Thats too bad about the flowers but annuals are a small sacrifice and Im sure you feel a little blessed to have to parent birds trusting you enough to raise their babies in your flowers. Im sure your doggy isnt feeling blessed though lol! I bet its fun to watch their antics and the babies fledge.

We have a couple of red bellied woodpeckers who are watching the dwarf black mulberry tree and fly over and scold anyone or other birds who get near it. They hop from branch to branch hanging upside down gobbling up mulberries. They then fly up to a taller nearby tree to watch for intruders on 'their' mulberry tree. I dont know if they have a nest up there or not.

Sultry, that is so cool! The woodpeckers are such comedians! I am still learning all the crazy sounds they make!

Thanks Starfruit, we are really enjoying them. I told dh about their behavior last week and he was outside BBQing yesterday and he walked over to the mulberry tree and sure enough, those woodpeckers both swooped down onto the mulberry branches chattering and grabbing fruit like they thought he would eat it all before them.

I guess I could put out birdfeeders again. I had some last year but they kept getting too wet with all the rain. Mostly, a lot of tge wild birds (especially cardinals) like to steal the chickens food) so Im kinda feeding them anyways :D

I have a hummingbird feeder but the hummers much prefer all the many large salvia plants in the yard and pretty much ignore the feeder. I have an elephant fountain and the hummers like to bath and get drinks on its head lol. I might try to get a little camera to put out so I can video it.

Those eggs are really pretty! I didnt know Mockingbirds had such beautiful eggs:) I hope you get to watch the babies.

Your yard sounds wonderful!! I would love to see video of the hummers!

i was also surprised at how pretty those eggs are! I took a risk getting it, Momma wasnt happy with me!

Did you have to climb or get on a ladder to see the nest or did they make it low on the shrub? I've only seen roadrunner nests low to/on the ground or, in my grandma's backyard in Phoenix, she had one tree with a very low bushy fork the roadrunners liked to use, which was pretty cool. The birds here keep nest way up on the oaks or pines. I put up 2 bird houses a few yrs ago but they havent touched them.

I've never heard of California wrens. Do you mean Carolina wrens? I have a lot of those around my place in the winter, but not in the summer. Carolina wren is the state bird of my home state, SC. Sparrows were running them off and they became endangered in some parts of the state, but I hear they've made a comeback.

Yes, Carolina Wrens! I must have been in heat stroke when I posted, I was putting down some mulch and man, it's so hot already, thanks.

Haha Rita, I think the same thing happens to me in the heat

sultry, it’s really low! About 4 ft off the ground in a bush.

Rita, I know that feeling all too well. This insane heat is driving me crazy!

Rita I was tickled to read your post because we had just scheduled to get a new roof on our house when a pair of C wrens decided my hanging spuder plant would be the perfect spot to raise their kids. So of course we rescheduled the roof to the end of this month. The kids fledged two days ago! Lets hope another pair doesn't set up housekeeping before that!

Well what a coincidence, just this morning I was piddling around the yard and noticed that there was a lot of activity and chirping in the Crepe Myrtles. I looked in the nest and those amazingly sneaky birds managed to coax the babies out while I was wandering all over the place! I had a feeling yesterday that it would be soon because the parents were vocalizing near the nest a lot. But I'm glad because those horrible dead plants can be replaced now. Yay!!

Rita that’s awesome!

This is my "sacrifice". Its name is Hoss (from hasenpfeffer). I talk to it (admonishing it to eat grass instead of my plants) but it doesn't listen and nibbles on whatever catches its fancy. I'm beginning to wonder if it thinks I'm its mother - seems to follow me as I make my circuit around the house.

Even my crusty neighbor commented that it's cute and until it gets bigger and becomes a RABBIT, he'll let it munch in his garden too.

June

Aww! So cute!

June, yes it's so cute. But I hope you haven't tried to touch or pet it? There is a disease that wild rabbits carry called "rabbit fever", Tularemia - you don't want to get that. As long as you don't touch it or handle anything that it touches you're fine so don't freak out completely but if you look up that disease you'll learn more about it. If it gets into the lungs it can actually kill you. There are several different ways that the disease can attack, so I think the pneumonia one is the worst and most dangerous. I suspect that I got it from handling a wounded baby rabbit a few years back. I woke up about 3 nights later and I was having a hard time breathing, very rapid and shallow, to the point where I couldn't even get up, I had a fever and bad headache and I was shivering so hard and strong that my whole body hurt. I actually thought that I was about to die but I couldn't even get the strength to get up and do anything, finally I guess I passed out and when I woke up everything was back to normal again. It was very scary. I found out about rabbit fever from a neighbor who said a friend of hers wound up in the emergency room with it - same thing - she was handling a wounded baby.

No, I don't intend to touch or pet it, Ritaweeda, but thanks for the info. I think I recall hearing about rabbit fever but didn't know the symptoms, etc. Sounds frightening.

Yikes Rita! Glad you were able to fight it off! Very scary indeed.