Fauna of the Mid-Atlantic

I can't pass the chance!

Build it they will come.

ROTFL

YES! They will, Rick. Still wondering if I should glue back the big 3-tube one???

Man! It sure has lived many lives by now. I think I bought it in 2000??

G.

FWIW, I've been swearing by E-6000 adhesive for darn near everything lately. it stands up to outside conditions. I even repair plates with it, and they hold up going through the dishwasher (something super glue can't handle).

Personally, I'd give that feeder last rites... put some seed on a window screen for now (the screen lets water drain through so seed doesn't sit in a puddle) or just right on your tabletop under the canopy. Then look for several small feeders at the holiday sales -- the weight and size will be easier to handle.

My 2 cents!

We do have hawks that come and "stalk" our squirrels... no alligators though, at least none that I've seen! *whistling*

Do you think if I got a gator I could train him to eat squirrels ???LOL
My AD must have kicked in the other afternoon, I never did get to the feeders, but with the temps the way they are, the birds don't need them. There is still plenty of food out there. I used to wait till we had regular nights of freezing to put out suet, and snow or ice cover to put out seed.

Thanks, everyone--the screen on the table idea sounds very doable.
Let me think on it....seriously....

It is just that FEEDERS have been THE thing to do.

I will still have to use up all the BLack sunflower seeds, and the other yummies
in the mix of seeds I have from last year in some other location so it gets gobbled up.

When i was at Muddies--I liked that little, wood whole peanuts feeder by her tree trunk.
I have 2 tree trunks I could 'abuse" in that same way. And--I also still want to put out
suet cakes (89 ea. cents at Ollies). I usually hang those from the tree trunk as well
as from the crotch in the smaller maple I have. EXCEPT!!! The starlings trash those as well.

I like to hang them in a convenient spot so i can go out in the middle of winter and put up
new ones without having to use a ladder.

Anyway--thanks for all the ideas. Gita

Congratulations to Jill for her winning fauna (birds category) in the photo contest. What a face! Where did you find him?

Yay, Jill! I need to check out the winners, now. I didn't get a chance to vote this year.

Oh, cool, I hadn't checked the results yet. That's the cowbird chick in my wrens' hanging basket nest... I could get right in his face for photos, LOL.

wow congratualtions!

I'm tickled to have a 3rd place photo, but I have to say I'd rather have the goldfinch (beautifully photographed on icy branch) looking at me every morning from the calendar LOL. I encounter enough "attitude" during the day!

HA hahahahahahaha!!!

so many really fabulous pictures, I've only looked through a few categories. I didn't look during judging
Note for next year, Butterfly and Caterpillar category needs something unique. There were pretty pictures but standard poses. How about a picture focused on a caterpillar or butterfly, but in the background, out of focus, you can see a child's face filled with wonder...

Sally--I agree. There were too many submissions of very average photos.
Besides---so many pictures were sideways---an automatic "delete" from me.
Seems everyone's phones are now the camera. Same if it was out of focus.

Why would anyone expect this kind of a picture to be a contender?

I judged ALL of them--a pleasant job for late night viewing.
Now I will go and see the winners.

PS--I made a copy of all the categories. Maybe i DO have some pictures I can submit?
G.

Where is the link to the winners ? Usually, it is at the top, but the old link
(for doing the judging) is still up there...

G.

I think I used that link, then found the next on the judging page

Congrats Jill, I need to go and view the winners. I did do some voting but didn't get very far.

I haven't had time to look at the winning photo (or any of them for that matter), but congrats, Critter!

So far nothing seems to have discovered the sunflower seeds we put out in my mom's backyard. I'll try moving the "feeder" closer to the woods tomorrow so that something can find it.

There are a lot of alligators here. My parents had a baby one in their driveway once, and another resident snapped a photo of one ringing their doorbell ! I'm not kidding...the people were grilling meat and ran inside when the gator approached. The gator followed them and stood up against their door in order to see inside, thereby ringing the bell. I have a photo of it somewhere.

Temps are warmer here, of course (I'm near Hilton Head), and I've seen Monarch Butterflies almost every day. There is usually one on my mom's neighbor's Zinnias.

Lepidoptera Photo Conscientiousness Raising 101
instructor coleup
HAHAHAHA
Consider me more appreciative of the efforts of those photographers!

While putting things in my little greenhouse today, I saw that mice made very good use of a seed starter tray. They'll probably like the 2 ceramic toad houses I put in there, too : - )

I've see about 6 Blue Jays at the peanut feeder every morning, only half the number I saw last year. I won't be too upset if some of them migrated to warmer areas; they eat a lot!

haha cute mouse nest

6 is HALF? wow.

