Backyard Bird Success!

Now that the house sparrows are gone, the feeder has been reclaimed by native birds.

American Goldfinch

And Purple Finch.

Yay!

More Baby Raccoon Pictures

They showed up in the tree early yesterday morning. I'm afraid there are only three now; looks like that little guy should have stayed put like his mother said.

Here's one curious little guy.

This baby wasn't too sure about me taking his picture. He folded his ears back as soon as I started.

I LOVE this pic of the three babies nursing. Cracker is splayed out (you can see her paws) and the three babies are feasting.

Butterfly

Pretty, eh? There ya go, Mom.

Where are all the flowers?

My work friend visited my blog and said, "Where are all your flower pictures?" There's not much yet; we spent most of our garden budget this year on dirt and shrubs. But here's a bit of what we've got so far...


White bleeding hearts (the pink ones have dropped their blooms), Clematis "Snow Queen",Some daisy-like flower (I forget the name), Hydrangea "Endless Summer", And some pretty pink roses, special because they were Steve's Dad's, bless his heart (lots more on roses to come!). Here's one of my favourite shots of the dry creek from the back corner. That's a rhododendron "catawbiense" that we (Steve) finally put in the ground today.

Now I want to spend more money on perennials. Maybe I'll grow a money tree.

Backyard Birds

I finally switched our cheap mixed birdseed to black oil sunflower seed. Why, you ask? Because thanks to the good folks at GardenWeb, I learned that millet is the favoured food for house sparrows. I'd noticed that the only birds we were seeing at the birdfeeders were house sparrows and grackles, even though we have tons of cardinals, song sparrows, and other birds in the area.

What's wrong with house sparrows? They're actually non-native birds, originating from Europe, who were introduced to this continent about 200 years ago. And they're deadly to native bluebirds. They'll actually enter a bluebird nest and peck to death its inhabitants. We won't go so far as to trap them, but we'll not encourage them. Sialis.org has more information on these little bullies.

Two Months' Difference

Here's a picture of the backyard from the porch, taken last weekend. When I have more time, I'll start posting the before pictures and detail what we've done so far...

Ah, what the heck. Here's a picture of what it looked like in March...

Lots of work to do, but MAN! what a difference, eh? Most of it is thanks to our lovely Canadian seasons (we can't take credit for Spring), but we did put a lot of sweat into removing that playhouse and building the "woodland" garden in the back. More to come!