Animals in your garden

[MaryMary]

@Sheal, what a beautiful little bird!! Such a cheerful yellow!

@roadrunner, I love that squirrel, too.

Excellent shots, both of you!

 

[Sheal]

Thanks MaryMary.

 

[DeborahJane]

We haven't had such a friendly kookaburra pay us a visit in a long time. Wanted to be fed. My cat Polly is 2 and I dont think she's seen one before. Very interested.

 

[JamieB]

What do kookaburras eat? I’ve always thought I’d love to go to Australia where they and cockatoos are wild and get friendly.

 

[nexto12]

What do kookaburras eat? I’ve always thought I’d love to go to Australia where they and cockatoos are wild and get friendly.

Same here! From my perspective it's so exotic.

My garden is still a bit "native" (in the sense that no one was taking care of it for a loooong time).
I would like to use it as an advantage, but it still needs a lot of work.

Needless to say, animals do love it. I have a lot of mosquitoes , some butterflies, sometimes squirrels, and LOTS LOTS of magpies. This is a photo of a young magpie learning to fly (first I thought it was a wounded bird, then I checked).

Have a nice sunny day!

 

[DeborahJane]

What do kookaburras eat? I’ve always thought I’d love to go to Australia where they and cockatoos are wild and get friendly.

They love worms JamieB. They hover around when you dig in the garden just y6o make thongs easier for themselves.

 

[DeborahJane]

We have magpies ,"Maggies", here in Australia too nexto12. They can be quite tame too.

 

[JamieB]

Sounds a bit like a friendlier version of our American robins. I’ve usually got a cat or ten following me around, so they don’t get close, but after I dig, the birds go find treats.

 

[DeborahJane]

What a lovely way to spend a rainy Sunday morning.

 

[Henderson]

Those are beautiful birds you have visiting your porch, I'm jealous.

I have a constant stream of rabbits through my backyard (and front), they seem to love the dandelions, so I consider them welcome (and cute) weed control. After eating, they often just lay out in the sun sleeping for awhile.

Our birds usually aren't so colorful, but after hearing a new noise every time I was out in the back and using the zoom on my camera to hunt it down, I found a red-breasted woodpecker busy in a nest in my neighbor's tree, about 30' up in the top branches. Unfortunately, after a few more days the tree leafed out too much and I couldn't get any more photos. No idea what the tree is, other than very very old and huge, but wish I knew.

And surprisingly I caught a wood duck with 13 babies waddling around in my back yard one day, which is surprising since there's really no water close by. Not a very good pic since they were in deep shade under a huge evergreen and I took this from about 75' away. I think they came through the hole in the fence behind the last duckling, but there's no water in that neighbor's yard either, nothing for at least a mile.

One sparrow kept getting close to the nest, that's when he'd ruffle up his head feathers like that.

He's tossing out some debris from his interior clean up.

One of the last pics I could get after the tree leafed out more.

Munching on the dandelions.

Must clean even between the toes after eating.

Eyelids are starting to get heavy...

The march of the wood ducks.

 

[DeborahJane]

Great pics Henderson. Love the little woodpecker doing its scary feather thing.

 

[TomatoTango]

These little frogs, lol.

 

[Beverly]

I couldn't resist posting this little guy with the magnificent tail and he looks so chubby. I wonder what he had for lunch? maybe a pork chop? As i add more plants to the new garden in progress, it seems i add a new critter too. I am anxious to receive the dill seeds on order and get some plants started, there are a lot of swallowtails right now and i would love to grow a caterpillar or 2 or 3...and i am dying for some culinary fresh dill. According to Mexico, dill does not exist...harumph, although they do have a name for it (eneldo). They even make dill pickles, but of course they would not think to add dill to the recipes.

 

[Treblot84]

 

[Sean Regan]

As well as the blackbirds, robins, great and blue tits and dunnocks which visit our feeders we have a family of starlings. We started off with a pair, they had some young so now in the mornings six of them blitz the feeder on the side of a pergola post. They throw the seed everywhere. Sometimes four cram themselves under the roof of the feeder and two will hang onto the one on the support beam.

The discarded seed gets cleared up by the smaller birds, though there is a tray under the azaleas with food in it for them. The pigeons can't get at it as I put a row of canes along the edge of the border. The pigeons can't get between them, but the smaller birds can.