Spring-We Welcome Your Warm Embrace

It seems like it has been forever since we have seen a warm day.  'Warm' is relative though isn't it?  I was thrilled when the thermometer hit 42 degrees this morning and threw open the windows.  With temperatures forecasted to be rising to 64 degrees by next Thursday, I am preparing to deploy my mason bee tubes.  I have been cutting and rolling tubes for weeks now. 
It's also a fun project for kids to do.  I have 40 mason bee cocoons in the refrigerator that are 2/3rd through their food supply, so I'll be monitoring the weather very closely and checking out the wild plum and cherry trees to watch for signs of blooming.
On our way to 60 degrees today, I'm headed out to prepare both the mason bee housing and my purple martin housing.  Last year, my purple martins arrived on March 10th, and with warmer days now in the forecast, it's time to pull on my mud boots, trudge through all the mud and muck left by the melting snow & ice and put up their housing. 
For now, a few quick pictures!

Materials: Ruler, regular #2 pencil, scissors, tape, parchment paper (I also have a roll of unbleached parchment paper, not shown in this picture).  The pencil is the exact diameter for the mason bee holes.

40 mason bee cocoons, waiting for the right temps and food.

My holding can.  Arranging different lengths of tubes together presents a 3D effect is supposed help the mason bee more easily find her home.

Trapping and Shooting Strategies for Eliminating European Starlings and English House Sparrows

After I shot my first starling in 1998, I put the gun away and cried for three days.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do it again.  Then, I moved to Missouri in 2007 and decided that I wanted to put up a purple martin house and have a bluebird trail on my 23 acres.  But when I first read the articles on the Purple Martin Conservation Association forum about hosting purple martins, my heart sank; one of the key factors to attract and keep purple martins is control and elimination of the non-native, invasive species; the European Starling (EUST) and the English House Sparrow (HOSP).  Then I read the bluebird forums and found the same information and learned that HOSP are also a particular problem for bluebird trails.

Entrances on purple martin housing can be fitted with Starling Resistant Entrance Holes (SREH), to keep starlings out and the holes on bluebird houses are far too small for the starlings to enter.  The more insidious problem is the HOSP, because any hole that was small enough to prevent the HOSP from entering would also prevent the purple martin, bluebirds or tree swallows from entering the nest box as well.

During my first year I trapped and killed more than 35 HOSP at my site.  They wreaked havoc on my purple martin, bluebird and tree swallows’ eggs.  At first, I was timid in my approach, however, after experiencing the loss of 5 one-week old baby tree swallows, my compassion for the HOSP ended.  A male HOSP came by at 7 AM one morning and by 7:30 AM had committed the atrocities for which he is well known.  At that point, I declared war on every HOSP and became determined to educate every purple martin and bluebird landlord that I came into contact with about the issues with allowing HOSP to breed and roam their sites.

One-week old tree swallows were victims of a HOSP attack.

Identifying the Starling and English House Sparrow:
The Starling is pretty easy to recognize:  bright yellow, long beaks, long legs and iridescent coloring of their feathers.
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Eagle Visitors in January

As Bob expressed his love and gratitude for the sausage and egg breakfast this morning with a warm hug, I spotted over his shoulder an object with a white tail flying over our field.  "Hey, our leucistic Northern Harrier has returned!", I said.  I was wrong.
After running to grab the camera and stumbling out on the porch I realized it was an EAGLE and he had landed in our field.  'NO CARD' was flashing in the viewfinder and I really needed the bigger lens anyway, so I ran back in to change the lens and grab a card.  Isn't that the way it always happens?  Another trip out and I found I could use the binoculars too because the eagle was still down in the field somewhere and I couldn't spot him through my camera lens.  Another sprint inside and back out again.  Finally, he started to rise and, now with the proper viewing / photography gear, I realized I had multiple subjects.

Taking off from the field

I spotted a second white head perched in the trees.  Joy and a yelp of excitement!

As I tried to follow him with the camera, I accidentally captured this image and realized there was a second Eagle!

After a couple of deep breaths, I realized my subjects were staying awhile and with the temperatures hovering near low 30's I was freezing - no coat and only my slippers to keep my toes warm.  My husband quickly fetched my coat and gloves when he saw I would rather freeze than miss a second of this special event.  34 pictures later and I'm giddy with excitement.

Original, un-cropped image of the 2 pictures above this one.

  

Wait, what is that third large bird flying over and around them and what are those strange sounds they're making?  No way!  A THIRD eagle?  HERE?  Snap, snap, snap - deep breath - quit jabbing the camera button and 'squeeze' the button. 

THREE?  Yay!

Original, un-cropped image of the picture above this one.

