The Zen Birdfeeder

Wordless Wednesday

Northern Red Oak Leaf

A Look Inside a Pine Cone

Activity at birdfeeders in our area has been very slow for over a month so we've been talking to customers alot about the abundance of natural food sources out there for birds.  Birds are amongst the wildlife that have been feasting upon this year's bounty of seeds, nuts, insects, fruits and berries.

We should've known it was coming with this summer's above average rain and mild temperatures.  Early in the season, you could see clusters of cones forming at the tops of the pine trees.  And now the ground is covered by them.  Stand outside for any length of time and you'll hear a steady stream of cones dropping from the tree tops, being chewed off by industrious squirrels.

Pine tree tops full with cones

All this got me curious to do a little hands-on learning about the pine cone.  I step over, around, and on them almost daily, but have never picked one up to really study it.

The cone of course is the fruit of a coniferous tree and its main function is to be the carrying case for the tree's precious seeds.

Rows of tough scales protect the seeds, but as the cone dries and the scales open up exposing the inside of the cone, the seeds that had been nestled away safely near the core of the cone become more accessible to the wildlife.  I brought some cones inside with the scales barely open; 2 days later, the scales had peeled back, exposing the seeds.

The seeds are attached to a wing. As they fall out of the cone, the weight of the seed pulls it toward the ground, while the helicopter-like action of the wing slows its descent, providing a fun whirlygig-like descent.

When you look inside the cone, there are 2 seed heads tucked up close to the inner core of the cone and the wings rest neatly on the top of each cone scale. 

The seeds near the bottom of the cone were more developed than those near the top.  Within an average size Eastern Pine cone like the one I studied, there could be more than 100 seeds encased within, protected by the 50+ scales.

As the cones open, the seeds can either fall out or be picked out by wildlife.  Here's a few images of a Dark-eyed Junco feeding on seeds from the Eastern Pine.

These seeds provide a feast for the birds, along with all the other natural food that is still so abundant and available.  But as days pass, insects will become less available when temperatures drop and the ground freezes.  Uneaten fruits and berries will shrivel and fall, and snow will eventually cover the ground making natural food less accessible.  And as fall turns into winter, like during the closing hours of a buffet, natural food sources will become depleted.  It is then that the familiar feeder birds that have been enjoying nature's smorgasbord will again turn to our feeders for the high energy snacks that make it just a little easier to survive the long, cold winter months.

Window Box Color!!

Dahlia

In previous years, I always followed a color theme in my window boxes.  This year I decided to just go for an explosion of color.  Heck, I bought geraniums that weren't even marked so I had no idea what color I was getting!  So, how did it turn out?  Take a look....

I LOVE how they look!  The variety of color really brightens up the front of the house.  Serious garden designers may not like the mix but I love looking at it everyday!

I'm also lovin' the new window box planters.  They have a built-in water reservoir which eliminates daily watering.

Tiger Swallowtail Gallery

Return to the Garden - June Update

Back on May 7, I shared my Return to the Garden after a nearly 5-year hiatus.  As promised, here's an update.

The tomatoes and peppers arrived from Burpee late in May.  I'm glad I resisted the temptation to plant them right away because we had a frost on the evening of May 31.  A couple days later, I laid black plastic in the 2nd bed to help the soil warm and just put the plants in a few days ago.  And yesterday, my backordered pop-up net arrived.  It fits right over the 3'x3' raised bed to protect the plants from the bunnies.  IT IS SO COOL!  It even works over the tomato support stakes!

With all the rain we've had, I didn't want to miss capturing it so in the middle of a soaking rain, I linked my second rain barrel to the first. Together, they catch the rain off the hobby greenhouse and I now have about 1-3/4 barrels of rainwater for watering indoor and outdoor plants.

Yesterday's dinner was a wonderful mesclun mix salad with grilled chicken, our first harvest from the garden (the lettuce, not the chicken!). 

Looks like the shallots, onions, and garlic are doing well too.  The cilantro and basil have been slow to germinate and I just planted another square of lettuce.  I'll plant more in the remaining space in the tomato/pepper bed.

I replaced my window boxes this year with ones from Gardeners Supply that have built-in water reservoirs.  I went for a pastel variety of dahlia, verbena, geranium, and portulaca.  The Tiger Swallowtail loves the verbena and dahlia, but I haven't seen it on the butterfly feeder yet.

It is so nice now to spend time out on the deck when we have a free moment!

2009 is marking a modest return to gardening and so far it's going okay.  I'll keep you posted!

Birds at Chenango Valley State Park NY

A couple weeks ago, we visited our friends Barry & Sue Stevens, owners of the Wild Birds Unlimited store in Johnson City NY.  When we were leaving, we picked up lunch and stopped at Chenango Valley State Park for a picnic followed by a short walk around Lily Lake. 

