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<\/a><\/p>\nOn the street that backs up to our property, someone sold a lot of their timber.\u00a0 The land was scalped and the logging trucks roared up and down the street all day for weeks.\u00a0 It was depressing.\u00a0 Until the bluebirds arrived.<\/p>\n
See, bluebirds prefer a habitat of open meadows or fields surrounded by trees for nesting holes.\u00a0 Our property is far too wooded for them to find it appealing.\u00a0 The only open, sunny patch of ground that we have is fenced in and used for the garden.\u00a0 And it’s not that big of a space.\u00a0 But after the neighbor cleared his land, the bluebirds had a huge open space for hunting bugs and insects, surrounded by the remaining deciduous forest for nesting.\u00a0 It was a perfect setting for them and several pairs moved in. We know this, not because we spend a lot of time overlooking the depressing landscape left behind after the logging, but because they quickly found our feeders.<\/p>\n
I have heard it said that bluebirds don’t visit birdfeeders.\u00a0 But we have a few that just don’t feel like hunting insects all the time.\u00a0 Not when there’s a feeder filled with the type of expensive wild bird seed that has peanuts and dried cherries in it.\u00a0 (Do NOT, I repeat do NOT tell The Other Half what that type of bird seed costs.)\u00a0 We were excited.\u00a0 And confused.\u00a0 Was clearing the land good because it brought the bluebirds?\u00a0 Or bad because it destroyed the habitat of other animals?\u00a0 Good thing they pay scientists a lot of money to figure that sort of stuff out.\u00a0 ‘Cause I need bipolar meds just thinking about it.<\/p>\n Since we managed to attract a new species here without even trying, we got excited thinking about the birds we could attract if we tried.\u00a0 So while perusing our local wild birds store, we stumbled across this feeder:<\/p>\n It’s for drawing orioles to your property.\u00a0 Officially, we are in the range of Orchard Orioles and Baltimore Orioles.\u00a0 But I have never seen one.\u00a0 Oh, I suppose I could have confused a female oriole for a gold finch, but the male orioles are pretty distinctive.\u00a0 So I’m pretty sure they’ve never visited our property.\u00a0 We filled the feeder with blackberry jam from our own blackberries.\u00a0 We had it out by January so that we wouldn’t miss any orioles migrating early.\u00a0 I mean really early, since their migration north doesn’t usually start until April.<\/p>\n We’ve been watching very carefully.<\/p>\n No orioles.<\/p>\n But don’t despair, bird lovers.\u00a0 There’s still some time left before the orioles have completed their migration and passed us by.\u00a0 Besides, we did attract something else.\u00a0 Something we’ve wanted for a long time but never had.<\/p>\n Blue jays.<\/p>\n Oh, I know the rest of you have blue jays all over your property.\u00a0 We see them all over our town and our neighbors’ places.\u00a0 We see them outside the library, and the post office, and the grocery store.\u00a0 But we’ve never seen them here.<\/p>\n I always assumed that we had another bird species living here that competed with the blue jays.\u00a0 However, most of our bird books state that blue jays are the bullies of the backyard and so it’s unlikely that something would be chasing them away.\u00a0 Regardless, we’ve never had blue jays until we hung that oriole feeder.\u00a0 Now we have a pair that nested in the white oak right next to the jelly feeder.\u00a0 And they’re quite pleased with the seeds that drop to the ground from the regular feeders, too.<\/p>\n A friend was visiting when I gleefully pointed out our newest wild bird.<\/p>\n “You’ll be sorry that they’re here,” she said.\u00a0 “They’re very noisy.\u00a0 Plus, they’ll push the other birds around.”<\/p>\n “Please,”\u00a0 I replied.\u00a0 “I’ve never been sorry about any of the animals we’ve got here.”<\/p>\n Which is true.\u00a0 I’ve been very, very, very sorry.\u00a0 But never just sorry.<\/p>\n “If any orioles do come, the blue jays will probably chase them away,” she added.<\/p>\n Yeah, that sounds about right.\u00a0\u00a0 Eh.