RE: OT - bird drama

I wish we had more colorful wild birds. At my house I see sparrows,
house finches, doves, pigeons, ravens, mockingbirds, hummingbirds and
the occasional red-tailed hawk. This time of year we also see turkey
vultures migrating and in the winter I see a lot of red-wing blackbirds
and starlings. I see a few more when I'm out hiking but I guess in the
desert you gotta figure you're not going to see a huge number of
species.
When we visited Australia it was such a kick to see flocks of cockatoos
and parakeets (I think they were parakeets). I know there they can be
pests not pets! Guess it's just the same as weeds...

Cyndi



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gardenchat@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On
Behalf Of Aplfgcnys@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 1:40 PM
To: gardenchat@hort.net
Subject: Re: [CHAT] OT - bird drama

Starlings are a real pain.  We don't have a real flock here most of the
time, but a few come whenever I hang out my peanut-butter-oatmeal
concoction for the woodpeckers.  They will finish off a whole cake of
it in a couple of hours.  They don't seem to like the suet cakes we buy,
thank goodness - just my homemade ones.
However, every year about this time when the dogwood berries get ripe
a huge flock moves through.  They strip the dogwoods in an hour or so -
must be a hundred of them - and they poop red all over the place.  What
a mess.  They came by last week. Thank goodness when the dogwood
berries are gone so are the starlings.  But the dogwood berries were so
pretty for a few days.  Can't win.

Woodpeckers we have in great number, since we do feed them.  There are
a number of downies - I have seen as many as six at once - plus at least
one pair of hairies and a family of red bellies - they had several young
this
season.  The tube feeder attracts chickadees, wrens, goldfinches, purple
finches, titmice, cardinals, bluejays and a few other incidentals.  Any
time
I look out my kitchen window I can count on seeing several birds
swirling
around the breezeway. We spend an inordinate amount of money on bird
food, but we do enjoy them, so tell ourselves it's not a bad
extravagance.
Auralie

In a message dated 9/30/2008 3:33:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
judylee@lewiston.com writes:

We are overrun by starlings. I wish a hawk would take up residence here.
One
that specializes in starlings & squirrels. We have a few hummingbirds &
chickadees, but very few robins or doves since there are so many
starlings.
We do have a pair or more of woodpeckers that visit off & on all winter,

eating walnuts off the ground.





**************Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial
challenges?  Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information,
tips and
calculators.      (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE GARDENCHAT

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE GARDENCHAT
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index