Lately there has been a spate of comments offered that have little or nothing to do with the matter under discussion in a particular post. These seem to represent personal "hobby horses" or in some cases a wandering consciousness more severely impaired than my own. Be advised that such comments belong in Open Threads and when they appear as intrusions will be omitted. pl
Col. sir,
Yours Truly guilty as charged?, apologies.
With increased traffic, comes an increased number of comments and an increased workload. I suggest people voluntarily adopt a Self-Denying Ordinance and only post something that is really noteworthy or relevant.
Col.
You have a good sense of humor “wandering consciousness more severely impaired than my own”
Hmmm…
I wonder if this will apply to the “most obvious” such commenter, if you know what I mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNAt-xohHk0
jld
You will have to explain to me what a video of a drunk cardinal has to do with anything. You don’t like the picture I posted? Do you think you have a veto over what I post? pl
{{{ what do you mean? }}}
I do like the picture and I thought that the video might be an appropriate description of the state of mind of “some commenters” 🙂
rjj
I will try to be clearer in the future. pl
I hope it doesn’t turn into too much of a chore to cull non-relevant posts from these pages.
jld
Thanks for the clarification. These are a mated pair of Northern Cardinals. I feed this race of birds down in the depths of my back garden along with others that I do not favor as much. The cardinals become imprinted with those who help them and come to sit in the branches around the feeding site when I am there. They also come to the back door and peck on the glass if I am late. They are so foolish as to not migrate south in the winter. pl
got the message.
rjj
It wasn’t directed to you. pl
I was actually going to comment on the picture myself. Lovely birds. I have seen video of mated pairs like the ones in the picture working in tandem while feeding. One will stand watch while the other eats. They take turns.
In recent years I’ve grown fond of feeding the birds myself. There are many towhees, sparrows, junkos, and chickadees in my work neighborhood. The black-capped chickadees in particular are very forward. Do you have a native species of chickadee in your neck of the woods, Col.?
MM
We do. They remind me of my New England roots. I am always glad to see the grey Cat Birds come back in the spring. They have little fear of humans and make good companions. pl
I feed a pair of King Parrots who visit us most days. They recently brought their young as well. I get into great trouble from SWMBO because they leave a mess on the patio. The male (red) is tame enough to feed by hand.
http://www.theshortcollection.com.au/files/1998578/uploaded/King%20Parots%20300Pix%20wide.jpg
We have quite a menagerie of birds in our backyard. A lot of that is due to being backed up to a strip of woods and a small stream. I also planted a lot of berry producing holly trees and Washington Hawthorns. Those trees and the colorado blue spruces out front give the birds plenty of food and cover. I finally found a squirrel proof bird feeder that works. In addition to cardinals, chickadees and sparrows, we have roaming flocks of winter robins feasting on the berries, often bullying bluejays and my ever-present murder of crows. The crows keep the hawks away from the bird feeder and the oh so vulnerable mourning doves. I have to admit my favorites are the mocking jays with their imaginative repertoire of songs.
I don’t ignore my other wild friends. The squirrels await their morning handfuls of peanuts, as do the crows and bluejays. Every evening I put out an apple or two and a few carrots. The deer stick to these treats and leave my rhododendrons and azaleas alone. Rabbits, raccoons and the occasional opossum also help themselves. I just can’t abide the cottonmouths and copperheads. I have a distinctly unchristian attitude towards them.
In my mountain fastness north of Asheville, there is a huge variety of year around birds as well as the spring and summer only birds. I have six pairs of Cardinals that live at the foot of the hill behind the horse lot and too many other species to mention. I too feed rabbits, a great horde of gray squirrels, possums, coons, the occasional fox and never stop hoping that a bobcat will show up. It is more likely, given the ridiculous amount of corn, sunflower seed, cornbread, veg and fruit put about, that I will find a black bear in the yard. I’m partial to hawks and owls but they visit only rarely. I share your attitude toward rattlesnakes and copperheads and I add Yellow Jackets to that list. I am grateful that Cottonmouths are not in the mountains! And yes, all plantings and sowings are done with my wild neighbors in mind. In fact, the rabbits and groundhogs have their own little strip of garden and so far they keep to it and pretty much leave mine alone. The wild turkeys mostly work the pastures and occasionally the lawn; they look like slightly evolved dinosaurs stalking around.