\u00a0 There’s no point in fighting your place in the world.\u00a0 If you’re the kind of person that tries to attract orioles, manages to attract blue jays instead, and then the blue jays chase the orioles away, what’s the point in fighting it?\u00a0 Just enjoy the blue jays.<\/p>\n Which is exactly what we’re doing.<\/p>\n Of course, we’re busy doing other bird stuff, too.\u00a0 We joined a citizen science project called NestWatch (http:\/\/nestwatch.org\/<\/a>).\u00a0 We have variety of birds that aren’t afraid to nest right under our noses.\u00a0 We’ve found what looks like the nest of a Carolina Wren in the tack bucket in the barn (which tells you often poor C.C. gets groomed with the curry comb and the shedding blade).<\/p>\n We’ve witnessed another wren nesting in this heart shaped hole in a tree in the barnyard.<\/p>\n We won’t be able to look into her nest but we’ll be able to judge what stage she’s in by whether she’s carrying nesting material or food for her young.\u00a0 Hopefully, we’ll get glimpses of the young as they fledge, too.<\/p>\n There’s a Northern Mockingbird nesting in the wild rose bushes that grow on the garden fence, too.<\/p>\n This bird nests here every year (or one that looks exactly like her) and she won’t hesitate to follow you around, screeching at you, when you are harvesting veggies too close to her young.\u00a0 Every once in a while she loses her eggs or chicks to a black rat snake and has to start over.\u00a0 Every once in a while a black rat snake trying to get to her nest gets tangled in the deer netting on the garden fence and dies.<\/p>\n Yep, sometimes you’re the bug and sometimes you’re the windshield.<\/p>\n But we’re not content to just sit back, watch, and report nest findings.\u00a0 Oh, no.\u00a0 We’re the type to jump right in and get our feet wet.\u00a0 Or get soaked.\u00a0 Or drown.\u00a0 Whichever.\u00a0 So, the incubator is full of guinea and Ameraucana eggs.<\/p>\n They hatch at different times.\u00a0 21 days for chicken eggs and 28 days for guinea eggs.\u00a0 That’ll be fun.<\/p>\n And Blackbeard’s eggs are hatching.<\/p>\n The first ones to hatch are the chicken eggs (again, 21 days) that some sneaky hens laid in her nest when she wasn’t looking.\u00a0 Blackbeard is always very tolerant of this.\u00a0 She will let the chicks come and go from underneath her until her duck eggs hatch (35-38 days).\u00a0 But once the ducklings hatch we’ll have to take the chicks and put them in the brooder room.\u00a0 Otherwise, Blackbeard will take them for a swim in the pond from which they won’t return.<\/p>\n Oh, and the feed mill is expecting Welsummer chicks in May.\u00a0 Plus, I just talked to a woman who has Maran hatching eggs for sale.\u00a0 Have you ever seen Welsummer or Maran eggs?<\/p>\n Maran eggs<\/p><\/div>\n \n Welsummer eggs<\/p><\/div>\n Wow.\u00a0 I mean, wow.\u00a0 Don’t I need chickens that lay eggs that color?\u00a0 Don’t I?<\/p>\n And we’re still waiting on an oriole sighting.\u00a0 I still believe it could happen.\u00a0 Anything could happen.\u00a0 That’s what makes birds so exciting.\u00a0 If you haven’t noticed the birds in your backyard, you don’t know what you’re missing.\u00a0 Who needs The Young and The Restless<\/a>?\u00a0 The feathered and freshly arrived are here.\u00a0 Daytime drama at it’s finest!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …there has been a lot of activity in all the bird species around here. This is the second year that we’ve had Eastern Bluebirds visiting our property.\u00a0 They are prolific in our region but we never managed to draw them to our property.\u00a0 Until this: On the street that backs up to our property, someone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[168,173,172,169,171,170],"class_list":["post-4545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bluebird-blue-jay","tag-duck","tag-guniea","tag-maran","tag-mockingbird","tag-welsummer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4545"}],"version-history":[{"count":52,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4622,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4545\/revisions\/4622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>