Today's adventure. 2 cheap, slightly used, bird houses, two 10' long painted PVC pipes, one old baffle, bits and bobs for fittings, and 2 old umbrella stands that I will no longer trip over in the garage. To be placed in border garden soon, facing East for the early risers. Come sleet and snow, a few more little beings will have shelter in our yard. Portable housing.

This post may work! I copied the image from email on iPad.

Nice job, Jane! Penthouse living for some lucky birds. I hope they're not within jumping distance for squirrels - I can envision a squirrel leaping onto the pole and getting catapulted when the pole goes boing!

Do you have any idea why the email image was postable?

Claire

Wish I could answer that. Just took a photo with my phone, air dropped to the Mac, exported via Preview, renamed photo in the Finder folder and will now to try to post it. It is exactly the same sequence I did yesterday with the picture of the pole houses. A moment ago - a rainbow on my knee. (seriously, how many people get that? hahahaha) Let's see if it posts.

No, I don't think it will post.

Directly from phone. Nope, that didn't work either, so it is not a matter of transferring via air drop. Has to be me and houzz. My photos work on Facebook and in emails.

Yet this takes. ey yi yi Okay, I've spent enough of your thread space. No definite answers - just like life.

I reduced the image size from 2.5MB to 478kb. Let's see if it is the volume, weight of the photo. Bet it is.

OK! That's it! Size of the photo. Facebook automatically adjusts photo size as does email. Yes, like a terrier until I get an answer! Yes, that is a rainbow on my knee, hahahaha.

I am in Colorado with family, and though most of my days are spent at a hospital, the friends we are staying with in Golden have a garden with no lawn, and the critters love it. So I watch the sun come up over the somewhat wild garden and then watch birds that I can’t see at home: broad tailed hummers, magpies, spotted towhees, along with several more familiar ones such as blackcapped chickadees, goldfinches, and house finches.

Last evening the elk were bugling in a nearby open space (county park), so we took a short walk to watch them.

Edited to add this photo of the slope with elk . Not that you can see them but there were about 15 on this slope; some of the dark areas on the middle ground are elk not shrubs or rocks. But I only had a cell phone. The sound is amazingly varied and our host said only the males bugle and only in the fall, trying to attract a harem.

So not in my garden or even New England, but still a nice set of critters.

Congratulations, Jane - I bet the rainbow made you check the size! Rainbows are good at that. I probably set the export size somewhere along the way when I was setting up my system so they're always at a reasonable size (by Houzz standards).

NHBabs: What a nice place to stay with lots of interesting critters to balance the hospital environment.

I've never heard elk bugling (I've never even seen an elk) so of course I googled it.

ELK BUGLING IN ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK HD

I was thinking that this is definitely a western sound, but apparently there were once elk in Massachusetts so my ancestors probably heard them.

HISTORY OF THE EASTERN ELK: FROM THEN TO NOW

Claire

Nor have I seen elk. I think PBS Nature had the rutting music on a few years ago. It is an ancient, truly from the soul animal sound. Interesting.

Not as interesting, but certainly energetic. The honorary Home Depot birds outside my window.

They can drain that bath water by half in one pool party time.

Jane

P.S. - Claire, the picture prob on the iPhone only happened after I 'upgraded' to ios 13. Now 13.1.1. is out to fix the bugs.

Very nice, Jane! I guess that's why I've never seen birdbaths filled with water in Home Depot.

First come the upgrades, then the fixes to fix the upgrades. I hope 13.11 works for you.

Claire

Tried to post the raccoons kids, won't work. Looked as if it took one photo, not the other, but when I refreshed the page because the submit button paled, the page came back with nothing posted. Wonder if text will post? it can't be personal,lol...

The next morning, I tried again - photo posted. I think we have a moody website.

Your raccoons look furry and well-fed, Jane. The tails are very full.

Let's see if the website is in a good mood today. I kept the jelly feeders up after the orioles and catbirds left because the wasps and hornets and one crow still feed there.

Yellowjackets:

Bald-faced hornet:

I haven't been able to get a good pic of the crow eating jelly.

