A flock of Evening Grosbeak’s showed up last week, which is why I chose them to highlight this month. The bold color of the males are pretty awesome.

IDENTIFICATION

– MALE –
HEAD: brown
CROWN: black
EYEBROWS: yellow
WINGS: black with large white patch
TAIL: black
BILL: large, conical, yellow-green
EYE: black

The female is not as boldly marked as the male. Her body is grayish with a yellow neck and white throat. Wings and tail are black with some white spots.

MALE:

White patches on wings:

Bright yellow eyebrows:

FEMALE:

HABITAT

Evening Grosbeaks make their homes in the conifer forests of North America. Breeding is in forests at higher elevations.

FEEDING

Evening Grosbeaks eat seeds, berries, and buds of trees. This explains why I see them hanging out at our bird feeders, as well as in our flowering cherry tree.

They’re kind of messy eaters. I have watched Golden-crowned Sparrows happily eat the leftovers the Grosbeaks were dropping at the feeder.

I have also seen Evening Grosbeaks foraging on the ground, most likely searching for insect larvae.

I love seeing birds visit my pond.

FRIENDS & FAMILY

FAMILY: Finches
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Coccothraustes vespertinus

When the Evening Grosbeaks visit us they are typically in decent sized flocks of 20 or more. They also seem to hang out with other finches.

I often see them with a Black-headed Grosbeak.

Also, American Goldfinches tend to enjoy their company.

I have also seen Evening Grosbeaks with Purple Finches.

PHOTO GALLERY

Happy Birding!

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Nature has a beautiful way of letting me know spring has arrived. The trilliums are the first to bloom and the Violet-green Swallows are the first migrating birds to arrive.

They usually show up with about 30 of their friends and spend their days darting around catching insects.

IDENTIFICATION

TOP OF HEAD: dark green, colored slightly with bronze
CHEEKS: Males are white. Females and juveniles have a grayish bronze tint to their cheeks.
THROAT: white
BELLY: white
WINGS: mix of dark grays, blues and greens
TAIL: short, mix of dark grays, blues and greens
BACK: dark green, colored slightly with bronze
RUMP: violet, with white saddlebags
BILL: tiny, dark
EYE: black

MALE:

FEMALE:

Back & Underside:

Notice the short tail and white saddlebags:

HABITAT

The Violet-green Swallow is a western North American bird, preferring woodland areas. They tend to show up around our house late March and stay until mid summer. When they are not here, they are in the Southern United States and Mexico.

Each year they make nests in bird houses we have placed in our Bird Village. I have also seen them in a tall tree snag not far from the Bird Village.

FEEDING

Violet-green Swallows spend much of their time swooping through the sky catching insects.

FRIENDS & FAMILY

FAMILY: Swallows
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Tachycineta thalassina

Primarily we have Violet-green Swallows visit us. But, usually there is a Tree Swallow or two with them.

BEHAVIOR

I am not sure if they are by nature a feisty bird, but I often notice quarrels among them.

They don’t tend to play nice with the Western Bluebirds that also want to make a temporary home in one of our bird houses.

PHOTO GALLERY

Happy Birding!

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• Still enjoying all the birds. These pictured are golden-crowned sparrow and spotted towhee

• Willow.

• One of my favorite things about the snow is seeing what critters have been lurking about. I expect both the deer & coyote tracks. Raccoon, though, is a first. We have never seen a raccoon at our house. The tracks went right up to our porch, as well as to my pond and chicken tractor.

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• We often have deer in our yard. This week I chose to take their pics hangin’ with the chickens.
• For quite awhile I have been wanting to make goat milk soap. Now that we have a goat in milk I gave it a whirl. I plan to do a separate post on the process I used and what I thought about it.

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• So many wild birds. Not sure if they’re passing through or if they’re here to stay throughout winter.
• Vern
• Smoked tilapia on the treager. So good!
• Farm Kid2 added tires in the field for the goats to play on.
• Last week our dog got in a scuffle with a porcupine. On Sunday, the kids saw the porcupine in our yard. Such a cute little fella, but he didn’t do our dog any favors.
• Farmer John used a net to catch a couple tilapia. In the net were fish eggs! This is a first for us. Now that he disturbed them, I’m not sure they’ll make it. But, now we now it’s possible and to keep an eye out for them.
• I’ve been collecting the goat’s milk and leaving it in the fridge. I made something with it for the first time – Cheddar Broccoli Soup. It didn’t turn out perfect, but it tastes fine.
• We were supposed to get a crazy storm this last weekend. Thankfully, it didn’t end up being as crazy as predicted. We had a bunch of things blown around and a lot of rain. Not too bad.
• There is drama in the barnyard. Sven, who has always thought he was top goat ’round here, has been put in his place by Willow. Sven, Willow, and Vern are all scared of the ornery rooster that lives with them. When its feeding time, he pecks them all on the nose. Apparently he is not good at sharing. I haven’t decided the best plan of action to remedy the situation, but we should fix it soon before a goat gets hurt.