I don't have lots of pictures, but we did see a number of birds and lots of nesting activity.  As we ate lunch, a Red-eyed Vireo, White breasted Nuthatch, Chipping Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Tree Swallow, American Robin, Black-capped Chickadee, and Red-bellied Woodpecker welcomed us to the park.

Red-eyed Vireo

Early in the 1.5 mile loop trail around the lake, we heard multiple Hermit Thrushes singing their ethereal song. One end of the lake was like a Red-winged Blackbird nursery. A majestic Bald Eagle (my first of the year) soared over the lake, as did an American Crow.  Another first of year was a Great-crested Flycatcher; then we saw another one on the other side of the lake.

Red-winged Blackbird

We heard a Tufted Titmouse though didn't see him, but did get to see a Veery and Song Sparrow.  On the far side of the lake was a first-of-year Scarlet Tanager.  As we made the turn for home an American Goldfinch sang his heart out from the top of a tree, a Belted Kingfisher rattled across the lake to his fishing perch, and a Northern Flicker flew by, flashing his white rump patch.

Veery

Near the end of the trail, we heard non-stop chirping, so we stopped and decided it was coming from a nest hole about 20 feet up a tree that was just on the edge of the trail.  We didn't have to wait more than 2 minutes before a male Hairy Woodpecker came to tend to his noisy brood.  He entered the hole, was in for a short while, then emerged.  They say you can estimate the age of the nestlings by whether the adult enters the nest or not; from what we saw, I think they were still quite young.

Hairy Woodpecker male at nest hole

We were amazed by how thin and worn, almost emaciated, the male was compared to our well-fed hairies at home.  I guess it really does help them to have an easy food source during nesting time!  (Click on the image of the woodpecker to enlarge to see how thin this bird is!)

Back in the picnic area where we started, we watched a pair of Eastern Phoebes, and eventually tracked down their nest plastered on the side of the restroom building.  If babies were in it, they were little and very quiet!

Phoebe nest

Nearby, a phoebe parent with grasshopper lunch was waiting for me to leave!

Eastern Phoebe

The Red-bellied also seemed to be checking out a nest hole but we couldn't tell if it was occupied.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

All in all, we saw (or heard) 23 species but our best memories were of the nesting Hairy Woodpecker and Eastern Phoebes.  What a treat that was!

I'll finish with some of the wildflowers that lined the trails.  Any help with ID is appreciated!

 

Fringed Polygala

Wild Violet

My Return to the Garden

Since we opened our Wild Birds Unlimited shop in August 2003, my gardening activities have been essentially eliminated. It's amazing how much time a retail store demands.  I used to grow vegetables, annuals, and perennials, all started from seed in a nice 8' x 12' hobby greenhouse. The greenhouse was all decked out with a heating mat for seed starting, grow light, and propane-fired mini-stove as a heat source.

Creeping Phlox 2007

Blue Flax 2007


My inactive greenhouse :(

I was a square-foot vegetable gardener, with nine 4' x 4' beds carefully planned out each year to produce mostly tomatoes and sweet red peppers, but also lettuce, onions, garlic, shallots, beans, cilantro, and more.  Those nine beds are now over grown and weed-filled.

I added perennials to my yard every year and provided bursts of color with annuals in containers all around the deck and in window boxes.  Every fall, I'd plant hundreds of spring-blooming bulbs, mostly daffodils, but also crocus (for that super early bloom), grape hyacinth, squill and more.

Grape Hyacinth 

But I haven't done much (anything?) in years other than buying some annuals and putting them in the window boxes but I wanted to ease myself back into gardening. And I knew I needed to take it slow and not dream bigger than I had time to accomplish it.

I started last fall, getting over 300 bulbs in the ground. I've already enjoyed the low-growing iris I planted and the narcissus mix is still blooming now. I think I've lost some of the others to chipmunks and voles because the tulips and allium have failed to show up.

Iris planted fall 2008

I also wanted to start a small vegetable garden.  Key word: SMALL.  Since I was comfortable with the square foot gardening concept, I went in that direction.  I started fresh with 2 new black plastic 3' x 3' raised beds from Gardeners Supply Company, and I placed them at the end of the yard, rather than further away in the lower yard as in years passed.

I got on the Gardeners Supply website and used their Kitchen Garden Planting tool to produce a planting map for my 2 new beds.  I used to do this on graph paper, but this online tool made it easier.  With it, I planned my garden of peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, onions, garlic, basil, and cilantro.

I bought the seeds for lettuce, spinach, basil and cilantro, and onion and garlic sets at a local garden center.  I also picked up some (unplanned for) shallots.  My brother-in-law will be a grateful recipient of the shallot harvest. 

Then I ordered pepper and tomato plants from Burpee.  I wanted to grow peppers that would mature to sweet red in our shorter growing season, and I had hoped to get grape tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, and tomatoes for salsa. But I had to make some compromises since Burpee only sells plants in groups of 3 (too many for the variety I wanted) so I ended up with one of their "collections".  Those plants will arrive later this month for planting in late May (I'm in zone 4 and our last frost date is May 31).

