That glum guy is probably overworked and underpaid. And donations don't always fit into the needs and plans of the organization. Sorry it was such a bad experience.
yay for eagles!
BIrds of the Mid-Atlantic: Nature's Entertainers
Muddy--
I disagree a bit---I think he is too full of himself and his importance..,aybe none?
Probably underpaid---he is quite a horticulturist..He was showing me once all the
Coleus he is trying to hybridize. He was really passionate about it.
He was also nursing along quite large Hops vine.
We had a nice visit the first time.....maybe I was too needy for appreciation?
They have an immense Coleus collection plantings..intense, blazing colors...AWESOME!
Maybe he is also too overwhelmed/burned out with all that has to be done and no
manpower to do it. Still-NO excuse! I was helping them raise money with all these cuttings....
"Cylburn Arboretum" is under the "Baltimore City Rec and Prks Dept."
NO funds.....No qualified workers.....not enough people to do maintenance....
They are responsible to decorate (with plants) any and all functions at City Hall--
or any other political or official unctions. You get it?
I had a tour of the GH'es---Pretty sad shape. Dirty! Unorganized--
No one to clean and prune and maintain all the plants.
If I was there--I would kill myself up keeping everything to MY standards..and--
it would be beautiful.
Not too much visual on the link--but you can explore....and read...
http://bcrp.baltimorecity.gov/Facilities/CylburnArboretum.aspx
"Rawlings Conservatory" is also under the City rec. and parks.
They are more the Show Place....with the annyal seasonal displays.
SO pretty! You should go there sometimes....
https://www.google.com/search?q=rawlings+conservatory+maryland&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
I know I took a lot of Pictures-cannot find them now....
Gita
I didn't say that, Gita, Sally did....but I do agree with her.
My daughter dug up this photo of one of my baby blue jays, who might be one of the adults hanging around my yard.
Can't you just hear it saying "Mom?? How am I supposed to get food out of that thing?".
Muddy--I am sorry! Got the Posts mixed up....trying to reply to everyone..
I have been sitting here non stop dealing with last minute this and that.
fussing a bit--Going brain dead....
All,my stuff is already packaged up and organized 2 days ago. Sitting on the floor waiting
to be packed into the car tomorrow.
I cannot deal with unfinished things when an event is tomorrow....I would freak out!
Just my anal self--gotta have everything done a day or two before...Then I can sleepzzzzz
THEN--I get up in the morning--have my coffee--a snack--check DG one last tome--
fix my hair--make-up--check the house--turn down the heat--load up my car--and ready to go.
Good, relaxed feeling when everything is done--always. Gita
Muddy--
That baby Jay is so cute! I very seldom see babies of anything-except rabbits.
Like--I have never seen a baby squirrel!
--WHERE do they hide to grow up?
--What do they eat as babies?
--Seriously! How long do they live in those leafy nests up in the trees?
--How many squirrels does it hold?
--For that matter--HOW do those tree-top nests even hold up in nasty winds?
They also do not seem big, or insulated enough to keep the squirrels warm!
It is just a pile of leaves, after all ??? Maybe some vegetative "fluff"...
Swaying in every wind--up in the colder heights of the trees...
Here you go--coleup--something else for you to research for us.
You are so good at it!
G.
Aww...that little guy is adorable.
Gita, I can't answer most of your questions, but here's what I've seen in my yard:
I might be imagining it, but squirrels seem to be pick trees that are less prone to storm damage when selecting nest sites. For example, they never built nests in my Silver Maples; they chose my neighbors' Oaks and Red Maples and my White Pines.
The pines turned out not to be the best places, however. Squirrels lost a nest built in the crotch of the dual-trunk White Pine that split in the middle and fell on my house. I can't fault them too much, however; I also thought it was a sturdy tree. Fortunately, it was winter so there weren't any babies in it, and I didn't see any dead squirrels on the ground. It did kill a Cardinal though : - (
Another time, I watched as a mother squirrel tried to carry her baby up to the top of a 60' White Pine that only had branches at the tippy top, the rest having fallen in storms. She gave up, left the baby under one of my shrubs and cared for it there.
I have seen, over the years, squirrels trying to start a nest in my bug maple tree.
At least that is what i think they were doing.
