Catching Up...March Edition

This time I know it’s spring! Temps are forecast to be in the low 80’s this week and everything is either blooming or leafing out. The photo is of a weeping peach that we just purchased and planted a few days ago. The color is far more vivid than the puny weeping cherry in the front yard. It has only a few pale pink blossoms and if it doesn’t get busy, next year it will be replaced by another peach like this one.

The hollow stump where a Tufted Titmouse nested last year has been taken over by a pair of Nuthatches. They are already feeding babies, so they might raise more than one brood this year. Multiple broods seems to be the norm for Texas songbirds.

The front yard Bluebirds have built a nest in their house, but the world might be better off if this pair doesn’t preserve their gene pool. They have to be the dumbest pair of birds I’ve ever seen. At first light, the male attacks the kitchen window, and he’s been doing so for over a month. He goes through this battle until about noon and then the female joins him. Those two idiot birds spend most of the day fighting their reflections and are totally exhausted by evening. If she starts to sit on eggs, he’ll probably kill himself in his futile battle to defeat his glass enclosed nemesis.

Another pair of Bluebirds has been building a nest in the backyard Martin house, but their progress has been slow and erratic, as if they’re not too sure they want to move in, or maybe they forget what they’re doing. They might be related to the mentally challenged dummies from the front yard.

I found a dead Red Bellied Woodpecker in the yard today. It showed no sign of injuries, so I have no idea what killed it, but its mate has been calling all day from the dead tree where they had chiseled out a home.

Final bird report. Last fall, a male Carolina Wren began spending nights in a fern that was hanging on the patio. When the cold weather arrived, the fern froze and stopped providing much cover for the wren. I felt sorry for the little guy, so I cut a hole in a plastic bucket and hung it beside the fern. The wren moved in immediately and spent the rest of the winter roosting in the bucket at nights. He must have really liked his accomodations, because he has now built a nest inside. I suppose that ugly bucket will have to hang there for the entire nesting season!

I ordered 12 yards of pine bark mulch and 10 yards of topsoil to be delivered Wednesday, so I’ll have enough work to keep me busy for a couple of weeks. Wore myself out cleaning a bunch of weeds from the flower beds today, so I’m ready to mulch...after I rest a couple of days.