4 Jenn

Here are some pics for you Jenn:

I found that the male cardinal pretty much roosts outside our living room window, I keep seeing him catching worm & caterpillars, then flying to feed his lady while she is on the nest:

Jack catching the last sunlight of the day: Tiger keeping watch on the yard as the sun sets:

Need some advice

Okay I know some of Jenn's bird friends frequent this blog, if you can check out a few posts back some wierd stuff happened with my cardinal's nest. She had three eggs, then one, I found two broken near the nest, she came back and then there where three again, I was looking at her nest and I think that one is bigger than the rest, I have recently had some brown headed cowbirds at the feeders and I wonder if she has been parasitized (sp?). Here is a pic of her current nest:

Here are some pics of brown headed cowbird eggs in other nests:

What should I do? Should I remove the bigger egg? From the Peterson Field Guides " Easter Birds' Nests" book: "Cowbird lays egg at dawn; removes egg of host day before or day after parsitic egg laid" Could a cowbird be the reason the eggs were removed from the nest? Advice please......

Great Day

Today I got up @ 4am to meet my friend Wayne at his parents farm in Richmond. Wayne was taking me to his place to go turkey hunting, he shot his 1st turkey yesterday and since in Missouri you can only shoot one the first week, he was along to help me out and enjoy the hunt. Wayne and I met up at the gate @ 5:10 and walked th 1/2 mile back to his center field, we decided to pass the near part of the field and walked to the far side, as soon as we got there we scared a half dozen turkeys out of the roost, not good. We set up decoys and waited anyway. We heard several gobbles from all around but none too close. After about 2 hours we decided to move to the top field where Wayne shot his Tom the day before. We sat up , called and listened. We could hear a turkey gobbling a ways off across a ravine that I would say was at least 400 yards away. We decided to make our way over that way. We walked sat, got closer sat, got closer sat.... we could not get this Tom to respond to our calls, we figured he was already pre-occupied with a hen. Finally we got near the next tree line. I went to stealth mode as Wayne stayed back and made my way to the edge, I could see one hen and one Tom strutting away. He was about 75 yards away and we didn't think he would come closer. The turkeys went below the slight rise in the field and I was afraid they would head off the other direction. I decided that I would low crawl through the 8-10" grass and see if I could get near the top of the rise to take a shot. I asked Wayne to call if he could see them so I would know to stop and watch. After about 50 yards of low crawling, I heard Wayne call, I got as low to the ground as possible, gun ready and watched for the turkey. Finally I saw a head poke above the rise, I waited for a few minutes hoping to see him clearly to make sure that it was indeed a Tom and not a hen, finally I could see most of his neck and decided to fire, BAM, he was down. This is my first day of turkey hunting, I hunted one day about 16 years ago and really didn't try, happily it was productive, but I had to work for it. Wayne agreed it was a great hunt.
24 pounds, 1 3/8" spurs & 9" beard

We headed back to Wayno's, cleaned the bird and had a beer, Jason joined us with his son Jake and we decided to do some skeet shooting.

We hung out at Wayne's for a few hours just hangin out and decided to head to his parent's neighbor's pond to do some fishing, I borrowed some gear and ended up catching my first fish (plural) of the year.

Jason with the biggest fish of the day.

I had to bail early due to the weather at around 6PM, tornado warnings are currently in effect until 11PM, and one has already touched down and demolished a few houses in Kansas. I got home, ate dinner, hung out with the cats and typed this up. I got nothing done around the house, but I have the opportunity to catch up tomorrow because its supposed to rain all day, I am sick of the nice sunny days during the week and rain on the weekends, this is 3 in row! It was a great day, only thing that could make it better was the sun out and Jenn here to greet me at home!

and now there are 3

I left work today to some wonderfully Spring temps, my mind was struggling between either cycling in the windy weather or doing something else. I got home and after seeing the yard, I made the easy decision to mow and do some more yard work, after I was done with the mowing I thought I would check out my Cardinal's nest to see what is going on, she was depradated this Saturday and 2 out of 3 of her eggs were on the ground and busted, when I looked into her nest I saw:

Thanks to Jenn, I have the most comprehesive library related to birds next to David Sibley, I noted that the average Northern Cardinal has 3 eggs, this lady is on at least number 5. I hope she makes it, last year a feral cat got a cardinal, maybe her, in the other evergreen.

Jenn, a token cat photo:

Weather sucks yo

Okay so I got up this morning to a spring shower, it rained from about 6am to 11am. I measured almost 1" on the raing gauges. I had thought about racing the bonebender but if I had any doubt about racing, the rain easily put me over the edge, not to mention that my $3k moutain bike is a basket case. I went out and rode at Stocksdale Park in Liberty on Friday to see how my legs felt (crappy) and my bike, well I don't know how to say it but it needs help. I took my bike to Heather @ The Wheel to get it fixed, here is what is wrong with it: 1) both front and rear disc brakes rub BADLY; the rear wheel is dented BADLY and the tubless tire will not hold a bead; my front fork is shot, it won't lockout and will not hold any pressure; the chain is a wreck and finally my RH crakbrothers pedal got hid hard and is bent. Heather told me 2+ weeks on all the repairs and the rear wheel may be beyond help. Anyway I talked to teammate Chris Locke, who promoted the BoneBender race and the race was a mud fest, congrats to Chris tho he won the overall 3 hour solo and on a single speed, so he won both categories.

On to my day.... I got up and did routine housework during the rain, when the rain let up I hit Lowe's and Home Depot for some yard stuff. I finally got my "Certified Wildlife Habitat" sign up in the yard and did a few other chores.