Each time--the twigs would come falling down. They were not broken off twigs--
but clean cut like someone cut them odd with a knife...or a squirrel with sharp teeth.
Maybe it is instinct vs. reality..... G.
....or survival of the fittest...Darwinism at work : - )
If we're talking poor nest-building, though, I think robins might win the prize!
Good point! I've seen poor location; I don't know about the nest durability. Robins build nests in a sparsely branched Dogwood 2 years in a row; crows got the eggs or babies each time. The worst was a Robin (I think) that built a nest inches under a neighbor's 2nd story deck. Their dogs were constantly barking at it and I didn't want to ask what the dogs or their cats did to the fledglings.
What have you seen?
I routinely winter sow in open containers, mostly 2" pot this year. One day this past week I looked out and was horrified to see a flock of doves all over my trays on our patio table and on the ground, pecking out seeds. I chased them away and found an easy solution: I had lots of mesh/grid bottomed nursery trays which I simply inverted over my flats of pots.
I wish I had some of those! Birds also peck around for seeds in my pots, and I've mostly resorted to covering them with cicada netting. I'm glad I found a use for the netting I bought in anticipation of the cicada invasion that didn't happen! I've also used grow-through plant supports placed on top of groups of pots.
Greenthumb, I've gone back and forth on using milk containers for winter sowing, but I decided to stick with them after seeing squirrels around my open pots!
Yes, they do love to bury food in them.
Muddy--
I can try and save you a bunch of the black nursery trays--as they get put on a
separate cart (when empty) for customers to put their pots into when going home.
You could also use old window screens or bird netting to cover your seed trays.
Deer netting is much sturdier---both come on rolls at the HD.
Same place the weed block is sold. Usually on an end-cap in outside garden.
SS see the Discussion Thread for suggestions-- I just posted what else you
can use for WS'ing.
G.
Thanks, Gita, the trays would be nice.
I don't have any old window screens, otherwise that sounds like a good idea.
The cicada netting I use is similar to bird netting except that the holes are only 1/2 as big.
I stopped using bird netting after having to rescue butterflies and a chipmunk that got caught in it. A cute little chippie had its neck stuck in one of the holes...I got some scissors and freed it.
I have some bird netting--and do not like it all that much either.
I was using it on top of my strawberries. Too much bother---too much tangle...
gave away all the plants last year to people at the swap.
Will mail your seeds back to you. No biggie! Gita
The natives are restless, so I better go fill the feeders. LOL
I forgot to mention, on our way to and from Fredrick we saw quite a few flocks of geese flying north and large flocks scouring last years corn fields. I hope this is a sign of an early spring.:-}
This message was edited Feb 9, 2015 10:33 AM
We noticed some geese that day too. And robins in the yard today. It must be spring coming!
We can only hope, but it's supposed to be brutally cold again this week.
So far my observations of the suet are the pesty birds, blackbirds and grackles, are ignoring the pure suet. I haven't seen the WPs today yet. I just looked out and saw my first TA DAH robin.
Two cardinals were squabbling around the feeder this morning.
It seems like I've had robins around all winter. Or I'm imagining it. THAT IS a possibility.
Henry runs around the house weather permitting when he gets dropped off to do his homework. Today I asked him to be my scare starling instead of a scarecrow. He thought that was funny, but, as he got closer to the back yard each time he flapped his arms and shouted. Three times he ran around and each time he flapped and shouted. However, as we sat at the table in the kitchen we could see them come back. Bummer. I know they have to eat, too, but they seem to devour the feeder.
It's not your imagination; robins are year-round residents in some areas.
Starlings are driving me nuts too. They scare away the native birds, devour the suet and foul up the bird bath.
They only seem interested in suet and mealworms, so I remove any suet feeders from which they can eat unless I'm in the backyard and can act as a human "scare starling" : - )
The only losers so far are the Bluebirds, who can't seem to remember they can fit into the caged feeders I bought just for them. I've decided it's tough love time, though...either they skinny-in between the bars to get the suet and mealworms, or they find something else to eat. I will not feed Starlings!
Our being in the woods seems to protect us from starling invasions. We can go a couple of months and not see one here. On our way to the swap we passed a couple of houses less than a quarter mile down our road that had 200+ starlings between them. They both had expansive, wide-open yards and were near fields.