The wasps seem to recognize me when I come to refill the feeders. They fly a few feet away and come right back as soon as I pour the jelly in. Sometimes one will follow me up to the house as if it's looking for the jelly mother lode.

Claire

I still have one wild monarch chrysalis left. After the nor’easter blew through I brought it inside. Still waiting on it to hatch. It seems awfully late.

And again Houzz likes it sideways.

I hope the monarch hatches and survives, Deanna. If the weather stays warm for a while it may still have time to migrate south.

Did someone say Halloween is coming? I looked out the window this morning (dirty window from the last storm) and saw a cormorant sunning itself on a rock out in the bay.

By the time I got out on the deck to get a clearer picture, that cormorant no longer had its wings spread out.

Not the best pictures but the distance was great.

Claire

I think they're neat pictures. An enviable view, for sure.

Just spent an hour of my life trying to understand why the trail cam stopped taking pictures. Sparing you the details of the required 6 trips outdoors/indoors to computer and all the round trip happenings, I again discovered life is in the details. There was bird poop covering the small IR detection hole. A Q-tip cleaning and then I got 42 pictures of myself staring down the camera. Not a pretty sight, but the camera now works. Perhaps after tonight, we'll see if houzz cooperates and posts some pictures.

You gave me a good belly laugh, Jane. Thanks for that!

For years I have had a 50lb sack of dried corn in my car which I used to feed ducks at a local pond. It was also good grit to have if I got stuck on snow or ice. Well, after 31 years together, I'm giving my Volvo wagon to the mechanic, so I have had to empty out that sack of corn, a bunch every day. This transaction led to the three raccoon kids using the corn drive-thru every night. They seem happy about it and all the details and emotions that led to their banquet wouldn't make one bit of sense to them. Eating and playing seems a good way to live. Maybe the next time around.

Jane

Nice picture of the raccoon kids queuing up for their corn, Jane. I didn't know raccoons liked corn; maybe I'll try some for my jelly-eating coon. I wonder how they feel about popcorn (without the butter)...

31 years is a long history with a car! I hope my Passat lasts that long. I'm surprised you were able to keep the corn in the car without attracting mice or chipmunks. I had a bad experience with a mouse nesting in my car and chewing on the wiring to the point where I couldn't start the car.

Claire

Don't forget, Claire, the cargo area of the station wagon is not open. I've had mouse houses and chipmunk nests in both cars - carburetor and manifold nests - because they gained entrance under the hood. Climb a tire, scale upwards, an axial jump and you're in! Under the firewall via a punched hole and wiring harnesses apparently taste good to some. But not so in the sealed wagon. Yes, Dagmar, and I have had a good run. Can't do better by her than having her personal physician drive her everyday. :) He is happy to get her and my pleasure to give her to him. I'll just have to buy smaller bags of corn in the future. It's cheap - like $8 for 50 pounds.

Here's a list of dried corn lovers: Who likes dried corn?

Chip resting after heavy hauling.

Jane

I should have wallet size photos made for Margaret who is looking so svelte in this fly-by.

I think he's a sharp-shinned hawk. He sat in a tree for a long while before I saw him land on the feeder. (not my design)

Jane

Looks like sharpie to me too, Jane. I few days ago I saw an adult Cooper's Hawk for comparison. Note the distinct skullcap. This guy was small so I figure it's a male.

Just before it took off:

Claire

First Junco just now outside my window. Time to test the snow blower. He's a little later this year, so that's good. Some years he showed up mid-October and it snowed within 2 weeks. Personally, I could be content without snow for a while. Well, months, actually.

Remember holding a buttercup or dandelion under somebody's chin to see if they liked butter? Well, Chip does the same with corn.

Jane

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/04/delaware-songbird-predicts-hurricane-season-weather-better-than-noaa/4154671002/?fbclid=IwAR2zpm9PBg3f8bhjxoFXJQLVhKlo3AStZFAS0_Qh-mZHSlRvLRC10Yg1Wi4

Very interesting link there, Jane. It reinforces the folklore that calls the junco the forecaster of imminent snowfall.

It's amusing, and a cold dash of reality, that the veeries predicted the intensity of a hurricane season more accurately than the NOAA meterologists did (at least in the early season).

