The Hazards Of An Empty Feeder

When I can't fill the feeders at Mr. Neil's house, the groundskeeper named Hans usually does the honors.  He does an admirable job but he has a ton of things to do like maintaining trails and keeping the grass and weeds trimmed around the beehives.  And now that we have 8 beehives, let's bow our heads in honor of dear, sweet Hans who has sustained more stings than any of us and yet makes life easier for hive inspections. Moment.

But sometimes certain feeders go empty (especially the suet log, because I appear to be the only person in the US who actually enjoys the feeling of squashed animal fat mixed with peanut butter on my fingers).  And this summer, the safflower feeder went empty but Mr. Neil called me over to see what had been filled inside in place of the usual safflower:

I knew as soon as I saw the feeding ports what had moved in, but then wondered, "How did a house wren fit in there?  I know they are tiny, but wow!"  House wrens are the smallest cavity nesting birds in our neck of the woods.  They only need a hole that is one inch in diameter to fit their tiny bodies through.  The other thing is that you can usually id the type of cavity nesting bird in your nest box by the material--house wrens are all sticks.  Chickadees usually weave a neat fur lined cup nest, bluebirds nests are made of fine grasses and tree swallows line the nest cup with huge feathers from ducks.  House sparrows will make a nest out of everything: grass, sticks, vines, cellophane, cigarette butts, etc.

As I wondered how the house wren was getting in out of the feeder, I soon had my answer.  Apparently the lid had been left only slightly ajar and that was all the enterprising little male needed to collect twigs.

When we looked inside, we could see a whole pile of sticks, but no complete nest.  One of the really interesting things about the tiny house wren is that they will make five nests, use one to rear chicks and the rest as decoys to fool marauding predators (even defending a decoy nest as if there were eggs inside--clever birds).  I figured this was going to be a decoy nest.  Mr. Neil didn't mind the wrens so we left the roof ajar.

Non Birding Bill and I came over for a bee inspection and some grilling and we watched the wren declare his territory in boisterous song.

There was at least one female who took him up on his twittery offer and inspected the feeder inside and out.  I always figured that the males put sticks in several locations, the female chooses the one she will use for eggs and the rest become the decoys.  She flew off after a few moments and I thought, "She's going to make that one the decoy."

Cut to one week later! On Sunday, we arrived for another cookout at Mr. Neil's and as soon as we arrived he took me out to the feeder and showed me this:

Gah!  A feeder full of sticks, a small feather-lined cup and three tiny house wren eggs.  Well, this feeder is out of commission for a month.  I think the female was still in process of laying eggs and that incubation will start today or tomorrow.  From there we have about 12 days of incubation and then another 12 - 13 days before the chicks fledge.  I think the other birds can live without safflower that long.

I must say that this breaks one of my bird feeding rules of thumb: don't have nest boxes around your bird feeding station.  Birds generally don't want to nest near where nest raiders show up on a regular basis (ie squirrels, chipmunks, blue jays, crows, woodpeckers, raccoons, etc).  At least they nested in a squirrel proof feeder, so that solves that problem and maybe the wren's nest decoy strategy will fool the other egg eaters?

Henderson, MN Hummingbird Festival

Well who knew--a hummingbird festival in Minnesota?  We may only have one species of hummer in this state but the town of Henderson, MN is gonna make the most of it by hosting the Henderson Hummingbird Hurrah August 27 -28, 2010.  The festival features workshops on how to attract hummingbirds, how to photograph them, a vender area and of great interest to me--hummingbird banding!  It's not too far out of the Twin Cities and a fun way to spend time in late August (a great time to watch ruby-throated hummingbirds in this state--right smack in the middle of migration, so though it's only one species, there will be tons of them.

OMG I'm a fishing widow!

Hello all, NBB here again. Another reason why Sharon hasn’t been blogging is that in addition to Rangering and writing, she’s discovered a new passion: fishing.

It’s work related--one of the programs the Rangers give in the summer and they have a lot of fishing related programs. So Sharon was given a gov’t issue pole, a small set of tackle and some basic instructions, and she’s taken to it like a fish to a bicycle.

It’s been about a week now and she’s already blasé about the sunfish she was so excited about at the beginning. She went out with The Boys and gained major cred by being the only one to land a catfish--a twenty pounder, no less.

Well, she almost landed a catfish. It, er, got away, she sheepishly explained but could swear that it was at least this big.

Uh huh.

I see a trip to the sporting goods store in my immediate future, to purchase her own fishing pole and probably gear to strap it to her bike. She’s already started looking up fishing locales in our local parks. She denies it, but I can tell that I’m going to be an Opening Weekend Widow(er) next year--in fact she got slightly testy when I brought this up, before immediately announcing that the next time we went to the store, she needed to pick up a can of Spam because she’d read that’s what bottom feeders really like.

