Disastrous Spring

So I give up! Once again the raccoons have raided a birdhouse, this time taking out the new bluebird nest and taking the four eggs!

I'm a nature lover and actually been tolerant of raccoons but this year they have turned destructive! They have raided my bird food buckets which are in a deck box. They have got into cabinets! They have broke bungie cords! They have killed over 15 babies! And today they broke a feeder line and carried off the feeder to parts unknown!

I've bought extension poles, feeders on metal wire, moved houses and feeders and this year nothing seems to stop them. I've been at this house for over 10 years and NEVER had this much damage in basically one month. ARGH!!!!

I love my birds but not sure what to do about these raccoons!

Let's try this again!

So my awesome bluebird couple is over the disappointment of the raccoon attack and have taken up residence in one of the other houses on my property. I wasn't sure they were going to stay as I watch the nest building but today we have eggs, 3 so far.

A few days ago they started the build but then disappeared. Not sure if the constant rain on those days made a difference or not. However, Thursday I noticed the nest was completed but still no sign of the couple. Well, yesterday I saw the male on a wire above the new house and today I saw them together by the house.

I took a picture and BAM we've got eggs. I'm actually glad they picked this house because my thin cell phone slides in a gap in the top so I don't have to disturb them too much to track progress.

Bandits in the neighborhood

Well, it's another sad time for me and my feathered friends. The gang of masked bandits came through with a vengeance the other night. The raccoons got into my birds seed which I thought was pretty secure. I always take the seed out of the bags it comes in and put it into buckets with lids then place inside a deck box. Well, they figured that out and got in the deck box and opened three of the five buckets I have in there. All I can say is they prefer Duncraft's Chickadee Blend (http://www.duncraft.com/Duncraft-Chickadee-Blend) because they throw that everywhere and ate every nut in the bucket. What a mess!

The saddest thing is that they destroyed the bluebird nest and all the babies are gone. The picture here was taken the day before the attack. I was scared that the mama didn't make it but happy to report that both mama and papa bluebird survived. I've moved the house about five feet and secured it to some lattice-work on the side of my house. I was hoping to do this early this spring but the birds beat me to it this year. If you don't know, this particular bird house was one I was going to throw away last year. However I changed my mind and sit it on the end of my deck while I decided where to hang it. In that time this pair of bluebirds build a nest in it so I simply bungee corded it to a pole to make sure the wind didn't blow it off. Anyway, last year they successfully raised three groups of babies in it!

This morning I'm happy to report that the pair is already exploring new nesting places. I've seen them go into the house the chickadees where in, which I'm a little nervous about since I still have no clue what happened to that nest. I'm hoping that will come back to their old box but they might not like the five feet difference. Either way, I'm just happy that they both survived the attack of the masked bandits and are still together!

Finally happy again

This spring I decided that I was tired of the 'normal' finch feeder style and the fact that seeds always stayed in the bottom and they were not the easiest to clean. So off to the Duncraft.com website I went in search of a new finch feeder. Of course I took the "what's on sale" route and ended up with the BirdsChoice Nyjer Forever Feeder - http://www.duncraft.com/index/page/product/product_id/781/category_id/22/category_chain/19,22/product_name/BirdsChoice+Nyjer+Forever+Feeder'

When the package came, the feeder was really easy to put together and I was very pleased with the quality, however my family of gold finches were not as thrilled as I was. They were not having anything to do with it and I had almost given up hope. I actually looked at the old tube style again but resisted buying one quite yet. Well, low and behold one little finch starting using the new feeder and soon the family was together again. The feeder is finally beginning to look more and more like the picture in the Duncraft advertising. I've posted both for prove. Mine is the one with the red barn in the background.

So I guess we'll be keeping the new feeder and I can recommend it but give your feathered friends some time to adjust.

Sad and happy update

I returned today from a four day trip and was excited to check on my baby chickadees and see if the bluebird eggs had hatched. I was home about 10 minutes before I took my dog out and happily checked the houses. First up was the bluebird house and upon taking a cell phone pic through the hole I could tell then had hatched. One other clue was that mama bluebird was not happy with me messing with her home. She didn't mind when they were eggs but now she minds.

Next up was to snap a picture of the chickadees to see their progress. I knocked on the side of the house to make sure mom and dad were out and then slid my cell phone in the crack to snap a quick pic. To my shocking surprise, the box was empty. Not just no babies but no nest. I lifted the door and my fears were confirmed, EMPTY! I take a quick look around and see the nest on the other side of the fence in a ball. I have no clue what happened, but this was no snake or raccoon - this was done by a human and I will find out why!

Despite it all, I'm excited to watch the bluebirds grow and hopefully we'll have a few more batches of eggs this season.

Hummers are here!

