Wednesday Vignettes: Bird battles & other struggles

We've had a lot of birds of all kinds soaring around, through and over the garden during the last few weeks.  I saw an oriole in the strawberry tree (Arbutus 'Marina') outside my office window Monday when I was on the phone with a friend and an owl in the mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) later that night.  I didn't manage to catch a photo of either.  Much of the frenetic hustle and bustle may be due to nesting activity.  A few days ago I captured a skirmish between a hawk and what I think were two mockingbirds.

The smaller birds presumably took offense at the hawk's proximity to their nest.  They hounded him mercilessly.  You can see two of them above and below him on the left here.

And here you can see them on either side of him.  He took off soon after this.

I engaged in a battle of my own over the weekend when I decided to stop procrastinating and move the stunted Yucca 'Bright Star' squeezed in between its two larger siblings.  If you've never handled one of these plants let me warn you: they have vicious terminal spines.  Despite taking my time and exercising caution, both my hands and my calves were stabbed many times, but I got the job done (assuming the relocated Yucca doesn't up and die on me).

Although planted at the same time and size as the larger plants, the one in the middle remained substantially smaller and was being overtaken by the nearby Leucadendrons and Coleonema 'Sunset Gold'

I moved 3 underperforming bearded Iris tubers to provide the smaller Yucca a bigger spot to spread its roots

The new configuration adds a greater sense of depth to the bed, at least from this angle

Meanwhile, projects driven by my husband continue.  He started work on building new compost bins for me but completing that project required clearing out the concrete pavers that currently occupy the space designated for the bins.  He started by redistributing the stone recovered when we dismantled our indoor barbecue during our remodel, which has been piled up behind our garage since last July.

The rock occupied a lot of space behind the garage and his initial intent was to move the rock into the garden and stack the concrete pavers here instead

I moved a few stones into the front slope (top left) but he used the bulk of them to edge the mounded back border.  It's a long border and only a couple of sections are shown here.  He stacked the rocks but it was my job to backfill them in place..

He knew I wasn't happy about having the moss path covered in stone (as shown on the left) so he moved most of that out

Then for some reason he decided to go ahead and work on replacing the gravel path framed with railroad ties with the concrete pavers, which will eliminate the need to stack the pavers behind the garage.  This photo shows the path with the gravel removed.  Placement of the pavers is on hold until it's stopped raining.

Assuming the new paved path works out, all the gravel we shoveled into these plastic pots will be used to fill in the barer pathway areas in my cutting garden

The area behind the garage is suddenly looking better than it ever has

I picked up supplies ordered by phone from my local garden center yesterday morning so I can start some of the other projects on my docket.  With rain in spits and spurts all day and the temperature dipping to winter-like levels, I didn't accomplish much outside yesterday and, with rain expected to continue through Thursday, I may have to turn my energy to cleaning the house but I look forward to getting back outside by Friday, if not earlier.  Keeping busy is one way to maintain one's sanity in the era of Covid-19.

For more Wednesday Vignettes, visit Anna at Flutter & Hum.

All material © 2012-2020 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Wednesday Vignette: Not on the menu?

The best thing about my home office is the view out my window.  Every so often I look up to catch sight of something interesting.  Last week, I saw a hawk land in the mimosa tree.  Hawks don't come close to the house all that often and they rarely hang around for long.  In this case, instead of flying off after a moment's rest, he turned his head back and forth scanning my garden, as well as the horizon behind him.

I think this is a Cooper's Hawk

Among other things, his prey is supposed to include squirrels.  Apparently, his scan didn't involve looking down.

Directly below him was Mr. Squirrel, hard at work stealing seed from the so-called "squirrel-buster" bird feeder

Mr. Squirrel appears as oblivious to their proximity as Mr. Hawk

The squirrel can never sustain his gymnastics on the bird feeder for long.  He inevitably loses his balance and falls to the ground but he recovers quickly and usually makes several forays in a row.  He made at least two runs at the feeder as I watched.  The hawk never moved.

But he looked up as soon as I went out the door to get a better picture

And he immediately took off

Mr. Squirrel lives on, working hard to perfect his acrobatic skills during his raids on my feeders.

For more Wednesday Vignettes, visit Anna at Flutter and Hum.


All material © 2012-2019 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

A Birder's Garden

We visited my mother-in-law today to celebrate a belated birthday.  I took the opportunity to check out her yard, as I usually do when I'm at the house.  She used a restrained selection of plants in putting together her garden, which creates a cohesiveness that my garden currently lacks.  Many of her plant selections were made with birds in mind as she is a dedicated birder.

My favorite section of her yard is the area under the kitchen window, which has a mix of Rhaphiolepsis indica, Camellia sasanqua, Camellia japonica and Pittosporum tobira, accented by a bird bath on one side and a bench on the other.  Birch trees provide a canopy.

The narrow side yard is also interesting.  The highlight of that section of the yard is a very tall Camellia japonica with large white flowers.

The Calliandra haematocephala (Pink Powder Puff) in the yard on the other side of the house was in flower too.  Unlike my own version of this plant, which has been closely shorn as a hedge effectively eliminating most of the flowers, this one has been espaliered along the wall, allowing the flowers to be shown to maximum advantage.

There are plenty of places for birds to perch in safety along the boundaries of the garden, including Pine and Arbutus trees, as well as large-scale shrubs.  And there are also plenty of plants that provide the birds with food, like this one, which I think is probably Cotoneaster microphyllus.

My mother-in-law supplements the natural food supply with various kinds of feeders and the birds, mostly finches today, show up in large numbers.

The bell-shaped container in the picture above contains dryer lint for the birds' use in building nests. I'm going to try to find a similar container for my own garden in an effort to divert the scrub jays that usually pull apart the coconut liners of my hanging baskets to make their nests in the spring.

While I was looking out the window, I saw a large bird swoop through the garden, causing all the smaller birds to scatter.  He didn't catch any and sat on the back fence scanning the horizon.  I tried to take a picture of him but he took off before I could focus my camera through the glass door.  My mother-in-law identified him as a Cooper's Hawk, which Wikipedia says has an appetite for small birds like finches.  With so many of these in her yard, I'm sure he'll be back.

Picture from Wikipedia