Lucky you! This is the first year I've seen more than one or two in my yard. I think the bluebirds brought them.
Edited to add that I'd go nuts if I had hundreds of starlings in my yard. The people in those houses must be feeding them.
This message was edited Feb 9, 2015 9:38 PM
I don't think so. It seemed like a flock foraging in the large lawns, just passing through.
I bet you're right. I just read an article about them, and apparently they find lots of bugs in people's grass.
Last winter, I had the Starling woes! I got so tired standing by the LR window
and banging on it....They would all fly away--just to my trees--and sit there for
a few minutes ans come back. There were flocks of them!
Of course--last winter we had so much snow--they were pretty desperate...
So far--I have seen, maybe, a few individual Starlings pecking at my suet.
No more! I feel lucky so far! Better shut my mouth--they may be listening...
Here are a couple pictures from last winter,,,,
In a effort to distract them from my feeder--I threw out handfuls of cracked corn
further back on my back yard. They descended like a cloud--and the
corn was gone in minutes!
We have some starlings, there are whole flocks come into the trees. They usually do not descend en masse, but a few at a time. If we happen to see a flock descend, I try to either scatter feed or scare them. They usually don't do to much damage, considering the amount we feed. It's funny, but most of the time they are on surrounding lawns, leaving our feeders alone.
Those are a lot of birds, Gita!
I did a little reading about starlings...they prefer to eat insects, and have difficulty cracking open some seeds, so it makes sense that they root around in yards.
I let them have some suet a few weeks ago when it was bitter cold, partly because I felt sorry for them, but mostly because if I took it away the bluebirds wouldn't have had any.
Muddy--
In that picture I had gone out and dumped some hand fulls of cracked corn.
The blackbirds descended like a cloud and it was all eaten in minutes....
The picture does not show all of them...G.
WOW Gita, we do get huge flocks of starlings but they don't flood the yard that way. Funny a few days ago there were quite a few of them in the neighbors yard but not ours. With the feeders and spilled feed they weren't interested. Must have been something in his grass that they wanted. He doesn't feed birds so it wasn't anything that he put out.
Greetings - catching up on this thread... Very very interested in the ecology discussion(s) AND the ongoing saga of Gita's feeder. :D
Hi Amanda; nice to see you here! I've missed your presence on the Native Plants Forum.
I hope you're doing well.
Actually, Gita's black birds aren't Starlings; they look like Grackles. Starlings can't eat cracked corn (or hard seeds like black-oil sunflower) because their beaks are too soft.
IMO, Grackles are just as bad as Starlings, if not worse, because they make squawking sounds as irritating as fingernails on blackboards. They also have a "soo-EEE" call ....probably used to tell other Starlings to come pig out with them : - )
I thought they looked darker and sleeker. I only see grackles when I head south. I'm not sure they range up this far or at least I never seem to see them in our area. I know they aren't the best birds to have for several reasons but they are such bright and quick birds.
Muddy---
I was wrong calling them just "starlings'.....How would I know they cannot eat corn?
I should have said "blackbirds'...whose hordes also include Cowbirds,Red-winged Blackbirds,
grackles AND Starlings.
They always seem one for all--and all for one kind of a bunch.
G.
Gita, I pointed out the mistaken ID only because it helps explain why Holly doesn't see huge flocks of them around her feeder.
You're lucky that you don't have to know what each bird eats! I look up the preferred foods of the non-native birds because I want to make sure I don't put those foods out when they're around.
Hi Amanda!
Gita's right about the mixed bunches of 'black birds'- and I wonder Muddy, if you are thinking of the conk la REE of red winged blackbirds (soo EEE) . Gita's birds don't quite seem to me as grackles but could well be some. Starlings have a large yellow bill.
Nah, the squawking black pigs that show up from early spring to late autumn are definitely Common Grackles.
I've only seen red-winged blackbirds in swampy areas, like the bird sanctuaries I've biked through in Assateague and Hilton Head, SC.
This message was edited Feb 10, 2015 10:09 PM
Ok I believe you, Muddy. RWBB are often enough seen in my back yard. Maybe they're more populous here nearer the bay and more marshes.