Smell Like Dirt
In Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” Margaret AtwoodBluebirds!!
Its that time of year! The bluebirds are starting to shop for a nice home in which to raise their families this year and if you want to ensure that they pick YOUR backyard, mealworms are the ticket! Of course, you still need to make sure you are providing them with a quality home that meets all their specifications. If you live in the Charlotte, NC region, my favorite birdstore is Backyard Wild in Matthews and they offer an assortment of official bluebird houses to meet all budget types. They have a great house that will open up on one side so you can monitor the progress of the babies! If you start offering mealworms now, you increase your chances of scoring a bluebird family this spring and you can train the bluebirds to come when you whistle. If you really want to impress your friends, you can teach them to eat out of your hand. This takes time and patience, but wouldn’t that be great? Here’s our video on bluebirds to inspire you to go out and get a good birdhouse and some mealworms!
Birding with Binoculars
Just in time for the Great Backyard Bird Count, here’s a Quick Tip to help you find those birds using binoculars. The GBBC is a great way to practice your birding skills while helping ornithologists track birding populations, migration patterns, etc. The Bird Count starts Friday the 13th and goes thru Monday the 16th. You can do it everyday or just one day. All day, or just 15 minutes…whatever your schedule will allow. You can count alone in your backyard or at a park with friends. No matter what you decide, come on out and join us as we count birds across the country and practice using those binoculars!
Put all your egg(shells) in one basket!
Another Down & Dirty tip using eggshells to feed the birds. Eggshells are high in calcium and if you put them out for your birds to eat, it will give them “strong teeth and bones” as the saying goes, but will also give them the nutrients they need to lay strong eggs this spring. So start putting those eggshells to work instead of putting them in the trash.
The R’s
Back in the day, it used to be there were just Three R’s—Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. And then they started adding more: Repurpose, Repair, Refuse, etc. Not sure how many we are up to now, but let’s pause at repurpose for just a second. Don’t you just love taking something that was intended for one thing and totally rethinking it and using it for something else? It doesn’t have to be a big thing, even. Take toilet paper rolls for example. Little bitty things I used to put in the recycling bin if the dogs didn’t eat them first. Well, here’s another use for them that will help make your life a little better, I hope. Enjoy the second installment of SLD’s Down and Dirty Quick Tip. Special appearance by Buddy Foster—Debbie’s bird.
Rufous Hummingbird
Last week I had the rare privilege of observing the banding of a Rufous Hummingbird, in the dead of winter, here in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Although still rare here, I had heard of sightings of this type of hummingbird in past wiinters. They breed in Southern Alaska, Western Canada and Western US, and overwinter in Mexico, but recently, they have shown up in the mid-Atlantic region. So when I saw him in my yard, I knew what it meant and called Bill Hilton, Jr. Executive Director, Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History and Operation Ruby Throat to invite him to come and band him Bill has banded over 5,000 hummingbirds but this was my first time watching the process and it was a great experience. If you ever have a chance to participate in one, I encourage you to do so. It was hard condensing 90 minutes of tape down to less than 6 without leaving out a lot of the “good parts”, but I hope you enjoy it.
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
We had so many comments on the Ruby Crowned Kinglet footage that we used in the “Window Feeder” video we decided to post a longer clip of the RCK! Hope you enjoy this view of the rarely seen crown.
How much is that birdie in the window?
Great, now you’ll be humming that song all day, right?
Smell Like Dirt announces a new feature for the New Year! Down & Dirty Quick Tips! We will be doing a series of short videos (hopefully a minute or less) highlighting something you can do in your garden, home, workplace, etc to help wildlife, the environment, or just make life a little easier. We are launching this new feature with this short video on how to get a closer look at the birds in your backyard. During the filming we were able to capture a Ruby Crowned Kinglet showing off for its reflection in the window and couldn’t wait to share it. If you’ve ever seen RCK’s in the field, you know how difficult it is to watch these birds because they flit around so much. Its hard to get a good look at them and even harder to see the crown which is rarely seen. This video shows why…..it is not even visible unless the bird “flexes” its feathers. I hope you enjoy the video and keep checking back for more Smell Like Dirt “Down and Dirty” tips.
LBJ’s
Don’t write off those Little Brown Jobs in your backyard as boring. Do a little research to see if they have a story to tell. We love to hear the white throated sparrows show up each fall. Their call of “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody” makes me smile when I hear it. I thought I was seeing male and female birds, the male having a whiter strip and a “yellower” eye dot, but I was wrong! Watch this video and find out why!
BRRRRR!!!!!!
It may not be winter according to the calendar but it is according to the thermometer! It will be down into the 20’s every night this week. And while you are all snuggled up inside your warm home, its important to remember the wildlife outside. Make sure you have fresh water available for the wildlife, birds included. Its important that they be able to keep their feathers clean to help keep them warm. And of course everything still needs to drink water, no matter how cold it is A birdbath heater will help keep the water from freezing. And if you haven’t put up any roosting boxes, now is the time. Birds will use them to for protection from the weather.
Spud-O-Matic Update!
Ok, I’ll admit it. I’ve been horrible about keeping everyone updated on the potatoes. But here’s the good, the bad and the ugly. First, I will say that we enjoyed wonderful organically grown Red Pontiac and Yukon Gold potatoes. BUT, not as many as we could have enjoyed if I had not made a couple of mistakes. Mistake #1: Grow only one kind of potato per bin. The varieties grew at different rates and when one would be 6″ above the leaves and therefore time to add more leaves or compost, the other was only 2-3 inches tall so I had to bury them too deep and think I killed a few of them. Also, in July, I had to relocate my potato bin because a local TV station wanted to come and shoot a piece on composting, and I had to move the bin to make room for the cameraman to get a good shot. And if you remember from the video, I used chicken wire instead of hardware cloth so the pile didn’t move very well. And the last issue wasn’t really a mistake: At some point, a volunteer Butternut Squash started growing and at first I didn’t know what it was and my curiousity dictated that I had to let it grow, and then when I realized what it was, I decided I wanted some BN squash as badly as I wanted potatoes, so I just stopped adding leaves about half way up the bin and let everything grow. After the vines bloomed and started turning yellow, I dug up the potaotes and we ate them with dinner that evening adn they were wonderful. Then I let the BN squash continue and we got 5-6 off of that vine (I had two more volunteer vines in the garden area, so it was a good year for BNS, especially since I did not plant any). But don’t let any of this discourage you from using this method to grow potatoes in your garden. I have seen this work with my very own eyes at Renfrow’s Hardware in Matthews. And David says to start bins at separate times so you have a succession of crops throughout the summer. He recommends (for our Zone 7B) March 15, April 15 and May 15. But, I don’t think I have the attention span to grow vegetables. Plants have to be able to take care of themselves in my garden because I’m too easily distracted by everything else that’s going on out there. But, I wanted to grow something to eat and I did….just not as many potatoes as I thought…..but a banner crop of rogue Butternut Squashes!
Smell Like Dirt 