Blue, the single-parent bluebird
Several weeks ago we realized that a couple of bluebirds were nesting in one of our backyard birdhouses. The excitement and the waiting started, as did my hopes of taking some good pictures of the parents and the chicks. Well, about a week ago they hatched and their parents started the daily back and forth ritual of feeding them. In order to help them, and entice them to bring the babies back, we bought some mealworms. First dried ones, they didn't like them at all. Then, live ones. These worked fine.
Two days ago the female disappeared and now it is only the male doing the feeding. What happened to her is anybody's guess, but the fact is that this male bluebird is doing the job of two. I get tired just watching him, back and forth, looking for food, feeding the chicks, back to looking for food, all day long. Again and again.
After this development, the mealworms were even more important, that way he won't have to travel far to get food. Curious about this, I started reading about bluebird behavior and in doing so I found out that a diet of only mealworm was calcium depleting and that we needed to add some kind of powdered calcium to them. And that started the quest for powdered plain calcium in our neighborhood stores. I can't tell you the way that people looked at us when we were trying to explain our request. Calcium for birds? Finally, we found some plain calcium in pills, which we can mash to mix with the worms.
It really touches me the way that Blue, that's what we are calling him, is caring for his chicks. Hopefully, nothing more will go wrong, and with a little help from us, they will be soon roaming the skies.
2014 Water Lily Garden Desk Calendar
If you love water lilies, you need to check our new 2014 desk calendar.
More information here.
In Search of a Picture
On Saturday morning we went with a group from the Roswell Photographic Society to the Sunflower Farm in Rutledge. Our day started at a very ungodly hour; everybody who knows me knows that I’m not a fan of the early hours of the morning, preferring to work late at night and sleep late the next day.
It started cloudy but somehow it got sunny around mid morning. I didn’t get to see or photograph the dawn as I was planning. After all, making such an effort should at least count towards getting one of my rare dawn pictures.
Once there, as you can imagine, there were sunflowers everywhere, tons of them ranging from a soft yellow to a dark orange, 15 acres full of sunflowers. And almost as many photographers with cameras and tripods.
In the pursuit of my artistic endeavor I was bitten on my left hand by a small spider. Very itchy and two small blisters but nothing major.
On our way back home we saw a sign about a "Wildlife Center" and, of course, we decided to explore it. Twelve miles off Route 20 is the Charlie Elliot Wildlife Center in Mansfield. About 6,400 acres where you can fish, hunt, camp, fire your gun or rifle at its open range, walk its trails or take photographs. Guess which of these activities we did?
We took lots of photos of a flock of geese. And, as it's customary, the closer I tried to get to them, the further they went from me. Even so I think I got a couple of nice shots, if you like photos of birds and of geese in particular. I also took some photos of textures to use as backgrounds. No bites there, no even a mosquito bite. But wait, there is more.
The photo of the day, I'm sure, will be one of the many I took of blue dragonflies at one of its ponds. Like any other accomplishment in life you have to pay the price and it seems that I did. Trying not to fall into the water and not paying much attention to anything else, I stepped on an ant hill.
My right foot soon became aware of my blunder. More blisters and more itch. This time the itching was worse and I'm still suffering it. If memory serves, it’s going to take some time for it to subside. By now I’m sure you realize that this was not my first time and probably will not be the last one.
After this long story I'm sure you're itching (no pun intended) to see the photos! 🙂
Backyard Tales – 2013 Edition
The last two days, a bluebird couple has been exploring one of ours bird houses. The male goes first, flies around and perches on its top and from there looks around, checking everything. The female comes then and enters the house. Hopefully they will like it and will nest there, like last year.
I would like them to realize that in real state what is important is location, location…
This particular bird house is in a very good neighborhood, inside a small but nice and secure backyard, with plenty of food and water nearby. And that without even mentioning about the mealworms that the landlords get for them after the babies are born.
All in all not a bad place for bluebirds. 🙂
This photo is from last year.