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• The pumpkins and squash are growing… slowly. The plants look good, they just aren’t producing much. And for some odd reason, a couple of the seeds just germinated a couple weeks ago.
• Occasionally, particularly in the summer, I like to take photos of the night sky. I didn’t get any wowing pics this time around, but it’s still fun to try.
• Tomatoes growing in a barrel. Love!
• It seems we are having more than usual squirrel and chipmunk type critters visiting us.
• We live on an unmaintained logging road. The only upkeep on the road is after a logging task or when we or the neighbors fix it. New neighbors moved in not too long ago. They fixed the road! Woop, woop! I love them already. As a small token of our thanks we brought them hard cider and apples from our trees.
• The company sent us, at no charge, a new batch of hatching eggs. There was not any better outcome than last time. This time one cream legbar hatched. Also, one of our own olive eggers hatched. Crummy, crummy, crummy. This really messed up my breeding plan. Time to come up with a new plan… without using hatching eggs shipped across the country.

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Over the next month or two I’m really hoping to get a lot done outside. This weekend is supposed to be nice. Hopefully, I can get a good start on a number of projects.

• We have rabbits around, but we rarely see them and I have never been able to get a photo of one. The other morning I finally got a photo. It’s a horrible photo, but it is my first one of a wild rabbit in our backyard.

• A couple swallows have returned. I love seeing them dart around.

• There are a ton of insects flying around, so there should be plenty of food for the swallows.

• Daffodils are blooming, the heather is in bloom, the flowering cherry tree is just starting to show off its beautiful pink flowers. This is why we all enjoy spring. The colors are marvelous.

• Seedlings are still spread about our house, garage, and greenhouse.

• The fodder, though, is still not my friend.

• I cleaned out the flower bed disguised as a meadow and sprinkled in a few seeds. I should get a wildflower mix and sprinkle those in, too.

• I have 2 cement paths I’m hoping to work on over the next few days since it’s supposed to be nice outside. One is finishing up the path through the bird village and connecting it to our newly poured patio. Woop, woop! I’ve been waiting nearly 7 years to finish that path. The other is using cement bricks and chunks to create a landing area in front of our chicken huts and chicken tractors.

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Happy Spring! We officially made it through another winter. Our winter wasn’t too cold, but it was rainy. Very rainy.

• Spring has sprung and our Leonard Messel Magnolia is blooming. The tree itself hasn’t grown much in the 7 years we’ve had it, but the blooms are gorgeous.

• The Marans are laying again after their winter hiatus. I love their dark brown egg. Notice the stink eye I’m getting from her majesty. Truth be told, I feel the same way about her.

• The fodder we started last week isn’t doing much. Not sure what our problem is, but this isn’t as easy as I thought it was supposed to be.

• Seeds and seedlings are gathered in the house, garage, and greenhouse. I’m hoping for a good tomato crop this year.

• While we were away camping this weekend a chicken got nabbed in the backyard. The game camera shows a coyote and bobcat wandering nearby. Ugh. However, mostly the camera snaps pics of the neighborhood deer.

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• Well, the fodder experiment was a flop.

• Buckwheat Seed: Only a handful of seeds sprouted

• Barley Seed: Virtually none germinated.

• Rye Grass Seed: It sprouted ok. It seemed like much of the seed didn’t sprout, though. And, it took longer than I was expecting to grow.

• I fed it all to the chickens. They loved it.

• We began Fodder Experiment #2

• Many of the flower, herb, veggie and fruit seeds I started are doing well. The ones moved into an aquaponics grow bed seem especially happy.

• The deer are back at munchin’ on the day lilies.

• It’s been a wet, dreary winter. But, finally we have some flowers showing spring color.

• Just like that, in the matter of one week, we are down to one duck. We believe a coyote (and maybe his buddies) are to blame. We saw a coyote one morning, have heard them a couple times, and caught one on the game camera. There hasn’t been evidence of anything else lurking about. It is amazing to me how quickly 11 ducks disappeared. Occasionally a random duck or chicken becomes coyote or bobcat dinner. But, never have we had so many in such a short span of time. The one lone duck to survive is the welsh harlequin who has been hiding and sitting on unfertile eggs. We moved her to a chicken coop and she doesn’t seem to thrilled with her new home.

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• Most of the herb seeds we started over two weeks ago haven’t germinated yet. Hmmm… I’m not too impressed. I am needing a bunch of good starts in less than 8 weeks.

• The Great Backyard Bird Count was going on this weekend, so I went on a number of bird watching walks.

• Farm Girl & I had gone for a bird walk and when we came back Farmer John & Farm Kid1 had Sven in the house tending to a wound. He had a pretty good slice on his leg. I ended up taking him to the vet to get stitches.

• To keep Sven’s stitched area from getting infected it was recommended that he not be out in the muck and the mud. So, we boarded up the Goat Hut (which started out as a Turkey Hut, then switched to a Chicken Hut and was once also a Pig Hut) to keep him cooped inside. Before boarding it up though, we layed cement pavers on the ground. It’s not our finest work, but it should keep things a little cleaner. I had been wanting to lay a cement pad for the goats anyway with the hopes of it doing a bit of hoof trimming work as they walk on it. So, this worked out perfectly. And, if one day we don’t want the cement in the hut we can just pull them out.

• Just yesterday somethin’ snagged our rooster that we referred to as The Hippie. There was a lot of commotion outside and after checking it out Farmer John found Hippie’s feathers. When a bobcat has gotten a chicken, it leaves a trail of feathers as it’s dragging the chicken off into the bushes. This time there was not a trail of feathers – and The Hippie was a fairly large rooster. So, I’m not sure what got it.

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