REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Happy bird, happy-ish garden

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 10, 2014 00:05
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VIEWED: 1637
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Sunday, June 8, 2014 11:23 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


DD picked up a baby bird four years ago. As it turns out, it was an English sparrow hatchling, prolly the only kind of bird that didn't need to be sent to a wildlife rehab facility. (Robustly populated invasive species)

Chirpy may had have West Nile or been concussed because she would peck off-target when young and I swear to god had seizures. As a baby she wolfed down meal worms. Since then we've tried to figure out what this bird needs to be healthy. Almost lost her a few times, as internet info is sketchy at best. Seed was not enough. Her cage was too small and too isolated. Thanks in part to sis and hubby, we discovered the magic formula: water (of course), meal worms, bird seed (she only likes the little ones so she tosses a lot out of her cage, which goes outside for the mourning doves), whole wheat bread sprinkled with oil, flax and chia seed, foraging greens, bits of cheese, whatever houseflies I can kill, and a few bits of fruit. A big cage she can fly in, by the window. A little house she can hide in. I'm going to ad a real live plant. At this point, she's healthy enough to lay a well-formed egg.


The garden is growing well enough (once a few plants expired). The red corn is as high as my waist, the yellow corn as high as my knee, and the drying beans have flowers. A few baby tomatoes here and there, quite a few baby Japanese eggplant and various peppers, and at least a few of the sunflowers sprouted and are growing.

I'm going to add blue penstemon, pale peach/yellow monkey flower, Spanish lavender, and (more) Dusty Miller, and redberry (rhamnus illicifolia) to the Cleveland sages, autumn sages, germander sages, monkey flowers, misc CA currants, sagebrushes, suncups, succulents, and hollyleaf cherries already there!

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Sunday, June 8, 2014 11:49 AM

CHRISISALL


Good work helping Chirpy out!
We had two cockatiels but the second one we got as a friend for Gracie started pluck herself to the point we feared for her life. Nothing worked so we put an ad online & a local cockatiel dude said he would take her if we wanted. We sadly gave her away to him & in one month she was as good as new. I think now that she wanted to be alone in a cage by herself... oh well, she's happy now. And Gracie seems content to be the only bird. Now if we could get her to stop dive-bombing the cats...
My Wife has a garden too; we just had tomatoes & lettuce from it last night. My Son makes mint tea with the mint from it. I don't know how she gets it to be so fruitful without all the crazy chemicals big farm Inc. seems to need.

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Sunday, June 8, 2014 12:06 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Your bird dive-bombs the cats???

I'm jealous! Perhaps that would be the answer to the feral neighborhood cats, if I but had a dive-bombing bird!

Chirpy would really like a flock. She's only half-tame, clearly doesn't think of us as "her flock" but isn't really frightened of us either. That's the one thing we can't provide. But she wouldn't survive outside, so she gets to live with us while we fuss over her.

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Sunday, June 8, 2014 12:29 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Your bird dive-bombs the cats???

She doesn't mean to, I think. She just doesn't fear them and on numerous occasions has tried to land on them. It resembles an attack when you see it because the cats freak out a bit but they don't try to kill her for some reason.
She is a mighty bird.


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Sunday, June 8, 2014 12:34 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


THAT is a handsome bird! And looks very much in charge- chest out, crest up, and lots of smooth feathers. Queen of the roost, I'd say!

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Sunday, June 8, 2014 1:12 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Your bird dive-bombs the cats???

I'm jealous! Perhaps that would be the answer to the feral neighborhood cats, if I but had a dive-bombing bird!


Lure in some Jays.
They're quite aggressively territorial, and will dive bomb anything including humans, but especially they do not like feral cats.
Corvids are another option, but they're even worse pricks.

-F

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Sunday, June 8, 2014 1:46 PM

CHRISISALL



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Sunday, June 8, 2014 3:05 PM

WISHIMAY


I had an green Amazon once, until I whistled a song and it chowed into mah face.

And I've given up on growing anything, since just going outside leaves me rapid-fire sneezing...

Yeah, funsville.


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Sunday, June 8, 2014 3:56 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Wishimay:
I whistled a song and it chowed into mah face.

Ouch. Was it bloody?

