Birds of Prey... In My Backyard

It started out innocently enough.  I wandered outside the house to take a few photos of my garbage cans.  Pretty boring, right?  Last week we had a storm come through, and a few tornados touched down.  Even though we were miles away from the tornados, we had some extremely high winds.  I realized that I was going to have to pick up a bunch of fallen limbs if I was going to mow the lawn.  Otherwise, I would end up destroying my lawnmower blades.

I was aiming to post on Facebook about picking up four garbage cans full of limbs when I thought, "Why not take a photo of the garbage cans?"  A photo can express the things I can't put into words.  I realized that it's a somewhat uninteresting photo to take, but I had the time and didn't mind.

While I was out there I heard a bird screeching loudly.  I immediately knew what it was.  You see, we've had a pair of hawks that have lived around us for over twenty years.  I'm not sure if this is the same pair, but we've always had a pair hang around the property.  What's funny, is that, they had a nest in a pine tree behind us for almost fifteen years that I know of.  The pine tree was perfectly straight, and right at the top the hawks built their giant nest.

However, the pine tree ended up being hit by lightening and dying.  I hated to see that, because the hawks kept their nest in the same place.  Every year they would add to it.  That's one reason the nest was so big.  And that brings me to today.

I heard the screeching, and looked up.  I saw one of the hawks sit up on the electric pole near my house.  When I took a closer look I saw it's mate was sitting up there with it.  I took a number of photos, but here are the best ones I shot.

In this part of Florida we have both "Red Shouldered" and "Red Tailed" hawks.  I'm not sure which species these are.  Either way, these two are always hanging around the property.

There was one time I was mowing the lawn, and one of the hawks hung out in the oak tree I was mowing around.  It was looking for bugs and mice that I could scare up.  You know what?  One time I did scare a mouse, and the hawk managed to grab it.

Which brings me to their nest.  You know that oak tree that the hawk was watching me from?  Well, it's the same oak tree they have their nest in now.  Here are a few photos I took of the nest.  These two photos are the ones I took before I saw the hawks.

These two photos I took later.  I tried to take the photo from almost underneath the nest, instead of an angle.

I'm going to keep an eye out on the nest.  It won't be long before a few eggs are laid, and chicks hatch.  I won't be able to take photos directly inside the nest.  You can see just how high up it is.  Even if I had a drone to take photos, I'm sure the hawks would take it down hard.  The hawks can be a bit aggressive.

So I'll try to get a few photos once the chicks leave the nest.  Maybe I'll leave a steak out for them?  I'm sure they'd like that.  Okay, I won't do that.  It would be funny if I did, but I won't.  I'll stick with shooting photos.  Stay tuned.

Something's Been Wrecking My Birdhouse

Back in March I wrote a blog post about building and putting up new birdhouses.  We have so many birds around here it made sense to have plenty of birdhouses for them.  Here's the post:

The Birdhouse Community Apartments 

Like any woodworker/artist/bird enthusiast I take pride in my work.  This what the birdhouse looked like after I hung it up back in March.

I was taking a stroll past the birdhouse the other day, and became infuriated.  I looked at my birdhouse, and thought, "What am I looking at?"

So I took a closer look.

Closer....

Okay, now I'm mad.  I'm more than mad.  What you are looking at is the birdhouse's squirrel guard.  Something had destroyed the guard to enlarge the hole.  The reason I put the guard there was because squirrels like to climb into the birdhouses and eat the eggs or young chicks.

Right now, here are the suspects.

First up, a squirrel or squirrels.

I suspect this monstrosity was chipping away at the birdhouse to get to baby chicks.  They are a malevolent bunch.

Suspect #2:  Idiot woodpecker.

Okay, it's technically this is called a pileated woodpecker.  But they like going around putting holes in things.  Although it's really working against it's fellow birds' self interests by enlarging the squirrel guards.  We have dozens of trees around the property.  Why did this redheaded asshole decide to destroy my birdhouse?

So that's my story so far.  If the hole gets worse I may end up replacing the squirrel guard.  If it gets even worse than that, I will just replace the whole birdhouse.  The backyard should be on alert.  I'm keeping an eye on all the birdhouses.  Nature should know I'm not above employing underhanded techniques to protect my birdhouses.

Springtime For Bluebirds... And Happiness!

It's that time of year again.  The time of year the birds are in love.  That's right.  Springtime brings out the best of the birds and the bunnies.  As I have posted before, I have an old birdhouse that I put on the corner of the property.

Over the years I have mostly had Tufted Titmouse pairs take up residence in the spring.  Yes a Tufted Titmouse is a real bird for all of you laughing like Beavis.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Tufted_Titmouse/id

One year I had a pair of Red Cardinals move in and lay eggs.  I was glad to see them, but by the time I noticed they had moved in, their chicks were grown.  Three days later they moved out.

