Bird & Bee

I like bees. We do have a variety of bees around here. I think this one is a carpenter bee. Funny thing, I was googling carpenter bee and almost every site that came up had to do with getting rid of them. Pretty much everything I skimmed over said to use pesticides. I don't want to get rid of my bees. I just wanted some information. What I found out is that carpenter bees, as I would have guessed, excavate hollows in wood to nest. They do not consume the wood. Carpenter bees feed on pollen and nectar, as evidenced in the photos below. They are important pollinators. Here are two photos of a bee enjoying my strawberry patch. We've got a bumper crop of strawberry flowers this year. I can hardly wait for those berries. It won't be long now.



People, please don't use pesticides indiscriminately. We need our bees. They pollinate our food crops. It would be hard for us to eat without them.




We can also thank our hummingbird friends for pollinating things. Like the bee, they feed on nectar too. They also eat many insects. I don't think I'd ever get tired of watching these tiny, amazing birds hover around the garden sticking their needle shaped bills into flowers. These tiny guys are only about 3 inches tall and about 3 grams in weight. They consume twice their body weight each day. It takes a lot of energy to buzz around the garden like that. During one of those rainy days this week, I got some video of a hummer taking a rest on the garden fence. It was raining, but it didn't seem to bother her.

Press the arrow icon in the image below to start the video.

Dogwood Time

Okay, so I'm just a tiny bit behind with my dogwood pictures, but they're so pretty, I wanted to share some pictures late as they may be. Every spring, I take pictures of our two dogwood trees. Even though they have "dog" in the name, they are Henry cat's favorite climbing trees. Their trunks are just the right circumference for wrapping his paws around and propelling himself up.

CSI: My Eggy

Everything seemed to be going fine with the Chickadees. The mama was spending her days in the nesting box. The daddy watched from nearby and brought mama food when she needed it. He would fly over and land on the front of the box. She would stick her head out and take the food from his beak.

Before we thought mama was sitting on her eggs, we took a peek inside of the nesting box. She had added lots of soft fur. Some of it may even have been Clarence's fur that we set out after brushing him one day. There was also an egg. Only one that I could see. But there could have been more. Chickadees will sometimes cover over the eggs before leaving the nest and they're very tiny eggs at that.

April 26, we opened the box to find an egg in the nest.

I did happen to see a tussle of birds around the nest box on May 10. It was over very quickly and the participants few away quickly. It was hard to tell what happened.

A few days passed and I hadn't seen the chickadees around. They're much less conspicuous than the bluebirds were, but I did usually see them at least once during the day. Then I heard first and then saw a wren. They have a very distinctive song. The wren went into the chickadee box. I ran outside and the wren flew away yelling at me as he went. I went over to the the nesting box and listened. I didn't hear anything. I scratched at the box lightly... nothing. I knocked a little louder... not a peep. I went inside and tried to go back to work. But I just couldn't get it out of my head that something was wrong. I got my dentist mirror and went back out to the box. Poked the mirror inside and all I saw was an empty nest. No mama. No eggs. No babies either. Disappointment.

When Hubby came home, we went out, opened the nesting box together, and investigated the crime scene. We confirmed what I already knew. The wren's had tossed out the chickadees. I found egg shells on the ground. One was mostly still intact, with the wren's peck mark still apparent.

May 13, egg shells on the ground, with the telltale wren peck hole.

Wren's are aggressive, territorial birds. They are native birds and it is illegal to hurt them. Click here to read more about wrens. They are extremely prolific birds. They do not peck the other birds eggs out of necessity. More likely is that they have a nest somewhere in the vicinity and it is their way to claim all nesting sites for themselves whether or not they use it. Many times, they build "dummy nests", piles of sticks that fill a nesting cavity so as to keep out other would be occupants.

I opened the nesting box door and left it open. Since no one is nesting there now, I will leave the door open for a while. This will keep the wrens from using the box or filling it with a dummy nest.

Days like this make me wonder, why does nature have to be this way? It's not easy being a bird, that's for sure.

Happy Mother's Day

To the mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day. Here is a bouquet that I cut this morning. It consists of some of the last daffodils, the first Irises, and some newly emerged ferns, not fully ferned out yet.

The bouquet probably could have used a few more flowers, but I somehow feel bad to cut too many. I think they may just last longer if I don't cut them and leave them outside. That's my unscientific thinking. For all I know, the opposite may be true.