Cedar Waxwings - 05

After eating in our yard, the waxwings would head across the road to a neighbor's tall tree across the street. Every year we have seen waxwings, they have used this tree as their resting location. Groups of waxwings will fly to and from this tree as they scour the neighborhood in search of food. The first photo shows the tree with a light loading of waxwings. As these migratory birds move through the area, they upset the apple cart of the normal residents. With their late arrival, they were messing around with nesting season so I saw some irritated resident birds. In the second photo, you see a cardinal in the tree full of waxwings. If you look closely, you see the lone robin just to his right. Back on our side of the street, I had a mockingbird pair really unhappy. These two were giving those waxwings a piece of their mind. They would try to defend their territory but the waxwing numbers were just too large. Fortunately, the waxwings represent nothing more than a nuisance to the resident birds. I have never seen anything eat the youpon berries other than waxwings and robins.

Thanks,

Comments

Post a Comment

Please include your name in your comment so I know the author! Thanks.

Popular posts from this blog

Completed Wood Project

Image
Yes, I made another cutting board and do not ask me what I will do with it. I have no idea.....sit on a table I guess. I really had not planned on making any more cutting boards until I saw this piece of parota wood. It was a new species for me and it had a beautiful end grain pattern. The sap wood provided a nice color contrast that could be blended into the final product. I had seen a photo a month or so before of a similar board and liked its looks. Picking up the piece of parota told me to make, yet again, another end grain cutting board. The two slabs  (earlier photos/e-mail) were essentially identical to each other but I intentionally made the two pieces of parota to be offset from the center (gives the stairstep look). Each 12-1/2" wide slab was cut into 1-7/8" pieces - a total of 11 pieces from each slab - 22 pieces total. I then alternated the pieces from the two slabs while keeping the order of cut. The final board measures 12" x 17-1/2" x 1-7/8". Whe
Read more

Springtime

Image
It's been a while since I messed with your mailbox so Howdy and I hope each of you are doing well. A few of you have sent notes and updates and they are always appreciated. This is too long but summarizes our life the past few months. We have been busy this spring with some major cleanup of the woods/brush around our house. The area in front of our house was cleaned up in the original construction. By cleaned up, I mean you could safely walk (mostly erect) through the area without fear of death by 1000 thorns. The other areas were left much less accessible with survival maintenance only but still no clear access. Though I have always wanted to see the garage-side area to look more like our front, we never made it happen in the 11+ years we have lived here. We had three obstacles that are more like excuses but they were very real. The first issue is our fundamental frugality. We could not bring ourselves to pay the several thousand dollars to have someone come in and do the work. Th
Read more

Burst Bubble

Image
About a month ago, I picked up an old Craftsman 18" scroll saw for a whopping $15. It satisfied a couple of points: 1) cheap test of whether I would like scroll saw stuff, and 2) small and light enough to stow it out of the way in my shop when not in use. This tool is in good shape but is a beater with vibration. Fortunately, I can clamp it down to my  very heavy assembly table. I have no idea how anyone could use this thing without something very substantial to clamp it to. I played around with it on some 1/4" plywood to get the feel and then put it away for a bit. I then saw a piece I liked on a Facebook group and the person shared his template. It called for cutting 1" thick stock slightly smaller than a sheet of paper. I looked around my shop and picked up a piece of cherry and began work. In hindsight, I'm not sure such a hard wood was a good choice for my first project with that thickness. The piece needed a very small blade (#5) and had some challenging turns/
Read more