DEAR JOAN: My spouse and I are longtime residents with a pleasant, bird-friendly yard. Now we have a birdhouse that has seen a number of makes use of over time. This 12 months we've a slightly odd incidence from a titmouse that has us questioning, what’s up?
I undecided if it’s the male or feminine, however they've been going into the birdhouse and pecking on the inside wooden. This has been occurring for at the very least three weeks. We hear this peck-peck morning and afternoon. Generally I hear the pecking whereas the male sits within the oak tree singing his track.
I did see the pair doing a courting dance within the tree so I feel nesting ought to be beginning quickly. Any ideas on what’s occurring contained in the birdhouse?
Mark Graham, Danville
DEAR MARK: I feel one of many birds has been watching an excessive amount of HGTV.
The oak titmouse is unquestionably a unusual little hen. For those who base your favourite birds on look, then the titmouse doesn’t have a lot going for it. Chook identification books and guides at all times use descriptors of “uninteresting” or “drab,” however the birds have brilliantly coloured personalities.
My first up-close expertise with an oak titmouse got here once I was a rookie nesting field checker. We had put in Western bluebird containers across the backyard, and I went as much as one and began unscrewing the facet to test for indicators that a hen was constructing a nest.
What occurred subsequent occurred speedy hearth. Simply as I noticed somebody had constructed a considerable nest within the field, a hen shot out of the opening, nearly knocking me down. It landed in a close-by tree and proceeded with a scolding I hadn’t heard since my mother caught me sneaking icing off a cake.
Titmice are cavity dwellers, constructing their nests inside openings in timber, outdated woodpecker excavations and in nesting containers. They typically do numerous transforming of the pure cavities, and that typically carries over to the manufactured ones we provide. The pecking is simply the birds making the house actually theirs.
The pair ought to be laying eggs and elevating a household very quickly, however take my recommendation — knock earlier than peeking inside.
DEAR JOAN: You wrote that plastic forks, tines pointed up above floor stage, will deter cats from utilizing the backyard for a bathroom. There's something simply as efficient and environmentally pleasant — these annoying, brown spiky balls that fall from liquidambar timber.
They're free, will decompose, and I haven’t seen the occasional racoon/opossum/rat droppings within the beds which are protected with them. And so they’re engaging, like a pleasant mulch.
Now I maintain a bucketful readily available, although I’m positive neighbors wouldn't thoughts my choosing theirs up if I run low. Unfold the phrase!
Marion Boos, Sunnyvale
DEAR MARION: Contemplate the phrase — and the balls — unfold.
DEAR JOAN: How do I make hummingbird sugar water to place in my feeders to draw and fulfill the hummingbirds? What's the water to sugar ratio?
Lisa Foster, Modesto
DEAR LISA: The ratio is 4 to 1 — 4 components water to at least one half sugar. Boiling the water isn’t vital, however heating it'll make the sugar dissolve extra simply.
Contact Joan Morris at jmorris@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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