I prepared the beds by digging down about one foot into our sandy sandy soil.  It is barely "soil" but almost pure sand, so I removed the sand and backfilled the boxes with 2-3" layers each of compost, manure, peat, and vermiculite.  They look gorgeous!

Before

Home compost

After

I will install a drip irrigation system from the system that used to water my old raised beds.  I haven't gotten around to that yet, but didn't want that to stop me from getting some frost-hardy seeds into the ground.

Drip irrigation parts

So yesterday I planted the mesclun mix and spinach as well as the onion, garlic, and shallot sets.  I used slats from an old plastic mini-blind to label the squares.  And since I have 2-3 cottontails in the yard, I also put a pop-up net over the entire bed.

First to be planted


Plant labels from old mini-blinds

Keeping the bunnies out

I'm looking forward to the arrival of my tomato and pepper plants in 2 or 3 weeks and will have to resist the temptation to plant them if they arrive early. After all, it is zone 4 here and I am still running the pellet stove to warm the house during the day!

Check back for periodic updates on my Return to the Garden.

Spring Blooms '09

Daffodils (planted many moons ago)



Cherry - was it Nanking? Can't remember...



Narcissus from the mixture I planted last fall.  Beautiful!

Happy Easter Blooms

The birdbath was frozen this morning and we had some flurries early, but there are still a few blooms to help us enjoy the holiday at home.

First crocus of the season

This is one of the few crocuses that have bloomed this year and is from bulbs that were planted many years ago.  Last fall, I planted over 300 assorted bulbs including narcissus, allium, crocus, tulip and iris.  The first of the newly planted bulbs to emerge has been the irises, deep purple, low-growing, with beautiful white/deep purple accents on the top of the petals and yellow/deep purple on the underside.  They appeared right on time in early April.

This was described in the John Sheepers catalog as an "Iris reticulata Mixture" and pictured with purples, blues and yellows.  I love the purple/yellow combination but have yet to see anything but the purples in all the locations where I planted them.

The Crocus tommasinianus Lilac Beauty that were expected in late March/early April are just beginning to emerge above the tips of the narcissus.  Still lots of spring blooms to come!

Happy Easter!

A Productive Day in the Yard

It's been at least 5 years since I planted bulbs in the fall, but something possessed me to order some for planting this year.  I ordered them from John Scheepers, Inc., a company I've always had good luck with and that has a great selection of bulbs for my zone 4 yard.

Here's what I planted:
Magic Carpet Tulip mixture (25) - double tulips that will bloom in mid-April.  I planted these in an inner circle around the plum tree.
Allium mixture (100) - a low growing mix of white, yellow, and fuschia allium that will bloom April/May.  I planted these in the outer circle around the plum tree.
Gold Medal Narcissus mixture (50) - a wide variety to ensure a long flowering period in April/May.  I planted these in 4 groupings in the front bed.
Crocus tommasinianus Lilac Beauty (50) - star-shaped soft lilac that will bloom late March/early April.  I planted these above the narcissus in hopes that the chipmunks will leave them alone.
Iris reticulata mix (100) - low growing, mixed colors that will bloom in early April.  I planted these in 4 groups in the deck bed and 3 groups out near Jess' grave.

I'm excited to have FINALLY put some bulbs in the ground again and am already looking forward to next spring when they bloom for the first time.  I'll share photos when they do.

We had our first of the fall season Fox Sparrow yesterday October 21.  Last year, the first Fox Sparrow appeared on October 20, so they were right on time.  In looking at my notes from last year, I also noted that seven Evening Grosbeaks came through on October 20.  And the feeders in my yard were not exactly grosbeak-friendly! 

My feeder with catch-a-seed tray were damaged by the bear back in May, and I hadn't replaced that setup which the grosbeaks really seemed to prefer.  So today I put up a recycled plastic feeder with a catch-a-seed tray underneath.

 

They are all mounted on a WBU Advanced Pole System mounting setup with baffle that will keep the squirrels off.  The tray keeps the ground under the feeder clean and provides a large feeding surface for the grosbeaks, as well as for juncos, cardinals, sparrows, and others.  Birds also love the perching branch to approach the feeder and to open seeds on.

I also took in the copper birdbath dish and put out our heated birdbath.  The water in the copper bath has frozen over a couple nights already.

Notice the heavy taping of the connection between the birdbath cord and the extension cord.  I wrap the connection in electrical tape, wrap it in a baggie, then seal it with another layer of electrical tape.  This prevents moisture from getting into the connection.  This is the most common cause of heated birdbath "failure".  I leave the wrap on year-round since I just remove the entire bath and replace it with a copper tray for the summer.

We had light snow flurries today and the daytime high only reached 42 degrees.  Sweetie, the female Downy Woodpecker, has again started to use the birdhouse as a winter roost.

All are signs of the coming winter.  Take time now to put the finishing touches on your yard and get your birdfeeding stations ready for the long, cold winter which is just around the corner!