Birds

Introducing #FlockFriday

I thought I’d experiment with a new weekly feature on this blog: Flock Friday. I will try to post a selection of photos related to the assortment of avians around the homestead each Friday. Can’t let the cats have all the fun of a weekly feature!

For now, I’m just adding the pictures in chronological order. In the future, I might group by kind or something.

Let’s start with the chicks; one flew onto the waterer:

Chicks

Better seen animated; here’s a GIF:

Chick flying GIF

We just got a couple of new feeders for the wild birds (the second from the left, and the rightmost); both are squirrel-proof, so they close when a weight is on them, which will hopefully also stop the pigeons from cleaning them out:

Bird feeders

On to the ducklings; I got a new paint roller tray that seems to work better; easier access, and more capacity for swimming:

Ducklings swimming

Ducklings swimming

Here’s a pond cam shot of me spending time with the ducklings:

David with the ducklings

Big enough for all of them for now… but not for long!

Ducklings swimming

Another wild bird (swallow, I think) drinking from the pond by swooping low over it, dipping its beak in:

Bird & fish

It’s nice to be able to spend time with the ducklings and feed the fish at the same time:

Fish

Another visitor to the pond, the heron:

Heron

Last night the heat lamp in the duck house burnt out just after this:

Ducklings

Ducklings

Fortunately, the ducklings were all fine; they’re old enough now, and it wasn’t excessively cold last night, that it wasn’t too cold for them.

I changed the lamp with a spare as soon as I saw it was out (and have ordered more spares):

Changing heat lamp

Back to the chicks:

Chick with treat

Chicks

Chicks

Let’s not forget the older chickens, too:

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Finally, let’s wrap up with more of the ducklings:

Ducklings swimming

Ducklings swimming

Hand-feeding treats:

Treats

Treats

Treats

Any more treats?

Any more treats?

More swimming:

Ducklings swimming

Ducklings swimming

I hope you enjoyed this post. Let me know what you think in the comments on the blog, Micro.blog, Twitter, etc.

Cat update for week ending June 8

I’m back from San Jose, and catching up with things… including reviewing the cat cam footage for the week (or as many days as the cameras record; it varies based on memory card capacity and camera resolution).

Here’s Portabella requesting breakfast:

Portabella

Another encounter with the orange cat; it’s being quite a menace:

Orange cat encounter

A good stretch:

Stretch

This is a funny expression; she looks startled, but is actually just in the middle of licking her lips after eating:

Mid-licking lips

One of the cats threw up outside the feeder, and a scrub jay was helping itself:

Bird

However, things didn’t go as planned for the bird; a cat was inside the shelter, and chased it. Here’s a sequence of motion-blurred images, of the bird flying into the feeder, chased by the cat, then out again between the cats legs. Don’t worry, the bird got away:

Cat and bird

Cat and bird

Cat and bird

Cat and bird

A few hours later, another bird, a steller’s jay, came to finish off the food; I guess it didn’t see what happened to the other one:

Bird

It was more successful, and also helped itself to extra cat food. They are such pretty birds:

Bird

Two cats eating breakfast:

Two cats eating

Two cats inside the shelter:

Two cats inside

Four cats inside; three upstairs, one down:

Four cats inside

Three cats snuggling on the heating pad:

Snuggles

One cat scratching the tree, while two are in the feeder, and one on the deck:

Scratching tree

I hadn’t seen all five cats for a while, so was pleased to see them here (one outside, one in the shelter, three in the feeder):

Five cats

Three cats inside when another arrives:

Four cats inside

Snuggle pile:

Snuggles

Cat update for week ending June 1

We may have new chicks and ducklings, but let’s not forget the cats! A Caturday between the Hawaii and WWDC trips.

Four cats on a foggy morning:

Four cats

Three cats inside:

Three cats inside

Pepper in the shop; this is the last shot of her from this camera, as it has been moved into the duck house, as was originally intended; I was just using this for her until it was needed there. (There’s another lower-res camera over by her food, but it doesn’t record as reliably.)

Pepper in the shop

An encounter with the alien orange cat:

Orange cat encounter

Orange cat encounter

The orange cat in turn had an encounter with an inquisitive deer:

Orange cat and deer

A cat in the feeder:

Cat in feeder

One eating, one waiting on the deck:

Cat in feeder

A sleepy Poppy in the shelter:

Cat inside

A cat arrives while others are eating breakfast:

Cat arrives

A comfy Poppy again:

Cat inside

A scrub jay keeps visiting the feeder and taking food (could be multiple, who knows); one day it might end badly for it:

Bird in feeder

Two cats in the feeder:

Cats in feeder

Another orange cat encounter. It arrived (barely visible off to the left):

Orange cat encounter

And four cats scattered:

Orange cat encounter

There’s the bird again:

Bird

Cat update for week ending May 25

Just because we’re in Hawaii, doesn’t mean you need to suffer the loss of a Caturday post! Here’s a post with pictures from the few days before we left.

