September 12, 2008
A small flock of house sparrows visited the backyard last weekend. They were back again on Wednesday bathing together in the pond. Frantically splashing and jumping in and out, about twenty of the little birds enjoyed the aquatic festivities for several minutes. Considered to be nuisance birds, house sparrows are known to interfere with other bird species raising their offspring. While they aren't usual visitors to this backyard, I figured they were either migrating through the area or maybe one of my neighbors ran out of millet which house sparrows prefer.Backyard tip of the week: Speaking of house sparrows and other nuisance birds, one sure way to limit their numbers in your backyard is to limit the amount of millet and other similar "junk" type birdseed that you serve in your feeders. Try instead, using black oil sunflower, thistle, suet, and/or peanuts. No doubt, you'll find a much more desirable variety of birds in your backyard. Try it, you're sure to love it. Or, just go ahead and keep on putting out the millet... so that the house sparrows will stay out of my yard. That's a very little bit of wit and cynicism for ya, here in the backyard report.
Backyard sightings for last week: Including northern cardinals, American robins, rose-breasted grosbeaks, bluebirds and catbirds. Chipping sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, Carolina wrens, house wrens, eastern goldfinches, house finches. Red-bellied and downy woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatches, a ruby-throated hummingbird, the tufted titmice, black-capped chickadees, blue-jays, American crows, a red squirrel and a few grey squirrels, a mostly white skunk, chipmunks, an opossum and some bunnies. Also seen were mourning doves, many different kinds of butterflies, hummingbird moths, just a couple of fireflies, and lots of bats!
Cool sighting of the week: A couple... The tiny Carolina wren was seen foraging in the wildflower patch yesterday, probably eating some natural thistle seed. Seemingly, bright and cheery, wrens always bring a smile to my face. Also spotted this week, a very cool and unusual flowering plant that I'd not seen before. A tall plant with large, heart-shaped, velvety leaves and stalked yellow flowers, I looked it up in the book and found its name to be Velvetleaf aka Pie-maker. A native to India, the plant has a distinctively beaked fruit, the sides of which resemble the crimped edges of a pie crust, hence its common name Pie-maker. I'm hungry now, but either way, finding the cool looking velvetleaf under the bird feeders this week was very cool!
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