I checked on my cardinal nest and it had 1 egg still in it, I noticed that she sat on the nest several times during the rain so I was hoping to see more eggs. I checked the nest as I did the yard work and was happy to see that there were two eggs. I did another errand grabbed the camera and came back to take a picture of the two eggs. To my surprise when I got there only one egg was there, I questioned my sanity for a second and called Jenn to give here my confusing news. As we spoke on the phone, this is what I saw

Two eggs on the ground, one totally busted and one with a small hole in it???? Someone got into her nest. There was still one egg present so I hoped that she will still try to keep the nest and not abandon, I did see her later sit on the nest but she didn't stay for long, I think that she will probably find another location.

Tomorrow is supposed to be crappy so I figured I would go for a hiking trip and settled on Cooley Lake Conservation Area, I found some cool rock formations (forgot the camera in the truck sorry) and I did see my FOY Blue-Gray Gnatcher & a Hermit Thrush, I got several other birds including a mess of Yellow-Rumped Warlbers & Ruby Crowned Kinglets. I spent about 2 hours hiking around and finally got to pattern my shotgun in the parking lot for Turkey season. BTW I saw two Tom's within 15 yards of me, I could've taken 'em easily if it was season (which starts Monday). This year I plan on getting into Turkey hunting, I already have planned to hunt the next three weekends with my friend Wayne on his parent's farm, he is a seasoned hunter and is going to call them in for me to teach me the techniques, hopefully a post will follow this one with a picture of my first turkey kill. I did some trading with my friend Jason and got a Remington 870 that chambers 3.5" shells, lemme tell you, it packs a punch, I got a good mark from the one shot I used to patter the gun. Tomorrow I have planned to brew 3 batches of beer, two for me and one from a friend from GM to teach him how its done. It is supposed to rain AGAIN tomorrow. Next week is supposed to be beautiful, then rain next weekend, I am sick of wonderful Spring days during the week and rain on the weekends, rainy weather sucks, YO.

Jenn, pics of the flowering bushes as you requested:

check out the link below

http://goldencheekedwarbler-research.blogspot.com/2009/04/catch-of-day.html - really cool non-target bird I caught in a mist net yesterday

One egg

I haven't seen the cardinals around the deck lately, this weekend while I was working in the garden they kept flying in but would immediately take off because I was only about 15ft away. I was hoping that I didn't spook them off. I decided to do more yard work today, the weather was great but a little windy, since my heart hasn't been with cycling I have time for other endeavors. Anyway I peeked into the nest and found that there is actually one egg that has been layed since Saturday, maybe they haven't given up afterall.... Hopefully I don't have to take care of a bunch of cats this year to protect this nest.

Crappy, I mean Crappie Fishing

I decided that since it was such a great day, yesterday I pulled out the canoe and my fishing gear and headed for Watkins Mill after work to do some fishing. I spent almost three hours at the lake with not much luck. I enjoyed the time none the less, there were very few people out. I have decided to do more fishing, I spent many many years fishing almost every day and have gotten away from it lately.

I'm finally certified

This Saturday I spent the entire day in my yard. I have spent the last few years turning my yard into a native landscape and wildlife haven. Jenn got me into the native gardening and wildlife thing several years ago and each year the yard gets better. I believe that in 3 years that the yard will be awesome because by that time the bushes should be grown up giving alot of cover. For Xmas Jenn applied for certification for my yard as "Certified Wildlife Habitat" by the National Wildlife Federation, the sign came a little late but the weather is finally good enough to put it up in the yard.

This weekend I got another "lifer" in my own yard, this time not a bird but a reptile, I was very excited to get my first snake in the yard. While turning over my compost in the compost pile I noticed all the large earthworms that were in there, I then noticed while I had my hands right in the pile a snake moving through the litter, it was a northern red bellied snake. I was super excited and then went straight inside to MDC's website to ID the snake, it took me a few minutes to find the correct ID, but after looking at several other sites' pictures, the habitat descriptions I figured it out. This past weekend in Little Rock Arkansas my friend showed me a snake that he had killed with a hoe a week before in his flower bed, in addition to this he told me his neighbors kill alot of snakes in the creek behind his house. This bothered me because 99% of all snakes that would be in a residential area are not poisonious and are only eating rodents, bugs or worms. Please don't needlessly kill these creatures, they are a part of a natual ecosystem that was here thousands of years before your foundation was poured.

After mowing the yard and checking out all my plants & bushes I tilled my garden after laying down 500 lbs of manure. I then planted my broccoli plants, carrots, red onions, white onions & finally spinach; the remainder of the garden (tomatoes, peppers, zuccini & squash will come aftert the threat of frost is gone).

Another great surprise was I found that a pair of cardinals were nesting in the evergreen off the corner of my deck right by the railing (the picture below shows the nest do you see it?). This was exciting because last year a pair nested on the other corner but was depradated by a damn cat and all her eggs were broken. I assumed that she was killed because she was always on the nest and feathers were all over the ground. Hopefully it is the same girl and she is giving the yard another chace. Each year we have had a pair of robins, a pair of barn swallows, a pair of house finches and a pair of house wrens nesting in the yard (we had a pair of blue birds one year but the house wrens depradated their nest). Not bad for a crappy yard that started as a cow pasture. I get so much enjoyment in the wildlife that is in my yard, if more pe0ple would give up on the exotic non-wildlife friendly gardening & landscaping I think they would find 10 times the enjoyment from the wildlife than they do the "pretty" landscaping that they have planted.