Bathing Beauties

This bird bath with a dripper has been the best addition to my garden. the birds love it, and I love watching them drink, bath, and interact on it.

Blue Jay 2

Blue Jay 3

Blue Jay cleaned up and pleased with itself

Love your jay pix birdmanct, especially the last one. Birds sure do go for those drippers don't they? I have a recirculating dripper & never realized before how much the birds are attracted to the drippers. I get a kick out of watching the birds sit on top of the dripper & leaning over to catch a drop of water.

Same here, broots. And their different ways of bathing, drinking, and fighting [when they're drunk??] always entertain me.

Before this, I had a big dish with no dripper and got no birdie action, just a couple of squirrels. Then I added a battery operated water-stirrer; again no birds. The dripper works great, tho I don't have a heater for winter. It froze a couple of days early this month.

This is a series to add to my favorites. Kent actually interrupted his work, looked at all four enlargements and his grin got bigger with each picture. LOL I should have gotten a picture of that!

Yeah, that would have been a great picture to post :)

Iris - I like your water bubbler [pic on Cedar Waxwings 3 thread] and I think the birds will too. BUT, how will you clean/ disinfect it and all those stones?
How often do you have to refill it? [same with the water jug idea]
What I like about my dripper is I just attach it to an outdoor faucet, regulate the drip speed, and it runs on it's own. A bathing bird can splash a LOT of water out, and a lot evaporates on a sunny day, so at times I need to add more water, but that's usually when I do a weekly scrub with 5:1 water:bleach solution. I picked a bath bowl that's not too deep, has good traction, yet doesn't have so many doo-dads that it's difficult to clean.

The photo is downtown Hartford from my house.

Great photos, birdman! Wow!
Wanna see my blue jay pics? There's more where this comes from... LOL

I'll bite - is that INSIDE your house???
what's the plant?
what's the Jay doing with it?
what's a Blue Jay doing in Pheonix?? You westerners have so many other Jays, now you're stealing our only one!

yeah, I'd love to see more. Our BJ population is down the past 2 years.

This message was edited Apr 23, 2006 5:07 PM

birdmanct, It's not hard at all to keep clean, The top of it tilts, I just tilt the rocks right into a a longated pan, disinfect, hose them off, Lay them in a rack and the sun dries them right out, To empty the water, I just use the pump and it pumps the water right out onto my plants. Takes about 15 minutes to do. It's a recirculating pump that I just plug in and it runs, It is actually an in yard water feature but I thought maybe the birds would use it as they do tend to use the waterfall that I have at my pond sometimes. The water jug idea I have not tried yet, I heard about it from a couple people and read about it in one of my bird books, But, It's just a plastic water jug that you wuld buy at the store for .60 hang in with a rope over the a filled birdbath and make a hole with a small nail and leave it drip, The cover would still be on the top so no need to disinfect ( Except for the birdbath) and just change the water when needed. I heard it works good but I have not tried it yet.
Thats a quite a view you have from your house of downtown Hartford!

thanks Iris. I was longing to move back to Santa Fe until I found this little ranch house on a hill.

I think your definition of 'hard to clean' is different from mine. I'm very lazy....I fanatize about writing a book called "The 5 minute Gourmet".

great view, my favorite place I've lived in NM was Bent. Had as view of White Sands and only one neighbor for miles. Here's a picture of the view- deceptive because it doesn't capture the depth at all. White Sands was about 1,700 feet lower in elevation - lots of beach & no ocean

nice. I know what you mean by 'deceptive'. photos don't do the southwest justice, and even in person things seem much closer and smaller than they are. my house outside of Santa Fe had a similar view - you could see the Sandia Mtns. 60 miles away as though they were down the road.
I don't have a picture of it, but here's one from the top of Zion Canyon in Utah from last month.

