Things I Have Never Seen Before.

When a "Birder" sees a new bird that they have never seen before, they write it on their "Life List." Listing is VERY popular with the Birding crowd. It is not uncommon for a die hard birder to have Day Lists, Location Lists, Life Lists... lists lists lists :) Well, I am not big on writing stuff down - well, I guess, until now. Anyway, Kent and I wanted to take the dogs for a good walk this morning, so we shot up to the White House Greenway. This is a wonderful greenway, not tooooo popular, nice and wide, good bridges, creekside, nicely paved, and VERY importantly, pretty well shaded.

I had not anticipated that I would find any fodder for this blogging enterprise, but expect things when you least expect it. I did see three things that I have never seen before - So, add these to my Life List. LOL!!

We generally carry a phone with us when we walk, just in case there is an emergency, so that is what I had to use to take these pictures - please excuse the poor quality.


I am sure that most of you have seen this before, but for me it was a first... Baby Donkey. He was very cute hanging out with his momma.

Then we saw this VERY weird bug. I will have to check one of my insect field guides for this one. It was easily four inches long and pretty quick moving. The dogs were curious, but I was not likely to let them sniff. It's abdomen looked like it had pincers, as did its' head. Strange to the "n"th degree. Anyone able to keep me from looking this one up? Know what it is?

Then finally, there was this wonderful patch of literally thousands of little mushrooms. They were growing under a huge Tulip Poplar. There was no way to capture the immensity of the patch - it was one of those things that you just have to remember.

The Ripeness of Spring

Spring is rapidly coming to an end, and yesterday evening I realized it was now or never for picking our (human) share of the bounty on the Mulberry tree. This morning, up at 5:30am and out to the tree with the ladder and several bowls for collection. Last year we had to trim many dead, deformed and dying limbs -- the past couple of drought summers, combined with the past damage wrought by the female cicadas laying their eggs, caused some serious issues with our tree. Having to use a ladder to harvest berries is seriously difficult. The best berry is always just out of reach - ain't that the way it always is? :)

So, while we were picking - or rather, while Kent was picking, and I was playing with the dogs (remember, using ladder :::grin:::) - I noted several great birds competing with him for the sweet treats. In the hour that we were down there I saw a Gray Catbird, a juvenile Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downey Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Bluebird, Chickadee and Scarlet Tanager!! WOW!

Bluebird Babes

I LOVE it!! More great input from our customers. This is the email that I received from our premier Bluebird Landlord, Spike Odell :

Hi Pam...
I had a nice surprise this morning when the Mom and Dad bluebird showed up at the window feeder with all the kids! Man....! They look healthy! Must be that WBU mealworm diet I put them on!

I had 5 birds fledge, but only see the 4 now. I'm getting ready for the second nest ..(hopefully). I have installed the camera in the top of the box and will put it online when (if) they begin to build again.

I enjoy your blog. You have a lot going on in your neck of the woods!
Spike
Be sure to check out Spike's website: http://www.bluebirdlovers.com. I am sure that we will be seeing some great action out of his website!

What's This?!?

Any Ideas??

Nesting Complications

Notice anything wrong here?
This is not an uncommon occurance, and I receive many calls and emails from folks that see this when they open their box for monitoring.

Early in the season, Mardy called and said that there was a Chickadee that had taken over occupancy of the box that we put up specifically for the Bluebirds. As usual, I asked her to please allow the Chickadees to continue their nesting and then, after she removes the spent nest, perhaps the Bluebirds would come and try again. Several days later, I received another call with the information that the Bluebirds were now there, having decided to use the nest, and they were "fighting" for the right to use this box.

It seemed all was well, as several days later, there was laid one egg. Yea, it seemed that the Bluebirds would prevail and have their nest.... Never speak too soon when trying to determine what will happen in nature. By this time, the House Wrens had arrived in the area, and they had a different idea for that nest box. It is now clear that the Wrens have prevailed.
When the Wrens have finished, Mardy may remove all the nesting material and then possibly get a nesting pair of Bluebirds to take up residency again. Lucky for us, Bluebirds will nest several times during the season.

Hungry Babies

Got this nice little email from Janis Tomanek and the great pic of Momma Bluebird feeding one of her babies:

Thank you so much for educating me about Bluebirds.
I bought several bags of dried meal worms and put them in my feeder.
Mama Bluebird found them right away and is feeding them to her three baby Bluebirds (yum!).
I am sure she is very grateful to WBU!
What a great Picture! The mealworms that she is feeding are an easy substitute for the live mealworms that many people feed their bluebirds. The dried variety are reliably available; whereas, the live mealworms may be difficult to acquire during the heat of the summer.

Mulberry time!

So the pics are not great, but you need to know that I was pretty far below these guys, and sure, my camera has "Image Stabilization" but still... It was hard to get them zoomed in without losing them entirely in the leaves. ANYWAY.... Kent and I LOVE this Mulberry tree!! It brings us so many great visitors, and we are also able to harvest some fruits for ourselves - - Either for use on top of Yogurt or in the making of adult beverages - -Yummy!

We first came into contact with a Mulberry tree when visiting Land Between The Lakes (LBL). We were hiking the Hematite Lake Trail, near the Nature Center, and came across this HUGE Mulberry tree. In that tree we counted more than 12 species partaking of the bounty. This, we thought, was something that we just HAD to have! That year we bought our own little Mulberry tree. We have not been disappointed either!

Today I managed to snap several Cedar Waxwings...

and Papa Bluebird chowing down. It is my sincerest hope to catch more visitors in this hot spot - AND I don't have to drive all the way to LBL to enjoy the diversity of bird life... too cool.