No juncoes here yet. The first hard freeze is forecast for Friday night but no precipitation at that time. I'm not looking forward to snow either. I drained the garden hose today and I'll cover the variegated hydrangea and the Hopi crape myrtle tomorrow.

The heated birdbath is ready to go out too.

Claire

The turkeys are coming back, maybe because I haven't seen any foxes in a while. I've been hearing what sounds like gunshots at night - I suspect some local yahoo has been shooting foxes and/or coyotes.

The first turkeys to come back were a flock of juveniles that quickly adapted to my throwing out seed for them. Lately I've been seeing adult turkeys as well.

Anyway, I saw these turkeys this morning, looking suspicious as turkeys do. I think they see me looking out the window:

It's good to have them back.

Claire

Wanna swap flocks?

Grackles, by the hundreds, swooping in an out this morning. The corn pile was chump change. They've already plowed through the dogwood berries, but the robin is inspecting the ornamental pear daily. Its fruit isn't quite ready.

Jane

Thanks for the offer, Jane, but I don't need any more grackles, I already had my visitation from migrating grackles a few weeks ago, although not as many as you do. It didn't last too long before they moved south.

I've got a few red-winged blackbirds hanging around. One of them snapped at a blue jay this morning and the jay blinked and left!

The first frost/freeze is expected tonight - the heated birdbath is out and ready.

Claire

Oh, dear...they left before I told them you said no. Just send them back if they're bothersome.

They certainly kept the trail cam busy. 202 pictures - 200 deleted

Those grackle pictures are wonderful! You can send them over here - I've got nothing! Maybe there was a nuclear fallout thing that I wasn't informed about....well, we do have mice in the garage, but DH is sending them off, one by one, to the mouse playground. (nice man)

CAROLINA WREN

This may be my 247th time trying to figure out an anti-collision window bird strike scheme. Been through gels, decals in the shapes of hummingbirds to butterflies, spiderwebs, Ivory soap designs I made on the outside of the window (which, after a few rains seemed ineffective) to this morning's effort. A new gizmo promotion is colored stick-on decals and reflective tape (placed on the outside of an untinted window) - all of which Amazon will send with one click. However, without washing the outside of my office windows this morning, to which I was quite amenable on a 40 degree rainy day, I have placed stained glass ornaments in the exact spots where doves and, this morning, a RB woodpecker, splashed some of their DNA. No fatalities, thankfully, but both the birds and I have suffered their abrupt calamities. It is noticeable that they hit the same upper spots on the middle and right window, not the left window, especially when the cherry tree has leaves. About one bird every 10-14 days smacks the window, but flies away. No way of knowing about internal damage. I think moving the bird feeder closer to the house would reduce the strikes, which I may eventually do. Has anyone found a method that eliminated bird strikes? David Sibley has tried highlighting markers -not 100% fool proof - but if the stained glass doesn't work, highlighters may be next. I have read that suction cup window bird feeders cause no strikes because they're flying away from the window after feeding. I'm beginning to think that just planting fruit-bearing and nut-bearing shrubs and trees is easier - the way Nature planned.

The robins are berry testing for squishability.

He arrived 3 weeks later than last year - Dark-eyed Junco. He knows more than I do.

Jane

Your stained glass solution looks pretty, Jane - I hope it works.

Nothing I've tried is perfect, but I've had some luck with the warning webs (spider webs) and UV decals placed on the outside of the windows. I place them by going outside on a sunny day and seeing where the reflection looks like a safe passageway to greenery.

The majority of the birdstrikes seem to be correlated with a hawk attack, when the birds panic and try to escape.

There are also more birdstrikes when the youngsters are flying around learning the territory.

No juncoes here yet but I saw a white-throated sparrow yesterday.

The rain is supposed to turn to the dreaded Wintry Mix in the next few hours with a possibility of a few inches of snow, depending on which weather forecast you read (I shop around for the most favorable forecast).

I haven't seen robins for a while so I guess none of my berries are near ripe yet. I may see some tomorrow at the heated birdbath when the water is frozen elsewhere.

