Nest

On Easter Sunday The Rabbit was nibbling grass on the front lawn.

Weeks later a rabbit burrow appeared on a bank near the garden. It's next to a small brush pile of twiggy branches. In this pile the wild mother rabbit dug a hole and lined it with her fur.

Early one morning a tiny rabbit was hopping around in the branches and later in the morning he was tucked back into his nest for a nap. Other mornings found him in the burrow with fur blanketed over the opening. We wonder if there are Nestmates.

Now just a few weeks later two junior size rabbits and their mother were seen in the backyard and garden area playing chase, leaping, standing tall to reach flowers on the shrubs and nibbling new grass followed by tender-to-watch washing of ears and face.

September Sunrise

Baby Nibbles and his Mother our "Wild Rabbit Visitors" continue to come together at Sunrise to nibble grass and forage in the Birdseed under the Feeders. They have enjoyed the Red Sage & Black Eyed Susan leaves and in exchange produce small piles of brown rabbit droppings for the garden.

Baby has grown quite large now and bursts into sprints & leaps around Mom when she's feeding.

They have become somewhat tame and move to a comfortable distance and continue feeding when the flowers and birdbaths need a drink. A loud noise or the Warning Call of the Blue Jay will send them dashing for cover.

Wondering if they are the owners of the Den dug into the Compost Pile by the Garden.

Nibbles

A very large wild rabbit has been magically appearing on our lawn for the past year.
Living in a housing development, we welcome the squirrels and birds that come, but a wild rabbit is a treat and especially welcome. It wasn't unusual to hear someone say. . .
"Hey, did you see the big rabbit?"

This summer the "big rabbit" left us a sweet gift. Out back in the flower garden with the white picket fence is Nibbles, a tiny brown rabbit. He looks like a kitten with a tiny white powder puff following behind. One early morning sighting found him creeping out from under the big shed, stretching each back leg and yawning. Then he stood up and washed his face and each ear.

The young squirrels are curious about him and get close for a sniff and once over, but seem to be disinterested and go back to foraging for birdseed. He ignores them and nibbles away at a long blade of grass. His high speed sprints and leaps on his short baby legs are comical to watch.
He can be sitting in a spot and in a flashing split second disappear from view or he practices the "freeze" and sits there staring with not a whisker moving.

Sunrise trips to the backyard to fill birdbaths are now rewarded with sweet "Nibbles" sightings.

Baby Robins

Two fluffy baby Robins
with bright orange beaks
sat on the deck railing birdbath
this morning.

One was dipping
to get a drink
and his nestmate
was drying out
in the golden morning sun
after a nice bath.

Brown Rabbit

Yesterday at Sunset a large brown Rabbit
was poised standing on his hind feet
next to the garden's birdbath.
He investigated a sprouting onion
on the brush pile and hopped
around the perennials in the
garden, stopping occasionally
and standing tall and alert.

This evening we will put some
Alfalfa from the pet shop out
for him. Sweet.

Newly Hatched

I was just turning on the faucet to put water in the birdbath
and something dropped to the ground.

It looks like a newly hatched
Female Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly.

It was black and sky blue
with dots of orange and gold
around the edes of its wings.

It was crumpled and soft like a newly
unfurled leaf and crawled onto my hand.

I hurried around to the Lithodora Groundcover
just recently planted. It has blue flowers.

It crawled across the plant and up onto
some pine straw hanging off the railroad tie
above. It hung there drying out.
When I returned later it had flown away.

Balogny?

Yesterday I noticed that there wasn't much bird or squirrel traffic at the feeder. This morning as I was getting gardening gloves out of the big shed i heard a loud buck-buck-buck-buck noise come from our largest pine tree. It kind of sounded like a chicken.

Up high on a branch was a Hawk. I remembered recently finding a clump of bird feathers near the birdfeeder and another day the young squirrel had shown up missing his tail. Have I created a Smorgasbord for the Birds of Prey?

Bird's and Bloom's Magazine says not to worry,,,Hawks have to eat too. OK, I'll just have to quit naming my favorite songbirds, so when they come up missing I won't be so crushed. But what about Greenbean, Dove, Thrasher, King, and Rocky?

Maybe if I hung Balogna from the tree,,,

Baby Squirrel's Tale

As I waited this morning for the first cup of coffee I spent some time looking out the kitchen window to see which birds were first to the backyard feeder.

Just outside this window a large pine tree stands. It is home to Rocky the Gray Squirrel and her two babies. It's fun to watch them come down the tree stretching and yawning to find breakfast peanuts and seeds left for them. If the peanuts and seeds are late arriving they stand up tall and stare at the window. Occasionally they'll come right up to the window and look in.

This morning found them parading down the tree and my head began spinning,,,something amiss. They stretched and yawned as usual, but were in the company of a third baby and it's missing it's TAIL! Not even a stump left. He looks rather like a Guinea Pig.

Throughout the day I watched for him in the yard and he seems to not be bothered by his loss. I would love to know his "Tale of The Lost Tail."

Note: A week has gone by now and today the young tailess squirrel
was searching in the grass below the birdfeeders for seeds. He seems fine.

"Winter Honeysuckle"

On our latest Trek to Riverbanks Botanical Garden we found "Kiss-Me-At-The-Garden-Gate" and "Sweet Breath of Spring" sitting among the plants that were for sale. These are two names for the winter-blooming shrub "Winter Honeysuckle" that supplies nectar for Hummingbirds arriving early in the Carolinas. We bought one and proudly brought it home.

It has a stiff form and jiggles in the wind. The flowers are white and frilly with bright yellow anthers arching out from inside. They smell like Lemons and their fragrance drifts on the breeze. The early spring bees have come to do their pollen dance on it.

