water yesterday.  Once they all get here, we’ll have to have several feeders as they are very territorial.

4 parts water, 1 part sugar, bring to boil, cool.  They are one of the most entertaining birds to watch.  They are so tiny but have tons of personality. They make a little noise when they are flying around.

They remember where the feeders were the previous year, and come back expecting the same feeder to be in the same spot!

Sometimes when we take one down to change the “soup” one will go to the spot and hover there waiting for it to be refilled!  A few times I thought one would land on my head while waiting for me to hang the refilled feeder back up!

They are such cute little birds.  I can’t wait to see them.

Every year so far our first hummer is “Blackie”.  He always arrives earlier than the rest and is quite distinctive with his black head.  Hope he survived the winter and is on his way.

We’re having pretty heavy rain today so probably no traveling.  Al is out working on some leaking (constantly) gutters.

So far, no tornado alerts however the weather radio went off twice early this morning alerting us to coastal flooding and a small craft alert.  I think I need to adjust the radio!

Spring is Here

I can tell, because it is nearly dark and Al is still outside.  When the time changes and the days get longer, I can’t get him in the house before 9pm.

We went into town today and got some more white millet for our winter birds.  Hopefully it will be the last 50 pound bag we will need for this winter.  We have so many winter birds that we have to use some of the cheaper stuff. We normally feed them the sunflower chips because they make no mess (no hulls or unwanted plants) and the birds love them.


We came home and planted more onions and I tried some garlic this year.  We’ll see how that works out.
We got the leaves raked up under the front tree and the grass underneath was pretty green.  It looks so much better.


I guess because it was close to the house the grass stayed greener.  The outer portion of the front yard is not nearly as green….but it’s getting there.

I did some mowing on my zero turn Grasshopper mower, which I love.  Al was the one that insisted we get the zero turn style mower, but I quickly found how nice they are.  I do most of the mowing…and Al gets stuck doing the hard stuff!
The Blue Birds have been showing an interest in the houses, but so far no one has started making a nest.  They have been hanging around the boxes though.


Miss Kitty watching me from the window.

It was a good day.  We worked hard outside, but got some thing accomplished and the weather was about 70 degrees again.  The next two days we are expecting some rain, so we may get a few R & R days.