Hoo boy.

Birds with Hats and Bee Stings

Hello all, NBB here. Sharon’s a bit swamped with deadlines, so she’s asked me to fill in with a blog post about all the exciting things that are happening in the birding world. But since I avoid knowing anything about the birding world with great vigor, I instead present you with Birds Wearing Hats.

Hilarious, I think you’ll agree.

I want to talk for a moment about the bee sting I got last week, mostly because it was the thing that made me most afraid of keeping bees, and is, I think the thing that causes most people to be terrified of them.

I was the last of our beekeeping group to get stung (heck, even the dog got one before me), partly because I’m not around the bees as much as the others (some of us have jobs that require us to be at the same place and time every week), but also because I try to give the bees as wide a berth as possible. Don’t get me wrong, bees are cute as all get out and I love looking at them up close... from the safety of my bee suit. I don’t stand around the hives without one on, I don’t walk through the “bee highway,” and above all, I don’t run and flail, especially while yelling “don’t run and flail! Don’t run and flail!”

So, here’s what happened: there’s a little piece of wood or metal that you put in front of the entrance to the hive to control the flow of bees in and out. It’s called, helpfully enough, an “entrance reducer.” You use this at the beginning of the hive to encourage them to stay inside and make it their home. After a while, you take it off so that the traffic of returning foragers isn’t slowed down.

The entrance reducer was held on with a screw and to get the screw off , we had to move the whole hive off the base board so that I could turn the screwdriver. This, understandably, caused some consternation, and one of the girls decided to register a complaint. With her butt.

I will tell you now, all in all a bee sting isn’t that bad, at least in the ankle, which is where I got it. It’s like stepping on a nail, there’s a shock of pain and a sudden urge to move away. Afterwards it was like a twisted ankle, but like I say the first thought it “I think something really bad has happened,” followed quickly by “hey, when they sting you, don’t they release a pheromone that makes others want to sting you?”

Remembering neither to run nor flail, nor to do them while yelling “Don’t run! Don’t flail!” I hobbled over to the work table and said a few choice words. Well, one word, over and over. Take a guess. As Sharon and Neil made sure I didn’t get stung again (and wasn’t, you know, dying from a bee allergy), I took a deep breath and stock of what my body was doing. Did my feet itch? No? Was I short of breath? No. Was I going numb? No.

Really the only thing I was aware of was a lingering pain like a stab wound and wait, what was the other thing? That pulsing sensation kind of like oh my god I can feel the stinger pumping venom.

How Neil was able to pull the stinger out of my ankle using his still-gloved hand I do not know. I can only assume that writing a Newbery/Carnegie winning book has given him the tactile sense of a dozen men!

And that was it. It hurt. It was sore. I saw the bee that stung me, and stepped on her, not out of anger but to put her out of her misery. Wasn’t her fault, I was the one who took her house apart. Poor bee.

Then we put the hives back together, hobbled back and grilled up some dinner.

I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that you don’t need to be afraid of bee stings. You should definitely avoid them but it’s not something to go through your life being terrified of. On the grand scale of pain I’ve experienced, hitting my thumb with a hammer or getting a really bad sunburn are worse and last longer. Keep in mind, though, I was only stung once, and I had friends with me who’d been through this.

I’m curious to see how I act the next time I go out to the hives. I’ll probably wear boots--the ankles are the only part the bee suit don’t protect, after all--but I don’t feel any more afraid of them than I did last week. They’re still these fascinating, cute creatures, and I like to think that we’re helping them survive. But we have to be careful.

Farmers Asked To Flood Fields For Migratory Birds #oilspill

It's July.  Shorebird migration is upon us.  That's right, bird migration starts in July as shorebirds (like the above dowitchers) leave their breeding grounds in the Arctic, work their way down south.  In Minnesota, we'll see more shorebirds towards the end of the month and into August as they forage in flooded fields and sod farms.  For many of us who love these birds, this will be bittersweet as we watch them, knowing they are headed south to the Gulf of Mexico.  These birds have no idea of what they are flying into and the dangerous oil covered forage they will find (if they find food at all, who knows what will be available after the die off kicks in).

In an effort to help birds like the above least sandpiper (which are about the size of a warbler) a federal conservation agency is asking farmers in 8 states to flood their fields to create migration habitat for the birds to fuel up on food for their long journey.  From the L.A. Times:

The Migratory Bird Habitat Initiative will pay to use up to 150,000 acres of land "to provide feeding, loafing and resting areas for migratory birds," according to an announcement by the Agriculture Department's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The program applies mainly to former wetlands and low-lying land in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas. Conservation officials are hoping to attract birds to safe areas before they land on shores and wetlands contaminated by the massive oil spill.

