Birder’s Lounge

I know…seems obvious, right? As my niece taught me to say, “duh!”

I planted a pecan tree (Carya illinoinensis) in my backyard about 4 years ago. There are many pecan trees near my home and they are so beautiful, even in the winter when they have dropped their leaves. I like to say they have “good bones.” Pecan trees are the state tree of Texas and they are certainly plentiful and do very well. Whatever was on the land my home was built on had been cleared, so that is why I promptly planted a pecan tree (among others!). Read the rest of this entry »

Birders come in different varieties. If I wanted to be really dorky, I would say they come in different species Read the rest of this entry »

Rabbits are fairly common around my neighborhood and I especially love seeing the babies. The lawn-mowers scared this baby rabbit out of his hiding spot…

…and into this one. I have to be careful when pulling weeds because sometimes I find cottontail nests around the bases of my shrubs or other plants. The shrub shown here is an Indian Hawthorn (Rhaphiolepsis indica) which is not native to North America. They do great in the alkaline soil in my area and though I’ve committed to using only native plants going forward, I do NOT intend to remove these foundation plants from my landscape. The yellow-flowering plant is known as Dahlberg Daisy or Bristle-Leaf Dyssodia (Thymophylla tenuiloba), has a great wildflower scent, and the rabbits won’t eat it. 

Rabbits are considered by some people to be a pest, but I welcome them. Yes, they do eat some of the flowers and plants around the house, but I have so many plants that they don’t really make a dent in any one place. We also have a strong hawk presence in our neighborhood…and well, the rabbits just never really get too numerous, if you know what I mean. Ahh, the web of life.

My ideas about feeding wild birds have been changing over the last year. The more I learn about how nature works, the more I tend to think that my putting out birdseed is creating an artificial food source that serves me more than the beautiful birds that visit my backyard. Let me explain…

Read the rest of this entry »

I found this baby turtle stuck under my fence yesterday morning. My dog was barking, which is unusual, so I went over to see what the fuss was all about. I was so excited to see the little turtle because I had just been building a “turtle hut” next to my frog pond. In fact, I was so excited Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote an earlier post where I showed pictures of how I built my hummingbird garden. I started out with maybe half native plants, half non-native. I have since learned that native plants attract and support wildlife SO much better than non-natives that I have been changing out plants in my hummingbird garden over the last two seasons. Let’s look at some before and after photos… Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just finished reading an excellent book written by Douglas W. Tallamy, called Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens(2007). Tallamy does an excellent job of explaining how each and every person can give back to nature what we have altered or taken away entirely. Tallamy’s main focus Read the rest of this entry »

What a handsome bird! The Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) is a common visitor to my backyard. It is one of the larger birds that frequent my yard and has a call that, to me, sounds like a laugh. Here is an audio clip of Red-bellied Woodpecker calls from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s site, All About Birds. Neat, huh?

The female is easy to distinguish Read the rest of this entry »

I was watching television last night and saw a commercial for 3M post-it notes where squirrels are devising a number of plans to raid the bird-feeder. Hah! Of course, this way works too- Read the rest of this entry »

Believe it or not, my love of birds started with my desire to feed the squirrels. I know, sounds backwards. I love creatures of all kinds and like many people, enjoy the antics of the squirrels that play and forage in my backyard. One day the idea of putting some food out for the squirrels came to mind. I went to my local feed store and bought some corn-on-the-cob. It seemed like the logical choice and I had the perfect spot at a corner of my fence. I even had fun making my simple corn-on-the-cob feeder. It didn’t take long and I had many visitors, like this little guy:

After a short while, I started noticing that birds seemed to be interested in the corn as well. Read the rest of this entry »