BIRDS

[Walnut Beast]

 

[Walnut Beast]

5 baby barn swallows getting along just fine in duct tape nest from last year

[thecfarm]

It works!!!
I am trying a thistle sock for the finches for the first time. I put it out and about 15 minutes later a yellow finch was on it. Might have to start keeping that full now. I keep black oil sunflowers year around out for the birds. We enjoy watching them. Orioles are still a coming. Wood peckers are enjoying the suet.

[WV Sawmiller]

   My wife yelled at me to come watch a few minutes ago. A big pileated woodpecker flew in and landed on a dying ash tree about 7-8 ft from the bluebird nest box and the parent bluebirds immediately attacked. He circled the tree several times dodging them, flew to a nearby tree then returned and they both attacked again and he finally gave up and flew off. He would make 8-10 of them but they rule the roost right now. I wish I'd put this box up 30 years ago when we first moved here.

[doc henderson]

In Kansas, we have the Big Brown Bat.  you can look up the size space they like, and build this into your design.  we made some years ago, but never got them up.  at night we could see what looked like a drunk bird swoop down and get a drink of water from our pool when lit up.  The kids had a "bat phase"  and on vacation we went to the bridge in Austin, and saw the bats there from the bridge and a boat.

[WV Sawmiller]

   We had giant fruit bats with a rookery in a big mango tree in Douala Cameroon with many thousands roosting in it when I worked a project there. They were about the size of crows. The locals would shoot them with pellet guns and eat them. If you saw a big circling cloud in the middle of the day like a tornado it was usually someone had disturbed them. My free-lance photographer was visiting me one summer and I took her there. She has excellent Canon lenses and cameras and took a picture. She took it home and downloaded to her laptop and started blowing up the pictures. A yawning bat is pretty impressive BTW. She got to one picture and said "What are these things on these bats?" I looked at the picture and told her "There are male bats." Her lenses were good enough to tell the sex of the bats. She took a picture of a young harpy eagle in Ecuador from about 75 yards away. She blew it up to bigger than life size and said "Heck, I've got a spec of dust on my lens." She looked closer and said "No, its a fly." From 75 yards away she could clearly make out a fly 3' in front of the eagle.

 Our local bats are small ones about the size of a walnut when resting. I saw designs for the big bats too. I will probably make a box or two to take with me to my show. I figure I'll make 15-20 more bluebird boxes as kits and not assemble them for space issues and likely do the same with some simple crates.

 I've got to look into that screech owl box as we have them and I love seeing them. Very few people ever do.

[doc henderson]

that would be a good market to grandpas to put together with grand kids.  we did 400 toolbox kits for a camporee for cubs scouts.  pre-drilled some holes so the kids had better luck starting and driving the nails.

[KEC]

I've seen a lot of bat boxes being sold that I'm not impressed with; some were up on a building under a roof overhang and the bats would roost right next to, but not in the box. I build boxes for function, not beauty. You can take a rough-cut board ~8" wide and tack 1"x1 1/2" slats around the edges and leave a couple of 2-3" gaps on one side. Now fasten this board to a wide board so the slats are sandwiched between them. put it up on a barn/building under the roof overhang with the narrow board out and the wide board extending down. The bats fly up and land on the wide board and crawl up thru the gaps in the slats and get between the boards. Make it however long you like. On a bat and board building, I think you could nail a wide board over the existing bats and they would love it. Put it where you don't mind the droppings fallout below the box.

[SwampDonkey]

I've got at least 4 bats that stay in the eve of the barn. I see them go in the barn about 5:00 am every morning.

I have a bat box up at the woodlot, beside a beaver pond, so there is water nearby. It's been there a few years. First thing that happened was a bear wanted to climb the pole. I have monkey bears on my land, they all like to climb like cats and coons. :D

[woodroe]

Pretty sure we had six boxes of tree swallows fledge this year. No evidence of coon or grey fox pillage.
That is probably another 20-30 tree swallows that eat biting insects for next year, happy !

[SwampDonkey]

The blue birds left the nest yesterday sometime. I have not spotted any yet in the yard with the male. He is still around singing, probably looking for a new mate.

[doc henderson]

mom flew out and dad flew in.  none to happy to get his pic taken.  I was 10 feet back and zoomed in.



 

[Old Greenhorn]

He is still around singing, probably looking for a new mate.

I guess he didn't learn the first time. ;D

[51cub]

I got lucky getting this picture. I hope it came out ok

 

[KEC]

51cub, I'm fairly certain that your photo is that of a Broad-winged hawk. I am participating in the 3rd New York State Breeding Bird Atlas Project, a project to map the breeding range of all the species that nest in the state. While out looking for birds a couple days ago I found a Sedge Wren, which is very hard to come by in this area. They nest is fields of tall grass, weeds and sedges where the ground is usually wet. I was happy to find it.

[thecfarm]

Seems like I am feeding more birds now than I was this winter.  ??? I tried a thistle sock for the finches. Never had one before, they like it!!

[51cub]

Thanks @KEC I hadn't really looked yet to see if I could figure it out what it was. I need to get an atlas or at least a field guide for the area. I'm no good trying to look things like that up on a computer. The big thing I'm looking uo now is if a picture I took a month ago now is a mason bee or not

[WV Sawmiller]

   Our first baby eastern bluebirds left the box on 25th of June but the mom and dad keep going in and out. I was going to remove the old nest hoping they'd build another - per the advice I had read on them. I began to wonder if there was a dead bird left in there or something so today I brought my ladder over and removed the top and looked in to find this.


 Either my bluebirds forgot the read the "All you needed to know about about bluebirds" by the renowned "Dr. I Knowital" (From the University of Alabama I think) or they are just being thrifty. Somebody told me the other day bluebirds will sometimes just build another nest on top of the old one if the box is deep enough so maybe this is what they did. Mama buzzed me before I could get out of the area. I wanted to take her picture but she had the sun behind her and it would not have come out. Anyway it looks like we have many more weeks of bluebird enjoyment to come.

[SwampDonkey]

Seems like I am feeding more birds now than I was this winter.  ??? I tried a thistle sock for the finches. Never had one before, they like it!!

We've had a flock of the goldfinches all summer. They like to sit in the oak trees. They are busy little birds and very vocal. I don't know when they have time to nest with them staying is flocks.

[KEC]

Goldfinches are just now starting to nest. They wait for thistles to go to seed and use the fluff to put in their nests and they feed thistle seeds to the young. Someone once wondered how the babies do so well on a seed diet, other birds feed the babies insects for protein. Turned out, the thistle seeds have insect eggs or pupae amongst them and the baby goldfinches get protein from them.

[SwampDonkey]

They'll be out of luck around here for thistles. I have a war against them and burdock with the Roundup jug. :D :D

[Walnut Beast]

There are a few type of thistles and there not all bad

[thecfarm]

Never had much trouble with thistles here on The Farm. But that burdock tried to get a hold on this place. We mow the fields now kinda like a lawn, that keeps out the junk stuff that way.

[KEC]

Can't say I'm overly fond of burdock, I saw a photo many years ago of a dead goldfinch stuck in burdock. On the other hand, the leaves in the summer (so I've heard) can be pressed into service as toilet paper substitute. And, the Wild Turkeys will devour the burdocks (which are full of seeds) in the wintertime. I know, you probably still hate the burdocks. I have picked them off my wool hunting coat, not fun.

[Crusarius]

So anybody have any suggestions for attracting birds that like to eat gypsy moths and caterpillars. I am having the worst infestation I have ever seen. Makes me wonder if someone near bye sprayed and chased them all to me 

since I am very anti chemical I am hoping to attract some birds that are hungry.