The FOB - Part 3

When the weather warms, so do I.  With outside temperatures reaching 60 degrees this past weekend, I came down with "I-must-get-outside" fever and I finally put the finishing touches on my owl cage.  I am feeling so much better about this upcoming purple martin season, but I think I will refrain from my usual taunts that tempt fate such as, "Bring it on, Mr. Menacing-Evil-Martin-Eater".  You know, just in case he does decide to bring it on.  And something really bad happens.  So, I'll just nicely say, "please don't bring it on".
At a minimum, I know I have made it more difficult for him to easily access my systems and prevented him from playing volleyball with my gourds.  Hopefully, that will encourage him to hunt elsewhere.  Time will tell.
Altogether, I estimate we have added less than 30 pounds of hardware; that includes the fencing, the aluminum brackets that extend out over the corners, the cross brackets to support the top, and the entrance hole covers.
My plan right now is to lower the cage and maneuver inside for nest checks.  If that isn't realistic, I may have to cut off a foot of the vertical wire so I can more easily slide in & out of each section.

The cage will ride up and down with the system.  For now, I have left the full 4' of length on each side, but if maneuvering in and out becomes a problem, I may cut off at least 1' from the bottom. From this angle, you can see the brackets that span from corner to corner, providing both support and a place to anchor the top wire to keep it from flopping in the wind.

There are ten 4"x4" entrances cut out on each side and have undersill trim has been placed on the bottom of each entrance to cover up the sharp nibbins left by the wire cutters.

If you're interested in reading more details about the construction of the cage, you can go to these two posts:
The FOB - Part 1: http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-freeze-owl-block-fob.html
The FOB - Part 2: http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-fob-part-2.html
Current migration status shows that the purple martins are on their way with a report showing one in Saint Amant, LA.  Track their migration here on the PMCA site: http://www.purplemartin.org/scoutreport/

Monitoring Your Purple Martin Colony With Game Cameras - A Browning Trail Camera Review

Last year I learned a hard lesson.  Never say, "never" when it comes to owls, snakes, racoons, and other predators that could prey on your purple martins.  Never.  As I learned, you don't really know what's going on with your purple martin colony unless you are either sitting outside all night or you have positioned multiple game cameras around your site.  If you ignore the possibility, then you could end up with lots of dead martins and even lose your entire colony.
Sitting in my yard all night was just not realistic for me, so I chose the latter option.   I quickly shopped for game cameras after noticing that my Trendsetter was not filling up like it had in years past and finding a GHO feather in my driveway escalated my sense of urgency.  After reading the reviews for multiple brands and shootout results (good site to see all trail camera reviews here), I decided to try out a Browning Trail Camera - Recon Force XR Series (BTC-2XR).  It has some nice features, including long detection range and the ability to record video.
My purple martin gourd rack - 7-2-2014- 8:20 PM.

My first impression when I opened the box is that the camera is small and compact and the casing has a high-quality, heavy duty plastic feel.  My second impression was, "whoa - this takes a LOT (8) of batteries!".

The Recon Trail Camera User Interface

After loading it with batteries and an SD card, I was able to poke around the very user-friendly buttons and quickly setup the date and time.  I had read about all the features while shopping, but I hadn't realized there were features within features.  Read on to see what features I find most attractive in this game camera.
Features
The camera has 4 capture modes: Trail Cam, TimeLapse, TimeLapse+ and Video Mode.
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Wild Kingdom Right Here on Gobbler's Knob

As a child, every Sunday, my brother, sisters and I eagerly gathered around our tv to watch "Wild Kingdom" with Marlin Perkins telling us of some exotic, fierce animal in a far away land and what they did to survive.  Sometimes, it was brutal and it was always exciting.  Well that wild kingdom is no longer in a faraway land for me.  It's in my own backyard.  We have worked for 8.5 years to make our little piece of heaven a safe haven for wildlife by building brush piles and planting native plants that provide food, habitat and cover for them. 

Rabbits are drawn to the sweet crimson clover that blossoms during the spring and they sometimes forget how exposed they are while munching on the beautiful flowers.

Quail, turkey, a wide variety of other birds, reptiles (snakes, turtles, etc.), skunks, rabbits, squirrels, and possums, just to name a few, enjoy life here with us on Gobbler's Knob.  That variety of wildlife also brings in the inevitable predators - owls, hawks, coyotes and foxes - that prey upon them and I love them as much as I love the wildlife. 

A leucistic Northern Harrier snags a mole for his lunch.

The sheer rawness of wild animals hunting, stalking, chasing, creeping about and finally pouncing upon their prey is exhilarating, breathtaking and exciting to me.  But we don't make it easy for the predators.  We have given the prey ample opportunity for escape and avoidance.  They have plenty of brush piles to escape into, lots of natural cover in which they can camouflage themselves and their survival is totally dependent on how or whether they learn to use those tools to their advantage.  It's not just survival of the fittest, it's also survival of the smartest.

A Red-Shouldered Hawk waits patiently as it scans the field for signs of movement indicating a tasty morsel is about to make a fatal error.

Five weeks ago, I decided to deploy my game cameras around the property so I could catch a glimpse into their nightly activities.  The results have been more rewarding than what I could have hoped for.
These stealthy, beautiful creatures of the night help control our voles, moles, snakes, mice, free-roaming cats, ground hogs (which can quickly become a nuisance and very destructive to pond banks in Missouri), and many other animals here.  Yes, they eat the quail, turkey and our other desirables too, but I can accept a native predator doing its thing in order to survive. 
I always get excited when I see the late night and early morning timestamps on the cards, because I know I'm about to see a visitor that I would have never known about, without the use of these cameras. 