I have to say my old birdhouse has held together over the years.  What's funny, is that, it's actually a parakeet house I bought from Pet Supermarket years ago.  I used oil enamel paint to seal the wood so it would protected in our Florida environment.

So this year the family was wondering if anyone would move in.  Also, if they did, who would move in?  Well, about a week ago we got our answer.  And like they say on the internet, "Pics or it didn't happen!"  So here's who moved in.

That my friends, are Eastern Bluebirds.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Bluebird/overview

It seems like they are digging the new digs.  But will they lay eggs?  Let me answer that with another picture.

One egg, blue egg?  Am I Doctor Seuss?  Wait, there's more?

A few days later another egg appeared.  So let's check in a few days after that.

So now it's one egg, two egg, three egg, blue egg?

But really it was interesting to see how they went about nesting.  First, they removed all of the old nest.  Then, they built a completely new nest.  After that, they started laying an egg every other day.  The nest hasn't been checked in a few days so there might be a few more eggs waiting.

Bluebirds will lay anywhere from three to eight eggs, but can have more than one brood during the spring.  So we might have another brood of eggs laid after this one.

Here are some more fun photos of the bluebirds.

The following are my previous blog posts about my birdhouses.

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2017/10/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/02/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/03/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/04/make-little-birdhouse-in-my-backyard.html

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-birdhouse-community-apartments.html


Oh, and if you sang the title of this blog post to the Broadway play, "The Producers," you win.  For those who don't know what I'm talking about watch this.

The Birdhouse Community Apartments

If you're a regular reader you know that I've had a birdhouse out in the backyard for a while.  I've actually had pretty good success with it.  Or, should I say, the birds have.  It was brought up that there could be more than one birdhouse around the property.  I thought, "That's awesome!  Let me get on that!"

So, it was time to put up more birdhouses.  Four new birdhouses were delivered to house.  Two of the houses were bluebird houses, one was a parakeet house from the pet store, and one was a finch house.  It was decided that I would paint the two bluebird houses and the parakeet house.

First up, I drilled holes in the bottoms of the birdhouses.  If any rain would happen to get in, the holes would let it easily drain.  I also drilled holes to allow airflow and for wire to go through.  I wanted to use wire instead of drilling holes in the trees.

My photos start right after I had applied the first layer of paint.  I used an oil enamel paint that would withstand all the weird weather we get here in Florida.

There was a really interesting article on the internet about making barriers for birdhouses.  The barriers help keep out squirrels.  I thought, "I can make one using plywood and a forester drill bit."

First up, I cut the plywood into their appropriate shapes.  Then, I painted them with the oil enamel paint.

Next up, I finished painting the base coat for the three birdhouses.

After that, I drilled the wooden barriers over the entrance holes of the birdhouses.

Now the fun part, it was time to break out the forester bit, and drill the entrance hole.

Of course, I had to touch up the paint.  So I had to open up the can of paint again, and get to painting.  Once I was finally finished with the oil enamel paint, it was time to get to the fun part.  That's when I camouflage the birdhouses to blend into oak trees.  I use three spray paint cans to achieve the camo look.

When I first tried this technique I thought I needed a lot of green.  I was wrong.  I'm trying to blend into the oak tree bark which is more gray.  So I lightly spray black paint followed by a bit of brown.  The real trick is to use a light almond type of paint.  Blending the three colors makes the birdhouses look like a distressed gray color.  How well does it blend in?  Take a look.

Not bad, huh?  So now it was time to hang the first bluebird house.  There is a place on the property that birds like to hunt for bugs.  So I put the house in the oak tree right over top of the bug hunting territory.

Alright! Mission accomplished!  Now we move to the finch house.  I ended up hanging it near the bluebird house.

I didn't want to put the parakeet house near the other houses.  So I ended up putting it on the opposite corner from my original parakeet house.  I made a trip to Ace Hardware to pick up some supplies.  I ended up buying a 10 foot metal pole.  I also bought a bolt, nut and washer to attach the house to the pole.

I dug a three foot deep hole, and then managed to shove the pole into the ground another foot.  So, all in all, the pole was four feet deep.  I felt pretty good knowing it wasn't going to go anywhere.

Finally, there was just the one bluebird house left.  It was decided that it would be hidden in an Anise bush.  Can you spot it?

Let's look a little closer.

Closer.

I told you that I could paint a great camo pattern.  

So now there are five total birdhouses on the property.  I know what you're asking, "Have any birds moved in yet?"  Well, stay tuned!  There will be another blog post detailing the happenings around the yard.