birdmanct, It's quite a change from Santa Fe to CT, It must have been a pretty impressive house to you and it must have taken you a little while to adjust to the climate change?
Well, I can't say I'm lazy, But, I can say I don't like doing any work that's going to take a long time/ or be aggravating .. I had this one stone birdbath, Which was just beautifull! Had some really pretty stone figurines around the edge and was so heavy that you didn't have to worry about the wind ever knocking it over, You also didn't have to worry about moving it anywhere because it was too heavy to pick up!! So you couldn't dump the water out because it was too heavy to tip, And for whatever reason, I couldn't keep up with the algea it would constantly get, And I was cleaning it almost every other day, So I put it up and sold it at my yard-sale! From then on, I try to only get items that are fast and easy to clean, Between the bird houses, bird-feeders, hummingbird feeders, oriole feeders, And platform feeders, Theres always plenty to keep up after, And the easier the better!! ....If your fantasy ever becomes reality, Let me know, ~I want a copy!!! lol!
Nice pics!

from "The 5 Minute Gourmet" [to be published no sooner than 2020 :]

Easy S’mores
Serves 1/10th to 1
Prep Time: 90 seconds [30 with practice]

Remove 1 graham cracker from package
Break in half
Place 1 marshmallow on 1 half
Place 1 Hershey’s kiss (point first) on marshmallow and press down firmly
Place 2nd cracker half on top of 1st
Adjust until all 4 cracker edges are aligned
Microwave until just before chocolate runs onto plate [ about 10 seconds]
Enjoy
Repeat as needed

LOL!!! Wow, Thanks for posting all that!! It's too long for me though,
Quick:: A box of 'Rice Crispy Treats, Takes under 3 seconds, Open the box, Tear off the cellephane wrapper, And eat!! Repeat when sweet tooth flares up.

I envy you New Mexico people!!!

birdman, sorry for the delay. I'm feeling pretty ill at the moment... will get to my blue jay pics & story soon, hopefully.

Yes! She--the blue jay--lived indoors with me for 2.5 years. As an overactive (lol) wild bird rehabilitator from 1984 - 2002, I had the pleasure of knowing many special birds :)

Magpied, I lived in Wickenburg for just over a year, Kent grew up in New River and we both love AZ too. The deserts are different but the sky is very similar. We miss the saguaro.

LOl, you made me hungry it is only 11 and I'm fixing lunch!

:) :) to you all.
magpied, thought you'd forgotten. feel better. I'll wait patiently for your pix.

PS any of you know about this place near Kanab, Utah? they have 30,000 gorgeous acres, with dozens of houses for various types of companion animals, including birds.

Magpied, Hope you feel better soon!
birdmanct, I never knew of that place, And Ill probably never see it, But, What was it like when you went?

This link should have everything you'd want to know. We loved it. They give 2 hour tours a few times a day; most of the animals are adoptable despite having been abandoned or mistreated; they have an active volunteer program, pet-person matching; shelters for animals with various special needs; free-range dogs [don't even think about it !!].
http://www.bestfriends.org/atthesanctuary/

Here's the visitor center

and a few ovines

the animal cemetary

one of many cat houses. Skittish cats can live comfortably in the rafters until they chose to come down.

and finally, an immature homo sapiens sapiens, perhaps a future vertebrate adopter.

birdmanct, Happy to hear you had a good time, I kinda figured you would, 'It seems like 'your kind of place', Wsh they had one like that around here! Thanks for the link and photos! I loved the last one the most ..Too Cute!!!

Magpied, hope you feel much better soon.

At Safeway (at least last year was available) you can buy connected 1 gal. containers of water with a spigot. IHad the fellow who works for me build a simple support for it/them over a purchased birdbath slightly down in the ground, then adjusted the water to just drip into the b.bath. Birds seemed to like it, but it is out in full sun and so because of sun rays can only use it one season., decomposes. Must go out to the garden nowl

DonnaS

A great progression of photos. lol...the blue jay couldn't be more happier with his new bathtub.

is that your boy? good looking fellow :)

yes, the jay did have a big smile on it's face :)

no, my boy's 25 years, not 25 months. I enjoy taking unposed pictures of kids when we travel. Here's a short series from Columbia, SC [a beautiful little city, by the way].

playground slide #2

playground slide #3

playground slide #4

there's a fabulous zoo and botanical garden there

surprise!

their gardens are beautiful

another

and world-renowned animal habitats, including one for 'Siamangs', a great ape I'd never heard of

Thanks for posting the photos, I enjoyed them!! All great, But my favorites were the flowers!!