During February as I sat on the deck, "Greenbean" the Hummingbird zoomed around me and then sat on a Crepe Myrtle branch above watching me. I quickly hung out a nectar feeder, but the baby squirrels played a game of tip it and run below to lick the nectar off the deck railing and finally they just chewed it apart, so I threw it away. When "Greenbean" returns, Winter Honeysuckle will be waiting for him on the deck railing outside the kitchen window. I can't wait.

A Verse written by Joyce Hemsley of Sunderland, England:

"The Seasons have just drifted by,
many moons have graced the sky.

Whilst Winter's Honeysuckle bloom
has filled the air with sweet perfume."

Puzzle

Four-thirty in the afternoon.
The Neighborhood Rooser is crowing.

Acrobats of Dusk and Dawn

I wandered outside to sit and watch the Moon at 6:30 am. Birds are sleeping.

Suddenly a flash like when you catch a glimpse of your eyelashes under certain light caught my attention.

What was that? There, quite near my face.

This is breathtaking,,,it's a bat.

The yard is full of tall pine trees and the bats twirl and spin around and around. Their wings make no noise. They are catching insects.

I enjoy stealing out to the deck at dusk to watch their acrobatics.
Here they are at dawn.

Song of Solomon for Gardeners & Birders

"For, lo, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone;
the flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds
is come,
and the voice of the turtle
is heard in our land"

Five Squirrels?

There have been four Squirrels combing the grass for weeks underneath the hanging Bird Feeder in the backyard.

Above them the Carolina Wrens have been shelling seeds and singing a happy spring yodel song. One a distance away answers. it sounds like an echo. When the Squirrels get too lively the wrens chatter and hiss.

Just now watching from the Kitchen Window, i counted two wrens and FIVE squirrels. The new small one has a hairless tail. I smell a Rat. Four squirrels begin running around in circles, ricocheting off trees. The rat runs up a tall pine tree, then walks slowly right down it defying gravity. It disappeared thru the Red Tips and over to the neighbors.

Note: I bought some traps, but only got the courage to set one once. The rats disappeared. My neighbor must have been braver.

Oh Rats

Have those Iowa Rid-a-Rats #1 and #2 found their way to the Carolinas? Rocky the Squirrel has enjoyed a piepan of birdseed this winter with the company of Carolina Wrens, Tufted Titmice, Snowbirds and Chicadees and one Dove named "Dove".

Tuesday morning found two big Rats grazing beside Rocky along with three additional Squirrels. Oh Rats. Rocky lost her most prized possesion, her piepan of seed. I can see her now sitting next to its spot on the deck railing shaking her tail and looking toward the kitchen window. She loved it so, but it had to go.

A Suet feeder hangs from the wire that's strung between the big shed and a pine tree. Today a very exotic looking gold dome-shaped bird feeder was added next to it. A circular perch hangs below the port holes that have a little roof to keep the rain away. It's very light weight. nice.

Holy Cow, a look out the window to see which bird found it first finds China the neighbors tiny Red Dog laying under it. Ha! Who would of guessed,,a Chinabird.

Wind

Wow,,the Winds of March have found us on a Sunny day in January. As the day marches forward it is accelerating and causing one to hang out by a window to see what it is churning up out in the yard. Out come binoculars. There's Thrasher swinging at dizzying speed trying to get a bite from the Suet Cage.

Squiggly musical notes sing out as it sneaks thru the attic and around windows. It makes a game of finding new things to twangle, rattle, clap and snap. Your hackles rise when it comes rushing and makes a deep rushing-roaring that howls and whistles and builds until you fear for the house and then just like a wave in the ocean it plays out and gets quiet. After a Rest, the whole Wind Drama begins once again.

What a great exhilirating game for your ears. Wind.

Cassandra Seedlings

The garden and several pots were sprinkled three times with Cassandra Flower Seeds back in the spring. Just when i had given up on them here they are,,little bright shiny green plants. Three pots of them!

The pots were moved to the shade and the Cassandras are happier. The blooms will be peach colored and against that wonderful shiny green they are a beautiful sight.

A Humminbird perches in the tree above them,,hoping these flowers become a favorite.

ARGIOPE SIGHTING

Early in the summer a young Argiope Spider made a good sized web by the butterfly bush. He disappeared and the web was in disrepair, so my thought was a bird had eaten him. A second web appeared with bundles lined up down the middle, but there never seemed to be a spider near it.

This morning a third good and sturdy web with a Zipper down the middle has appeared with a very large Argiope Spider on it all dressed in bright yellow and black. My thoughts are he is the young one i saw early on and has been well hidden. Maybe morning is a good time to catch a look at him.

SURPRISE VISITOR

This morning as I was spreading Cypress Bark around a Butterly Bush I rounded a corner and collided with something that was making alot of humming noise like Hummingbird wings. We both jumped back and i could feel the air from its wings on my face. Wow,,the hugest Bumblebee i have ever seen was my first thought.

I froze so it wouldn't fly away and discovered it was a Hummingbird/Hawk Moth. It spent alot of time going from one tiny purple flower to the next on the bush. It's head was fuzzy yellow with moth markings and he had short fat and stubby black antennae, black wings and a black body. His tongue was long like a butterflys.

I've only seen these at night on the front porch, so this was exciting.

PONDER THIS

IN ONE YEAR,
A SINGLE EARTHWORM IN YOUR GARDEN
CAN DIGEST
36 TONS OF SOIL.

THAT'S THE WEIGHT OF
36 PICKUP TRUCKS!

Butterfly Nectar Recipe

1 part White cane Sugar
20 parts Water

Boil Water several minutes before adding Sugar.
Cool and fill feeder.
Store excess in fridge about 2 weeks.

Clean feeder with hot tap water and change nectar every 3-4 days.

info: birdcam.backyardwildlife.com
Ft.Worth,Texas