Faith, Folklore, and Friends

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain  is  over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth;  the  time of the singing of birds is  come,  and  the voice of the turtle is heard in  our  land;   The fig tree putteth forth her  green  figs, and the vines with the tender  grape give a good smell. Arise, my  love,  my fair one, and come away. ~Song of Solomon 2:11-13

I have written before about my love/hate relationship with our shag-bark hickory tree, here  and  here. The tree provides a home for squirrels and birds and countless insects and smaller organisms. It is the only tree we have that is tall enough to shade the house from the afternoon sun.  It is so pretty, and there is no way we would ever cut it. Every other year, it has a bumper crop of nuts, many of which fall on the deck.  Usually, when they fall, the hull breaks into four pieces, expelling the nut.  We try to keep them off the deck (stepping on them could cause a fall) and have already picked up bags and bags of them. It has become a daily ritual, picking up the hickory nuts. There is still about a million of them on the tree. Our dog, Sherlock, gets excited when we start picking them up, and he eats them.  Yes, that's what I said, he eats them.  He breaks the hickory nut in his jaw, spits it out, and eats the good part. Hub is am...

In the summer gloaming, we sit near the garden, quiet, and watch the birds come to feed. I know that we are supposed to deadhead the flowers, to lob off anything past its prime.   It is not going to happen here.

  Beauty doesn't always come early. Beautyberry ( Callicarpa ) would not catch your eye in the springtime, like the bright jonquils or forsythia. It doesn't send out a fragrance like our beloved lilacs and roses. In fact, the blossoms are so unremarkable, you might pass right by it at the nursery. The tiny blossoms turn into clusters of tiny green berries that continue to go unnoticed. Ah, but in late summer and early fall! In late summer, when there is that first hint of coolness in the morning air, the berries ripen to a beautiful purple that practically shouts, LOOK AT ME! If the berries remain until frost kills the leaves, they are even more striking. The birds who visit me like them so well, the berries are usually gone before the leaves. Planting beautyberries is just one way of rewarding the birds that brighten our summer days.   Yesterday, I walked out on the deck and saw four cardinals in this bush.  Fantastic! ...

Y'all know we have trouble with squirrels; I wrote about them here and here .  In another bold attempt to keep the squirrels out of the bird food, Hub gifted me with this new bird feeder, advertised as squirrel proof . So far, we haven't seen any squirrels attempting to get the seed.  The day we put it up, a big bird ran all the other ones off, so we hadn't seen many birds, either.  Time will tell.

Is this blurred, slightly abstract photo capturing a picture of grapes? a deadly virus? bacteria on the head of a pin? None of the above.   It is mature berries from the beautyberry bush.  I wrote about beautyberries  here , and they continue to fascinate me.  This year, they seemed to mature quicker than usual. The bush shakes with birds when they start eating the berries.  I think it is a favorite of the redbirds. The bush is so pretty that it almost, but not quite, makes me happy to see the autumn and admit summer is over.  I hang on to summer as tight as I can until I have to let go. We planted this bush several years ago, and it thrives here without any petting.  I have seen them growing wild east of Huntsville, but I have never seen any growing in our area that wasn't planted.  This bush is a must-have if you enjoy attracting birds to your yard. 

The saguaro cactus defines the Sonoran Desert, the only place it grows. These are in Cave Creek, Arizona, a western tourist town located a little northeast of Phoenix. Saguaro cactus can grow up to 60' tall, and have up to 25 arms.  They produce white blossoms in April, then red fruit in June.  The birds love them. Can you see the round hole in the cactus near the top? That is a bird's nest.  Sometimes, there will be several in a mature cactus. When I first saw them, I thought that the red was the blossom, but one of the locals informed me that the blossom was white and  long gone by June.  The red petals are part of the fruit that the cactus produces and the birds love. The local fellow also told me that getting water from a cactus was a bunch of baloney made popular by movie westerns.  The inside, I was told, is similar to a pine tree.  After a cactus dies and the soft flesh decomposes, the woody ...

This downy woodpecker became rather riled when the brown thrasher tried to run him away from the suet.  The brown thrasher, much bigger, seemed annoyed that the woodpecker tried to defend his territory.  The thrasher won, eventually driving the woodpecker away, but not before a glorious show of feathers. Both are regular visitors to the bird feeders, but this is the first time I have seen a confrontation. Sorry about the poor quality of the image, but it was taken through a window, and the birds were moving fast!

Rose-breasted grosbeaks migrate through our area from about the middle of April until early May.  They seemed a little later this year. I watched the feeders for days before they showed up.  It was worth the wait. I have been trying, without success, to get some photos since they have been here.  This morning, I managed to get a few by staying inside and not disturbing them.  These shots were taken through two panes of glass, so please forgive me if they seem a little fuzzy.  They hide in the scaly-bark hickory tree just off the deck. This handsome fellow seems to really enjoy the woodpecker suet. I'm really glad I was able to get these shots before they take off for the northeast.  Y'all can come back anytime!