We found a dead small rat in the middle of the backyard today! Better than finding them live in the yard, I'll admit. Daughter did see the cat carrying something the other night.

I can beat that for gross... yesterday we found a stinky deer head in the middle of the back yard. Just the head.

I'm about halfway to having the newly planted trees and shrubs protected for the winter... I'm using chicken wire, cut a little over 5 feet to make a circle of about 18". We used 4 ft. t-stakes (or maybe these are U-stakes) to start with, since I had them around from staking tomatoes... when I went to Tractor Supply yesterday for more chicken wire, I picked up a bundle of "fence stays," heavy duty wire "sticks" that are wiggly rather than straight so they hold the fencing securely.

Hopefully that will keep the bunnies and groundhogs from nibbling things to the ground again! If deer become an issue (not sure what will happen now that the corn field has turned into houses behind us), I can add "deer netting" over the top of the wire cylinders. Maybe I should have put that head on a stake, Attila the Hun style, as a warning to other deer to stay away!

Yeah, I used to always be able to count on 11-12 Blue Jays swooping down to get their peanuts in the morning.
I agree, a dead rat is much better than a live one. Maybe it's not logical, but having them around bothers me a lot more than having mice around.

Edited to say that we cross-posted, Critter.
Yuk, a deer head?! Something the size of a coyote must have dragged that into your yard....unless the nasty developer of that new housing area is messing with you.

This message was edited Nov 22, 2015 8:07 PM

ugh, critter, how bizarre!!

Yeah, I kinda wondered about that possibility, Muddy, since we don't generally have dogs wandering around the neighborhood, and it seemed a big big for a cat to haul around... and a possum wouldn't have left such a snack behind... But somebody would have had to walk a ways into the yard to toss it there, so I hope that's not how it got there.

I hope not too! You could probably tell from looking at it whether it was cut off by a knife or ripped off by an animal. If an animal dragged it, there might have been tracks in the grass, too.
I wonder whether the neighbors whose houses were damaged by the construction blasting found heads in their yard too?

It looked more ripped off but might have come from a roadkill animal. I didn't investigate it too closely, although I did consider tossing it onto an anthill and giving the cleaned skull to the nature center... but since Charlie was willing to dispose of it, that was fine with me.

We've found deer parts in the woods, walking with the dog; best that he disposed of it.

D:

I don't think I could handle a deer head in the backyard. I don't think DH could handle it, either.

We'd have to move! LOL

Might have been a hawk that couldn't hold it and let it drop.
I just told Ric that the mice are back, found droppings in the kitchen cabinet and later that day Alfie killed one in the living room near the plants. Good Alfie.

Dreary day- if you need some reading about black soldier flies, such as found in some compost, see
http://taxo4254.wikispaces.com/Hermetia+Illucens

and look closely at the credit for the photo of the yellow soldier fly.
:)

Black soldier flies sound important in the ecosystem and potentially very useful in waste reduction, farm management and more. Maybe our 'modern' systems of waste disposal have made them less common than they should be. They just can't seem to get the same warm fuzzy press as monarch butterflies. LOL.

light reading there sally :-) how do you know all this stuff anyway lol...

YEAH Sally

Nice photo, Sally!
You don't have a special BSFL bin, do you? I wouldn't mind having a bin like the one the guy made in my back yard or side yard, but I would want to make it smaller.

yeah, the guy contacted me thru Googleplus for the picture
:)
I have BSF in my regular bin in warm months. I toyed with harvesting and freezing some for winter bird feed, but that was just a bridge too far in terms of time, priorities, and the yuck factor for those I live with.

Maybe I'll just get a compost bin instead. Right now I just have piles.

Talk about yucky: You reminded me that I have frozen blood worms in my freezer. My daughter bought them years ago for the fish. I didn't buy them; my daughter did. They're easy to forget about. I'm defrosting some now so they can have a special treat ; - )

Cool picture , Sally!

thanks; I was quite jazzed when I found those guys around my bin, too. Simple pleasures of a sort, lol

Ready for some real "yuck"?
These are a few of the critters I'm hosting while my daughter's apartment building management is doing inspections of the units (keeping insects is not allowed).

#1 - She has a few colonies of roaches. Her geckos and tarantulas eat the small ones (I think) and a friend's iguana eats the big ones. I'm also hosting a few containers of crickets and a gecko who thinks they're yummy.

#2 - one of a handful of tarantulas

Fortunately, my sole responsibility with regards to the above critters is keeping the door closed so my cat doesn't break the cages or terrorize the gecko, which might cause the gecko to drop its tail.

Muddy, you're a saint!

agreed! I think I'd balk at that myself. Imagine if her neighbors knew.