Wildlife in our gardens

Нandsome couple! :grin:

i have some chickadees in my bird house also. 1st time they nest there. could hear the babies chirping away. theres another nest in the other one but not sure what kind of bird is nesting in there. also the 2 mourning doves i fed over the winter are still in my yard so i think they have a nest in my big spruces. they eat the scratch i throw in the run for the chickens. love hearing them coo in the evening. they’re so used to me now, i can get within 10ft. of them before they fly. such a peaceful bird.

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I can’t stand the Mourning Doves that nest in my area. They originally started coming here because there’s several dogwood trees around my neighbourhood which have red fruit in the fall. They gorge themselves on the berries in flocks up to 40 in number.

I usually have a pair that nest around the yard somewhere. Last year they were in the weeping willow.

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they are fairly rare here. up until about 15 yrs ago we didn’t have any. they don’t touch my berries. the crows ,cow birds and grackles on the other hand…

I’ll take Ravens any day over Doves.

Two wrong-way Orioles came in our sunroom today – one flew out on its own but the other was very shocked, I finally got it to hold onto a stick and then carried it outside.

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Oh oh. Barney Phife along with a lot of old people I know say when a bird comes in your house it is a bad omen that says you’re going to have a death in the family! (Somehow I suspect your life isn’t exactly governed by old superstitions, but I had to mention it because I actually saw that very Andy Griffith episode TONIGHT! haha.)

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Monarch chrysalis on avocado leaf

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Do you need to worry about any diseases in the rabbits u shoot? Thinking about harvesting a few here. Nice job of butchering!!!

Bumble bees are active on our bee balm plants. Bought several of these from the Lowe’s clearance rack 2 years ago and they are going beast mode on them!

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One of my favorite of all birds! People who visit always say i have so many birds singing but they never realize this little bird is the entire band in many cases. Mocking birds are second only to red wing black birds in song at my house! 2B70BF4E-3EF0-4C87-8D5A-70D637707E824A2D15B2-AC26-4D14-BBAB-FF3276B15066

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Sooooooo Excited!!! A Dove has built a nest on my apricot espalier :smile:

The Daddy bird sits on the wires all day chasing away any squirrels that dare get on my fence! I saw it poking and chasing squirrels twice from one end of the fence to the other until the squirrel went into a thick bush and hid there!!! Daddy bird also brings in sticks back to support the mommy bird who has been sitting in the nest all day!!!

Can anyone ID the bird? I think it is a dove (Looks smaller than a mourning dove or may be that’s what it is, long tail…) Light grey bottom, upper body is dark grey, wings are dark grey with black spots.

Couldn’t get better pics. Daddy bird is always watching and don’t want to get too close and scare them away

I would hire the daddy bird to be my squirrilinator if I could :slight_smile: Not one squirrel in my backyard. All my fruits looking safe :slight_smile:

Daddy bird bringing home sticks

Daddy Bird Guard Duty

** Mommy Bird in nest **

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A biologist once told me that mockingbirds eat more bugs in weight per day than any other north american bird. So I’m glad to have them around! Which brings me to the question: how many chirps can a mockingbird make per bug?!

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Mick- as a avid hunter, I will tell you with a high degree of confidence that there are no diseases in north American rabbits that can be transferred to humans if the meat is properly cared for (butchered relatively soon after kill, kept refrigerated, cooked soon or frozen, and MOST OF ALL…cooked thoroughly and at appropriate temperatures (USDA says 160 f degrees internal temp but honestly I think that is overkill and will make it tough). Nothing about that is complicated- just clean the rabbit soon after harvesting it, then cook it within the next day or two (soak in salt water in fridge) or freeze it. Then cook it all the way through- that is it. If you do that I absolutely assure you that you are safe to eat rabbit in the USA.

Now, someone may come along and try to tell you about the dangers of Tularemia (aka “rabbit fever”) but it is rarely transmitted to humans and as long as you cook the meat thoroughly it is IMPOSSIBLE to get it from eating a rabbit even you eat one that had the disease. Hundreds of thousands of people shoot and eat rabbits safely every year and so will you.

There is one thing I must warn you about if you harvest a rabbit this time of year. It is not likely BUT POSSIBLE that when you clean it you will find something people in the southeast call (for reasons I will never know) a rabbit “wolf worm”. It is a bot fly if you know what that is. Now, it has absolutely no impact on the health of the rabbit OR on you if you eat the rabbit. If there is one, it will be just below the skin, not “inside” the rabbit and I just throw them out with the skin and move on. But many people freak out so bad they can’t eat the rabbit and give up. haha. Resist the urge to google “rabbit wolf” or you will completely freak out and abandon the idea of eating a wild rabbit. haha (now you HAVE TO look, right?). Don’t worry, they aren’t very common and as much as they make you shiver, they are harmless).

The whole point in this response was to encourage you (and others) to kill and eat wild rabbits from your property. I fear I have undermined that effort by just mentioning things life wolf worms and Tularemia. I mainly did so because I figured someone would come along and warn of such things and I wanted to get the truth out first- and the truth is where I started: Handle the meat properly and it is safer than anything in your grocery store meat section (you know its fresh and how it has been treated and stored, it has no antibiotics or coloring or other additives, hasn’t been exposed and processed on tables and with equipment that can harbor pathogens, and so on.

The best thing I can do in my effort to promote the consumption of rabbits is just to tell you how wonderful it tastes and all the things you can make with it . So when you are done looking at the horrors of the wolf worm, please go ahead and google “rabbit recipes” as well! haha. Good luck.

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I’m reliably informed that some of the rabbits around here hit 4#

:slight_smile: Methinks that sounds like a nice size for a crock pot. :slight_smile:

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Not one bit worried now! Do you have a favorite way to prepare your rabbits? Curious what your favorite recipes are?

Head stand …

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Out of respect for Original Poster/thread creator @Richard and others here to see wildlife, I’ve moved our discussion over to a new thread I just created in “Using Fruit” called “Using meat in our gardens”. It’s not exactly “Using Fruit” but its about cooking and using something that comes from our orchards so I doubt anyone will mind. If so we’ll take it to the Lounge.

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