Birds Chronicles for Today

As I mentioned this is the second post for today.  It was a super busy day with a coyote, flowers and birds. Yes I said Coyotoe so stay tuned for that coming up in the next post. This is the bird portion so let's hop to it, or is that let's Chirp to it? I have really started LOVING birding so I decide to load up the yard with some fun foods to see what I can attract. I did a ton of research so that I was at least close to putting out the right foods. Similar to everything else in this yard this is all an experimentation and a learning experience. It takes years sometimes to set up strong stable habitats in your yard, so I figure it will take me a while before I find a winning combination for feeding the birds here. You have to start somewhere.

I added so many bird feeders the last few weeks, I kinds of lost track, lol. I have a feeder for each of the birds I am trying to attract. Here is a bare bones list of what I am hoping to see:

1. Any type of Woodpecker
2. Oriole
3. Hummingbird
4. Cardinal
5. Goldfinch

Below is a window. It looked like a good idea, and I figured my cats would love the close up view, but it didn't hold well to the glass. The suction cups could only do so much before they let go. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I also see I need to clean my windows HAHAHA.

The day started rainy and dingy. The pictures have a little too much contrast for my taste today. I don;t mess with editing them, too much work! The sun finally breaks out in the afternoon, and the picture quality improves tremendously.

I did have one cute little visitor today, but it was a butterfly. He was not quite a bird, but he will do for now. As for the birds, the buffet is now open. Please line up single file and PLEASE no pushing. Everyone will get a plate :)

Yard and Flowers for Today

I'm totally not going to apologize for this, but todays post is going to be INSANE picture heavy. For those of you that have slow internet, run do not walk, lol. So I went picture happy today so I'm going to split today's posts into two separate post. One post will be for flowers and the yard stuff, and one post will be for birds and bird feeders. Yes, there are THAT many pictures. Let's start with the front window garden area.

Short of this little girl mysteriously blowing up in a million pieces, be prepared to see her time and again for the lifetime of this blog :)

The new kid on the block. We went back to that same garden center and found this little beauty to match with my fountain. She is currently on the back deck of the house, but she will eventually work her way to the from of the house. I think I start to say that OVERALL my photography skills have stared to improve. I guess it doesn't hurt that I went out and splurged on a new Canon 60D :) My Dream camera has arrived.

My Mom visited this Spring for NY, and we planted a bunch of stuff. Amongst those plants are these two Bushes shown below (Update: both of these did not make it - like so many we planted too early this year and were fooled by the early warm weather). I'm glad I got these pictures of them, they definitely are beautiful and remind me of my Mother. 

Here goes the awesome photography I promised you guys, lol. I can't promise it will aways be this awesome, but it's a far cry from when I started this blog. I have to remember to take out my GOOD camera and get REAL pictures whenever I can.  The colors where speaking to me today!

Around the Yard..

Cows - MOO :)

Coming from NY I have seen my fair share of dairy cows, but only on rare visits to upstate NY. Here we are surrounded by beef cattle...everywhere you look. Very different from Dairy cows and equally as fascinating. I have cows right in my back yard area. On certain spring and summer nights standing on my deck I can hear the faint sounds of mooing in distance. 

These cows are just down the road from my house. Since I had my new camera ready to go I had Kelly pull over so I could get some shots. I must have looked pretty crazy to stop and take pictures of cows for a farm boy raised in this area, lol. I wanted to show my Mom back in NY what lived on my road besides me :) As docile and friendly as Kelly keeps telling me these cows are, they were starring at me like I was lunch. The baby was cute too. I'm sure with time these will become common for me as well, but for now...HOLY COW, lol! 

Cleaning up some messy spots in the yard

Kelly and I are at it again. We have a few eye sores that have been bugging us for a while and we finally decided to tackle them. First up is this tree. Out here in the country Black Rat Snakes can get into the yard really easy, especially if you have tall weeds and grass at the base of your tress. We decided as an experiment to do this one up and lay in some gravel to give it a manicured look. In hind sight, I wish we hadn't used 'white' gravel, it's a bit on the tacky side, but it was what we had at the time. We can always refresh and update it if the need arrises.

Below, we also had another eye soar in the yard. The prior owner thought it would be a good idea to put bricks around this tree. As you can see below, it was really hurting and looking sad.  It wasn't easy, but Kelly dug out what he could. 

Finally, below is a peak at our new raised flower bed which I really love. For now it only has a few lonely flowers in it, but I hope to fill it up soon :) 

More yard project and flowers coming soon...

Morel Mushrooms

Today was a busy busy day, and more than one post will be going up for the day, Actually there will be 3 posts!  Today was a lot of fun and I want to document it as best as I can. We are going to start with these Morel Mushrooms. When Kelly told me we were going mushroom hunting in our own back yard, I was pretty sure he lost his mind. In NY you DO NOT eat mushrooms you find in your yard unless you want a quick trip to the ER and some serious food posioning. In fact the only mushrooms you should ever eat in NY, is from the supermarket, lol. It took Kelly a lot of convincing to get me to try them, but once I did I was hooked! I'm still not 100% sold on this soaking them till the bugs come out thing...EEEEK!

They fried up really nicely and were super yummy. There were not a lot, but enough for a snack. It's thrilling to know I can find them in my own yard. 

If You Build It, They Will Come - Cardinal

I recently got really into my bird watching. Who would have thought that would be as much fun as it is. I have a wonderful patch of woods in my back yard area that is the perfect area for walking and bird watching!  Kelly always had feeders prior to me moving here, but they were outside empty and neglected. Many of the feeders had broken hanging wires, and looked really run down and shabby. I took all of them down (about 6 in total) and repainted them. Kelly helped out and added all new hanging wires for each of the houses. They came out really really nice. I loaded them up with seeds and suet cakes, and hopefully word will spread in the bird community that there is free food here for all, LOL! 

I do not have the correct camera for taking bird pics (poor zoom), but I will do my best with the camera I do have. One of these days I'm going to lose my mind and purchase myself a Nikon D90 or Canon Rebel XT with a zoom lens. I just need about 1500$ or so to make the purchase (ha ha). One of these days it's going to happen. I am not sure how, but it will happen!

Here is a beautiful Cardinal I spotted in my front yard tree. I believe it's a male since he is solid red. I'm COMPLETELY new at bird watching, and I'm learning as I go. I did see tons of birds while I lived in NY, but because I did;t have a yard I never paid attention to what species they were. The song the Cardinal sings is pure beauty, and I'm learning it's so easy to know when they are present by there unique sounds. My bird feeders are working. If you build it, they will come!

Thanks for visiting :)

Yellow Bellied Sap Sucker - The One and Only

This is one of my very very first bird sightings in the yard. Actually, more like Kelly’s first bird sighting. We were out on the deck and he heard it tapping away at one of our trees. As you can see by the poor quality of this picture, I was not using my Canon 60D. I used what I had. This little guy is a Yellow Bellied Sap Sucker. The one and only! They are listed for this area in Missouri, but they are pretty rare, so I was quite excited when Kelly spotted him in the back yard. He is pretty spectacular. 

(Edit: 2014 - I never saw another one again. This was my one and only sighting. One day I hope to see one of these again and get a much better picture, but for now this will do).