While I figured the hummingbirds had arrived as I watched the feeder level go down, I can officially say they are here as I just had my first sighting of 2011. I also wanted to share a neat website that tracks hummingbird migration. I just got done submitting my first sighting!

http://www.birdfeeders.com/advice/bird-watching/hummingbird-migration

We've got babies

You might think these are part of my bluebird family but this is actually my backyard neighbors, the chickadees!

You can try to count the number of babies in the picture because I can't figure it out other than there is still one to go!

I had seen the chickadees going back and forth to one of the birdhouse in my backyard but I wasn't sure they had really claimed ownership since the house wrens usually take up residence there and they were around it screaming. Today I decided to check the house and was shocked that there were babies already.

I don't think I've ever seen a chickadee nest and I have to say I'm quite impressed with their use of moss and other soft nesting material. If the house wrens were in there it would be all sticks and not quite as comfortable.

I'll keep updates on these babies too especially since the way this house is build it's really easy to get cell phone pictures without opening the door.

Colored Eggs

While the Easter eggs have been boiled, dyed, cracked and eaten, my bluebird eggs are still a brewin'. I check them on a daily basis on the hopes of catching a glimpse of them hatching but not yet. As you can see in the photo, there are officially six eggs.

By the way, I still plan to do some product reviews but considering I live in the region that is getting rain everyday and under constant flood warnings I haven't been able to do a fair review so watch for these whenever the big green, yellow and red blob on the radar decides to leave mid-America!

Surprise experiment

I already know that I want to keep up to date with the bluebirds babies on my deck like last year but the birdhouse door doesn't allow for the best photography with my camera. So I decided this morning to do an experiment with my cell phone camera.

I tapped on the side of the box a few different times to make sure the parents were out exploring so I wouldn't scare them and sounded the all clear. I put the cell phone camera up to the hole hit the focus button and then the 'take' button. After waiting the few seconds to see the results I was shocked that the dad was still sitting on the nest! So glad he didn't freak out and fly into the phone, that wouldn't have been pretty. You can see him in the bottom of the picture looking up like "what's happenin' here!"

After he left I played around with getting the right angle and it's not going to work perfectly but I think I'll do it this way this year and not mess with opening the door like last year. Maybe next year I figure out a permanent camera system of something. If you have any suggestions on that let me know. I might be able to do it this year in between babies.

Anyway, with the best one you can tell there seems to be 5 eggs for the spring batch! Could be another one in there but I think 5 is it.

Not So Happy Turkey Day

Today I saw two rare things on my drive back to work at lunch. The one road to work is known to have large flocks of turkeys during almost any time of day and on almost every single day, but no matter how many times I've seen them I still say "TURKEYS". However, today was a little different, I got to say "TURKEY" but then thought 'that's strange - only one turkey!'

The person riding with me thought the same thing and we had a little conversation about how you never see a single turkey. It was about that time that I noticed something strange going on in the traffic ahead, it was a cloud of feathers. I could have reached out the window and collected several. It was a sad sight which brought us to the second conversation of 'you don't see that very often either' but at least we knew why the only was alone.

I think in all my years of passing hundreds of turkeys on this road, I've never seen one hit and it's always rare to see a single butterball usually it's twenty to thirty together. So hopefully that lone turkey will soon find a new friend in the natural turkey farm I have the privilege to drive past almost everyday!

Spring is in the air....time to blog again

After taking a break from this blog for no real reason it's time to bring it back and I hope to give more to it this year with not only bird pictures and happenings but with product reviews.

So here we go! My bluebirds are back! Building in the same 'throw away' house from last year that I was just too scared to move for the fear they wouldn't build a nest this year. It's sort of like that old saying ' don't fix what's not broke' and since they successfully raised three sets of young last year I'm not planning on fixing anything. Well, I think I'll replace the bungie cord soon but that's it. The pair showed up last weekend and today were busy building the nest so shouldn't be long till I have updates on them so look for that soon.

The other thing this year is that I've changed part of my yard by removing part of a deck which opened up a whole new area for my love of birds. Duncraft loves this fact because I went a little nuts shopping on their site and I'll show you some of these recent purchases in upcoming blogs.

The picture here is of the super Squirrel Stopper System which by the way was not purchased to stop squirrels which I only have a few of and don't mind at all so mine should be called the "Raccoon Stopper System" or at least that's the hope. While I love raccoons I can't have them on my deck with a dog that see them as something to play with. Anyway, first impression of the 'system' is that I love all the hooks and most of the construction but for some reason it's wobbly at the base but we'll see how it works out. Also, in that picture you can see a few new feeders I'm trying out and will let you know about.

So I hope you will find this blog a little entertaining and informative and if you do I encourage you to share it to get the audience up to make it worth doing. I would also love feedback so comment away.