Claire

Congratulations on seeing a Carolina Wren, Pat! It's one of my favorite birds.

Claire

The friends I stayed with in Colorado draped flat panels of large mesh black netting from the house eaves about a foot in front of their windows and said that it had reduced the bird strikes almost entirely and it didn’t seem to tangle them. Because they were black they didn’t interfere much with vision, but I imagine that they would create issues for photos. The house was mostly just one story, and I imagine that this wouldn’t work on a taller house.

Barb, I read about netting, blinds, et al, and it is photography plus me and my greedy need for light. Probably moving the whole feeding kit and kaboodle is the wisest idea...before the ground freezes.

I will be back in CO in a week and will likely spend at least a bit of time with the same friends, so I will see if I can take a photo from indoors. It doesn’t cut down on light, but will influence photos. Perhaps you can use it on some windows but leave others with just stickers or other hanging things you can take photos around.

Thanks, Barb. So far this morning, all is quiet. Feeding birds before drinking coffee may say something about a person, but during the night, somebody cleaned out the bird feeders. They were all waiting in the trees this morning. It makes me feel like I live in an avian McDonald's parking lot. It could have been whats-his-name who was here the previous night. That's a tiny beginner's antler on the left side of his head.

Somewhere on GW, years ago now, there was a collection of recommended books. I'm reading one now that might just strike the fancy of some folks who like this thread. It is "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Just passing it along...Braiding Sweetgrass

Jane

The book sounds interesting, Jane. What books are recommended for New England gardeners? may be the collection you mentioned - it's in the New England Gardening FAQs, but Houzz won't let me edit it or add any more. They don't seem to be interested in FAQs.

Claire

”Feeding birds before drinking coffee may say something about a person, but during the night, somebody cleaned out the bird feeders.”

This makes sense to me because then you can watch the birds while you drink your coffee.

Bluebirds stopped outside my window then they took control of the bath. Totally disrupted my trip to the grocery store, and 189 pictures later, I have to decide whether to pay for Flickr Pro or not because I've reached my 1,000 picture limit on a free account. We'll see. Some really good shots, a good moment-by-moment story, but until I can find a photo sharing website, here are a couple of shots from this morning.

Not sure how he got doves to swim like ducks, but anything is possible...

Jane - who has lots of pictures to process.

I will have to lay cracked corn out in a line from now on, lol. Corn should not be a steady diet for deer, but I put out 4 cups a day and it feeds many little beaks and bellies throughout the day. What's left at twilight is for the cleanup committee.

Jane

That's a happy pool party, Jane - who's the bird in the first pic with a bill that looks way too big for a bluebird? I wonder if those doves were actually floating or just standing in the water.

I always enjoy seeing the glowing eyes in the night pictures.

Saw the first junco today. I hope it doesn't expect snow. So far the weather has been dry whenever the temperature dips below freezing..

Claire

No bluebirds here but lots of blue jays. The other day there were four jays crowded onto the tray of a tube feeder.

And I'm seeing red-winged blackbirds most days now. They don't stay long but they eat heartily while they're here.

Claire

In answer to your question, Claire, it was a house sparrow getting the bluebird's ire. I cropped it to show you:

Bluebirds (4), sparrows, finches, doves - they all got into it within about 5 minutes. Nearly drained the pool, but they got clean and released whatever pent-up anxiety has a bluebird has!

I don't usually see RW Blackbirds back here until late February - a sign of Spring.

Jane

House sparrows - a bird is a bird is bird (may not have been a Gertrude Stein line, but you get what I mean).

Today, pouring or not, a bird's gotta eat. Yup, that straight line of cracked corn worked, lol, and it saves them the long flight to Home Depot.

Claire - Oct. 20th post - cormorants on rock - photos would make nice B&W note cards.

Jane

Just for fun...Maestro

Bravissimo!

Claire

Wow, corunum, Maestro is FANTASTIC! Thanks !

This thread is getting long and slow to load for some, so I've set up a new thread:

Birds and other mobile features in the garden 2019 #5

As always, you're welcome to continue the discussion here, but please post new material on the new thread.

Thanks,

Claire