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Monday, June 9, 2014 12:30 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
DD picked up a baby bird four years ago. As it turns out, it was an English sparrow hatchling, prolly the only kind of bird that didn't need to be sent to a wildlife rehab facility. (Robustly populated invasive species)

Chirpy may had have West Nile or been concussed because she would peck off-target when young and I swear to god had seizures. As a baby she wolfed down meal worms. Since then we've tried to figure out what this bird needs to be healthy. Almost lost her a few times, as internet info is sketchy at best. Seed was not enough. Her cage was too small and too isolated. Thanks in part to sis and hubby, we discovered the magic formula: water (of course), meal worms, bird seed (she only likes the little ones so she tosses a lot out of her cage, which goes outside for the mourning doves), whole wheat bread sprinkled with oil, flax and chia seed, foraging greens, bits of cheese, whatever houseflies I can kill, and a few bits of fruit. A big cage she can fly in, by the window. A little house she can hide in. I'm going to ad a real live plant. At this point, she's healthy enough to lay a well-formed egg.


The garden is growing well enough (once a few plants expired). The red corn is as high as my waist, the yellow corn as high as my knee, and the drying beans have flowers. A few baby tomatoes here and there, quite a few baby Japanese eggplant and various peppers, and at least a few of the sunflowers sprouted and are growing.

I'm going to add blue penstemon, pale peach/yellow monkey flower, Spanish lavender, and (more) Dusty Miller, and redberry (rhamnus illicifolia) to the Cleveland sages, autumn sages, germander sages, monkey flowers, misc CA currants, sagebrushes, suncups, succulents, and hollyleaf cherries already there!



photos please

my garden's dank and leafy at this time. Most of the leaves off our elms have fallen and turned soggy brown on the ground. The camilias and azaleas are out in the front, and the sages seem to flower most of the year. Hubby's laying down some paths through the sludge so I can get to my veggie pack without boots.

I'm in the mood for chickens, if I can knock up a henhouse strong enough to keep out the foxes.

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Monday, June 9, 2014 10:16 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Your bird dive-bombs the cats???

I'm jealous! Perhaps that would be the answer to the feral neighborhood cats, if I but had a dive-bombing bird!


Lure in some Jays.
They're quite aggressively territorial, and will dive bomb anything including humans, but especially they do not like feral cats.
Corvids are another option, but they're even worse pricks.

-F



Best way to attract any kind of Jay: peanuts. Even if they aren't native to the area. Raucous little bastards love the peanuts.

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Monday, June 9, 2014 12:08 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


BYTE
Oh, good to know about the jays!

I like jays. Every time I hear one, it takes me back to my childhood in the more-or-less boonies - girl scout summer camp, the fields next to the creek, the park near our house and the farms just beyond that. I miss that. Sigh.

MAGONS
Pictures as soon as I figure out where to put them on the net where I'm not signing my privacy and images away. I'm sure there's a fair site out there somewhere, I just haven't spent a lot of time looking for it. Also, the pix would be underwhelming at this point. I just started planting a couple of years ago, most of the plants are still quite small. Well, even so.... soon as I find a good picture-sharing site that respects my privacy and my images, I will.


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Monday, June 9, 2014 2:21 PM

BYTEMITE


https://www.google.com/search?q=Jays+and+peanuts&source=lnms&t
bm=isch&sa=X&ei=CPmVU6aXA46dyASh6YGQAQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1264&bih=457


We have scrub jays around here, at one point I had around five of them that would sit in a tree watching for me to go get the peanuts and put some out for them.

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Monday, June 9, 2014 2:26 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


I always wondered about jays and acorns. How did they eat them? Then one day outside my glass door I saw a jay pounding a hole in one with his beak. All I could think of was Oy, such a headache. Anyway, no wonder they like peanuts then!



OONJERAH - We are too dumb to live and smart enough to wipe ourselves out.
"You, who live in any kind of comfort or convenience, do not know how these people can survive these things, do you? They will endure because there is no immediate escape from endurance. Some will die, the rest must live."

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Monday, June 9, 2014 11:21 PM

CHRISISALL


Our little innocent-looking cockatiel can destroy an amazing amount of stuff with that tiny beak.

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Tuesday, June 10, 2014 12:00 AM

OONJERAH



"Our little innocent-looking cockatiel" is a small parrot = JawS!



... oooOO}{OOooo ...

Part of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at.

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Tuesday, June 10, 2014 12:05 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Oonjerah:

"Our little innocent-looking cockatiel" is a small parrot = JawS!




So right.

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