Ideas For Your Backyard

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Did                   Did you know that Doves are members of the pidgeon family?   They also make great pets .  Doves are actually very gentle and they tend to adopt to a family.  They will set with family membets or a personal object belonging to a family member. 

Doves are also very inexpensive.  They are quite charming birds and it is fun to watch their little antics and the different “coos” that they have.  They actually have rituals that are fun to watch .  Doves require very little.  Given fresh food and water they will do quite nicely.

Well it is finally Spring, and you will see more and more birds.  Wouldn’t it be nice if they were in your backyard?  It is possibe.  All you need to do is put up a few birdfeeders and birdhouses to attract them.  It also helps if your backyard is bird friendly. Trees and  bushes will help them  to feel safe as they move about.  Water features such as ponds, streams and /or birdbaths will also help.

It’s Easter and it is soooo tempting to purchase live chicks and bunnies for your children and grandchildren.  But, please reconsider.  They really are not good pets for young children!  Children want to play and handling these young animals and birds so much it is not good.  In fact too much handling can cause stress for them and the baby chicks  could die, and this in turn causes stress for the child and you.  It’s a vicious circle. 

Why not take them to a farm or the petting zoo?

Did you ever wonder how baby birds seem to stay in their nests without falling? Baby birds spend about 14 days in their nest, so what is it that keeps them from falling?  Well they are born naked, featherless and are very squirmy.  Fledglings will have stubby wing feathers and their tail feathers will be about half grown.  As they change from a hatchling to a fledgling they have a very heavy bottom.  This serves a purpose to keep them securely weighted in their nest.

The Prothonotary Warbler (Prothonotaria citrea) is one of only two warbler species in North America that nests in cavities.  The other is Lucy’s Warbler of the Southwest, and it is not known to live in artificial habitats.  The Prothonotary Warbler is a user of birdhouses, and a pair will even use one to raise more than one brood in a year.  Different pairs will also use the same house to raise their broods in a given season.

This bright yellow beauty with blue-gray wings and tail is about 5-1/2″ long.  Its song is a ringing “sweet-weet-weet-weet-weet”.  It lives in wooded swamplands, flooded bottomland forests, and along streams with dead trees near them.  Sometimes they live in trees actually in the water. The borders of creeks and rivers seem to be their favorite nesting places, but nesting over still water is not uncommon.  Their nests are close to the ground.

The Prothonotary Warbler’s range covers most of the southeastern states, north to Minnesota, Michigan and New York.  It appears occasionally in New England in the spring and during migration periods may appear anyplace coast to coast.

The Mountain Chickadee or Poecile gambeli has a white eyebrow through its black cap and lives in and west of the Rocky Mountains, where he calls chick-adee-adee-adee.  The Chestnut-backed Chickadee has a chestnut-brown back and a brown cap and lives in the northwest and along the California coast.  His call is more of a tseek-a-dee-dee.

The Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees like mixed forests, open woodlands and suburban areas, while their western cousins prefer coniferous forests.

Chickadee belong to the titmouse family.  They are largely an insect eaters, but in winter they may depend greatly on seeds and berries.  They are adept at foraging for insect eggs and larvae from twigs and bark, and this accounts for their active hopping and climbing around on trees to spot their food from all angles!  Their favorite foods at feeders are sunflower seeds, peanut kernels, other nutmeats, peanut butter, and suet. 

In the non-breeding season chickadees tend to flock together, and sometimes the flock may even include titmice, kinglets, nuthatches, and other birds.  During breeding season, the males will drive others out of their territories, so you may have only one pair of chickadees in your yard, where you may have had a flock all winter.

From the beginning of courtship through the period of egg incubation, the male chickadee feeds the female.  They typically raise one or two broods a year of 6 to 8 young and are year-round residents.

Since chickadees’ natural means of nesting is to excavate a hole in a rotting tree, you may make your nest box more attractive to them by putting a little sawdust or wood chips inside it for them. They will not use it for nesting, but since they usually work in pairs to carry a little sawdust away from the hole they are making in a tree, they will perceive that this hole in a tree is appropriate for them, and they will carry the sawdust away before nesting there.

Chickadees move to denser woods for breeding and nesting, but the rest of the year they like open areas and forest edges.

Are you a true bird lover?  What do you think about this feeder?  I think this is a wonderful idea!  It is fun to be outdoors and watch the birds, but this is the ultimate.  You can be sitting in your living room and the birds will come in to your room.  Well almost.  This way you can see them up close.

Those who love the bluebird have begun a massive effort to save it through the erection of thousands of nesting boxes appropriate for this species and predator- and competitor-proof. And the bluebird is beginning to reappear in areas where these bluebird houses are established.

There are three species of bluebird: Eastern, Western, and Mountain, and they belong to the thrush family. The Eastern Bluebird or Sialia sialis breeds in every state east of the Rocky Mountains. It is bright blue with a rusty red breast similar to the robin’s. The Western Bluebird or Sialia currucoides breeds in the western states from Canada to Mexico and east to Colorado. It has a blue throat, and the red color extends to its upper back. The Mountain Bluebird or Sialia mexicana breeds in the Northwest, east to the Dakotas, and north into Alaska. It is entirely blue, with a white underbelly.

Bluebirds are primarily insectivores, eating many insects considered pests by man: cutworms, grasshoppers, and flying insects. They supplement this diet in fall and winter with wild berries and may starve if snow covers the ground and berries are unavailable.

Birds are really very interesting to watch. They come in all different colors and sizes.  They sing different songs.  They are beautiful and fun.  On a hot summer day they with land on the fountain or birdbath or along the edge of the pond.  They’ll splash and peck at their features  or each other.  They’ll hop around and if the water is not too deep they will hop right in splashing and singing.  Now that they are refreshed, you probably will be too.  You don’t even realize how relaxing this is until you think about it.