I find it very interesting that some of our 4-legged predators like to travel the same paths around our property which we have carved with our 4-wheelers.  In the first video below, a coyote walks across the trail, moving away from one of the brush piles that has a deep hole burrowed out beneath it.  I would love to know what is or what was living under there at one time and if the coyote caught whatever it was.

Interestingly, on the same night within 15 minutes, on the north trail, a fox can be seen sniffing around.  Ironically, I have another video of Nikki and Bob walking this same trail the next day and Nikki's hackles on her back are standing up.  She knew that he / she had been there the night before - she always seems to know.

And what looks to be the same fox comes through again the next night.

Today, it is 18 degrees with snow flurries and it is supposed to get colder this week.  I've cleared the cards and made sure the batteries are good on the game cameras.  I'll check them again in a few days to see what our friends have been up to.  Yeah, we're digging life here on Gobbler's Knob, bringing the Wild Kingdom right up to our back door steps.

The Wisdom of The Swing

Sometimes I tend to over think things, but not near as much as my husband does.  He was concerned about conducting a prescribed burn on 3 acres just south of the house this year because of the potential for killing the young, tender sprouts of the new native wildflowers we'd planted, so he decided to find a used hay rake and rake off all the duff instead of burning this year.  He finally found one and, after replacing the missing teeth on it, we made it fully functional. 

Looking at it brought back many memories from my childhood.  As a small child, I vividly remember chasing my Grandfather (PawPaw) across the field and trying to deliver his lunch that my Mawmaw had prepared for him as he cut and raked the hay on the farm.

MawMaw & PawPaw Pippin - circa 1970-72

Later, when I learned to ride a horse, I would run into the field and catch "Red" (the name of my horse at the time) and with nothing more than hay baling twine as a bridle, I would find a stump, jump up on his back and ride out to my Grandfather and deliver his lunch as he mowed then raked, season after season.  Funny how an inanimate object can bring forth such vivid memories isn't it?  I miss them both - they were strong, driving forces in my life.  As my Mother and Father divorced and the battle raged, MawMaw and PawPaw were the one constant in our lives.
MawMaw was a devout Christian - a member of the local United Pentecostal church and used to take my sister, my brother and me to church every Saturday night, Sunday School on Sunday morning and if we were still there at her house on Sunday evening , we went to church that night too. Bible School was the best though - peanut butter and jelly crackers and lots of arts and crafts kept us busy for a whole week during the summer.

Kathy, Karen and Clint - circa 1968

PawPaw on the other hand, whoooo boy!  PawPaw was a moonshiner and a gambler.  I remember the story of his cooking moonshine out in the woods and the time his still was trampled by cows.  He and my father had gotten word that the local sheriff knew where their still was and was forming up a posse to destroy it and arrest him.  When PawPaw and my father got to the still, they found several cows laying around the area, sprawled out on their sides with their eyes rolling back in their heads.  Apparently, they had decided to have a taste of the moonshine and had broken up the barrels in their eagerness to drink the stuff.  There was not much they could do for the cows, so they hauled the equipment away -they never were arrested for it.
My grandfather was also a troublemaker.  And a brawler.  He loved to fight, especially with his own kin.  You know that meme, "nature or nurture"?  Well, I was never sure if I inherited his personality or if he nurtured it, but for many years, I was his favorite grandchild and he kept me close.  I learned my multiplication tables and ABCs at his knee, early every morning when he was drinking his coffee, preparing to go to work.  During the winters, I would learn in front of the fireplace.  But in summer, we would take to the swing - back & forth, with my legs dangling, not quite able to reach the floor, he would swing us at his chosen pace and make me recite until time to leave for work.  The thing I learned from him that I thank him for every day is my ability to be honest with my friends.
Once when I was in high school I sat on the swing with him and cried my heart out.  I was devastated that I didn't have a lot of friends and while I knew the reason, I couldn't figure out how to change it.  I was too honest with my friends, sometimes to the point of being brutal.
PawPaw listened, then told me, "Always be honest with your friends.  If they leave you, they weren't worth keeping around.  If they stay, they are your true friends."  That has stuck with me always. 

Me & PawPaw - 1989 - he moved his swing out into the yard.

There were many, many more such visits with PawPaw and he would always listen patiently as I told him of my teenage woes and, after having my own children, he shared the wisdom of the swing with them too.

PawPaw and my son, Shiloh - circa 1988. Shiloh was a handful, but PawPaw knew just how to handle him.

Now, as an adult, I sometimes wish he were still here so that we could sit on that swing and he could soothe all my troubles away. There was always so much wisdom shared on that old swing.

PawPaw - 1989

All this from an old, used rake we purchased.  The original intent of this post was to tell you about the pale purple coneflower, prairie blazing star, purple praire clover, common milkweed, New England Aster, rough Blazing Star, Aromatic Aster and Ohio Horsemint that I planted after raking over 5 acres in our field the last two weekends, but I ended up instead on Memory Lane and suddenly, that seems such a minor thing right now.  Funny how that happens.  I miss you MawMaw and PawPaw.