Landowners would be expected to flood fields and promote the growth of vegetation favored by migratory birds, or to enhance existing wetlands on their properties, for three to five years, said NRCS spokeswoman Chris Coulon.

Rice fields and fish farms are particularly suited to the initiative.

For birds, "it's an alternative so they'll have a lower probability of landing in areas affected by the oil spill," Coulon said.

Up to $20 million has been allocated for the initiative, but how much actually is spent depends on farmers' response, she said.

Will this actually work?  Who can say, but it can't be a bad thing to improve migratory bird habitat regardless of an oil spill.

It's not just shorebirds that will benefit from this.  As much as I love shorebirds, I know many average people have little idea that these birds exist, let alone visit and in some cases breed in Minnesota.  This will also benefit many species of ducks like the above blue-winged teal as well as warblers, hummingbirds, orioles, buntings--all sorts of birds that feed in similar habitat to ducks and can be found in our backyards.

Do you know any relatives or friends of the family with farms in these states?  Touch base with them, find out if they are aware of the program and if they are willing to sign up.

Random Rose-breasted Grosbeaks

I don't know about you, but the rose-breasted grosbeaks seem uber abundant this year.  We always see a few at Mr. Neil's feeders in the summer, but this year there is a steady flock jockeying for position at the feeders all day long.  Our grosbeaks seem to prefer the black oilers, the sunflowers out of the shell and safflower.  Anyone else feel like they are seeing more rose-breasted grosbeaks than usual?

This is not a complaint, I'll take excessive grosbeaks any day of the week.

Life With 8 Beehives

Just an FYI: if you are at CONvergence this weekend, Mr. Neil and I have donated some comb honey and a rusty chipped hive tool (which could be used as a terrifying weapon or shank if one runs in those circles) to the silent auction.  Both items have been autographed by Mr. Neil and our comb honey took the blue ribbon at the county fair last year.  And the autograph on the honey is actually on the clear plastic case and not on the honey itself.

Part of me was kind of freaking out at the idea that we would have 8 beehives this summer, but thanks to the combination of several people on the bee team and a bit more of a "hands off" approach to beekeeping, it's going okay.  After our first summer when we took such heroic efforts to keep our two hives going and still had one fail miserably and then last summer leaving a hive I thought was about to fail to do what it will and have it come through the winter stronger than ever, I'm more and more inclined to leg go and let bee.

The biggest news to report is that my dear, sweet Non Birding Bill finally got stung--his first time in all the years we've been doing this.  As it was his first sting and they tend to be worst, I must say that he took it with much more grace than I did.  His ankle was a bit sore and he did have some musings that he was turning into half man/half bee but after I sang a few phrases of Billy the Half A Bee, he decided against it.

We are attempting the bees in a bell jar feat again.  Last summer, the bees removed the starter wax and the jar was full of condensation rather than a cool waxy looking sculpture.  Hans thought it might be a good idea to drill some holes in the bell jar to aid in ventilation.  We checked on the progress and found bees running around inside the jar.

The bell jar bees did what a sensible bee will do with a ventilation hole--they filled it with propolis.  After watching all of the activity in the jar, I'm still not certain if they were removing the foundation wax to use in other parts of the hive or seriously drawing it out.  Only time will tell, but this hive also has honey supers on it, so if they don't do the bell jar, they will make us some honey.

We checked our four new hives and three were excellent.  One has had a total queen failure.  There's no new brood and no eggs.  They have not drawn out comb and filled their box the way the other new hives have--only three frames are full and there appears to be far too many drones--I suspect egg laying workers.  Our four hives from the winter were all going strong and it looked like our red hive had recently gone through a swarm.  Mr. Neil noted that there were still a few unhatched queen cells in the red hive and suggested we add one to the failing new hive.  I was inclined not to but we really had nothing to lose by putting one in.  I felt that it would just delay the inevitable end of this new hive but on the other hand--not all of the queen cells would be able to survive in the swarm, so  maybe we could give a queen a chance in a new hive.

I did notice that when we took out the frame for a queen cell from the red hive that I wasn't seeing much in the way of eggs or young larvae in that hive.  I do have a bit of concern for the red hive but that hive seems to know what it's doing.  So we put a new queen cell in the failing hive, although without brood, I do not have high hopes it will work. But hey--if we only lose one hive--we still have 7 others going strong.