It is strange seeing turkeys in the wild but they’ve started to make a comeback in Michigan, so I’ll sometimes see them when I go to visit my wife’s people.
MM
There are a lot of them in Virginia. If you drive along the Skyline Drive or the Blue Ridge Parkway you will have to stop repeatedly while flocks of them cross the road. I am always surprised by how large they are. I went to visit some rich folks who own a big place outside Charleston, SC. These things were wandering around in herds underneath the coastal oaks. pl
Medicine Man,
Northern Virginia has a good number of turkeys. Every once in a while I see a hen followed by a train of chicks in the back yard. Every other time I drive through Quantico Marine Base, I see a few along with the white tail deer. It’s funny how they all go to ground just as hunting season starts. The biggest flock of turkeys I ever saw was in Texas somewhere south of San Antonio. A friend and I went camping over the weekend while we were TDY there. As soon as the sun came up, we saw and heard turkeys flying and strutting by us for half an hour. It was like buffalo on the plain. The night before we saw a great horned owl land in the branches above us and size us up. It definitely felt like a predator-prey situation and I wasn’t the predator.
Jill,
I’m still waiting for a black bear. There have been a few spotted in north Stafford county. I just don’t want to surprise him or her while I’m bringing the apples and carrots out there.
Regarding wild turkeys… PBS had a wonderful documentary “My Life As A Turkey.” Joe Hutto is a naturalist who hand raised a brood of wild turkeys and lived with them for a season. If you can find it, it is worth the viewing time.
Col. Lang,
I feed them as well and I love listening to them first thing in the morning, plus watching them guarding each other as they eat.
I was very disappointed that a nest they built was raided because I was looking forward to watching the babies from my kitchen window.
TG,
My squirrel has made me angry. She built a nest in my just cleaned gutters I had to severely trim a Coral Bark Japanese maple to keep her off the house. Now she climbs the Pin Holly or the Dogwood in the front to jump to the roof. Grrrr.
It may be about my babbling, thus as long as I am still tolerated, I prefer to stay silent.
Col Lang,
My wife and I love Cardinals. Currently we live in a high rise condominium complex and have no yard. We moved to this location from Lorton, VA where we owned a townhouse with a small yard and kept a couple of bird feeders. They were a joy to watch.
There were all sorts of small wildlife that played and ate in our yard. The tall privacy fence enclosing the small green area probably protected the animals from the hawks in the area so the visitors were relatively undisturbed and calm. The Cardinals would not feed while we were in the yard but we had a big picture window from which to observe them from inside.
During the big snow storm of 2010 I had some minor surgery that necessitated a couple of weeks recuperation at home. As you might recall the weather was dreary and depressing. I was alone every day as my wife worked at Walter Reed Army Hospital and had to leave early and return late. However, watching the Cardinals everyday kept my spirits up and I think helped with a speedy recovery. We love our condo but really miss our backyard birds and other wildlife in Lorton.
Regards,
Greetings fellow Ashe-villain,
I actually live a few miles north of @ville, on the side of a mountain a mile past the nearest neighbor. We don’t dare try to feed the wildlife here, they would completely take over. We need our two dogs to keep the deer out of the garden, the bears out of the blueberries, and the racoons out of the catfood. We have huge numbers of turkeys in the area. Lot’s of cardinals that stay all year long.
I had to kill 3 copperheads last year (right next to the doghouse and our front door). And yes, the yellowjackets cause more problems than the snakes at our place.
Colonel, after seeing what happened to this post you might need more open threads!
http://documentarystorm.com/my-life-as-a-turkey/