It’s bothered me since building the cat house that the signs weren’t very readable, as they just had a stain without any color difference of the carved lettering (you can see them towards the end of this construction post). So I recently used a marker to color the lettering, making them much more visible:

Cat house

Here’s a closer view. The coloration of the scull shape is just natural weathering:

Cat house

Breakfast time:

Breakfast time

A scrub jay has visited several times to grab some kibble out of the feeder:

Scrub jay

Going back for more:

Scrub jay

A squirrel:

Squirrel

The squirrel leapt onto the camera housing. Flying squirrel!

Squirrel leaping

Oh yeah, this is supposed to be a cat post. Here are the twins:

Twin cats

Two happy cats inside:

Cats inside

The alien orange cat has been visiting a lot recently. Here he is inside the shelter:

Orange cat inside

Another time, the orange cat arrived when a cat was inside. Harsh words and swipes were exchanged, and the cat rapidly exited through the back door:

Orange cat facing cat inside

The next morning, the orange cat arrived when Porcini was obliviously eating in the feeder:

Orange cat with cat in feeder

Orange cat with cat in feeder

They didn’t exchange any words, but the orange cat wandered off after a minute:

Orange cat with cat in feeder

Then he ate a bit:

Orange cat in feeder

But was startled by more food dispensing:

Orange cat startled

Pepper in the shop:

Pepper in the shop

The alien gray cat also stopped by briefly:

Gray cat

Another squirrel:

Squirrel

And scrub jay, with food in its beak:

Scrub jay

That’s all for now. I may include some pictures from while we’re away in the post next week; most cameras record about a week’s worth, so I’ll review them when we get home.

Bee water pool

Like any creatures, bees get thirsty. So they have to get water from somewhere, for themselves and their hive. They also use water to control the humidity of the hive, as part of the process of making honey.

We have a big pond they can drink from, but it’s easy for bees to drown if they’re not careful. We also have a stream, and in summer a swimming pool, but those aren’t ideal water sources either (Jenn has rescued several bees from the pool when swimming).

So we also have a small kiddie pool that has rocks in it to act as safe landing zones for the bees. It is by the closest tap to the hives, near the greenhouse. Bees will fly for miles to find water, but if they have a ready source close to the hive, they don’t need to go to less ideal places.

The pool was immediately below the tap, but that made it hard to turn it on to top up the pool, when lots of bees are buzzing around. So I recently added a splitter and a couple of short hoses; one going into the pool, which can now be a bit further away, and another for use when working in the greenhouse (until I get around to adding taps in there):

Hoses and bee water pool

I also added a couple of bits of wood as additional landing pads for the bees:

Bee water pool

As a temporary thing, I set up the mobile cam above the pool, so I could watch the bees using it, just for fun. In the above picture, you can see the beehives and greenhouse in the background, to give a better idea of the location.

One interesting observation was that birds and cats also take advantage of the water source. Here’s a crow drinking from the bee pool:

Bird drinking from bee water pool

A cat drinking:

Cat drinking from bee water pool

Bees drinking from the pool; notice some on the wood, some around the edge, and a bunch on the rocks:

Bees drinking from bee water pool

If I zoom in on the pile of rocks, you can more clearly see lots of bees:

Zoom on bees

A crow drinking again; it doesn’t care about the bees:

Bird drinking from bee water pool

Another cat:

Cat drinking from bee water pool

The crow decided to walk across the platforms, somewhat unsuccessfully:

Bird walking in bee water pool

Cat update for week ending May 11

Welcome to another Caturday.

A good yawn:

Good yawn

Four cats:

Four cats

Big stretch:

Stretch

Dinner greetings:

Dinner greetings

An alien cat:

Alien cat

Three cats; eyes in the dark:

Three cats

Breakfast:

Breakfast

A scrub jay helping itself to cat food, several times:

Bird

Pepper contemplating her water dish in the shop:

Pepper in the shop

The scrub jay returns:

Bird

I currently have the mobile camera watching the small pond next to the cat house, as it recently had a leak where water was overflowing the liner of the stream, causing the water level to go down quickly. The camera was so I could see when it was low and top it up. I’ve since fixed the leak, but have left the camera there for now. It captured a cat drinking from that pond:

Cat drinking from pond

They have a water dispenser in the feeder area, but I’m sure pond water is tastier. Here’s the cat looking through the grasses:

Cat by pond

Pond pump tweak

A quick pond update.

The pond pump fell (or was pushed) over again, so again I waded into the pond to right it. This time, I moved it from the lightweight plastic pot it was in into a heavier ceramic one, with some rocks for extra weight:

Pond pump

Here it is in position:

Pond pump

I waded deeper in the pond to clear out some floating debris. It’s hard to tell from the camera, but I’m only about halfway back; it gets much deeper in the back half:

David in pond

We saw the smaller fish this week; great to see lots of little ones. Only a few visible in this picture, but there are many more. They’re about two years old:

Fish

The heron visited again early this morning, and wandered around for about two hours, but didn’t seem to catch anything this time (the streaks in this picture are motion-blurred raindrops):

Heron

Cat update for week ending March 23

There have been regular visits by raccoons and possums, but nothing too dramatic, so I’m not including any pictures of them this time.

Four cats inside the shelter:

Four cats inside shelter

A queue waiting for more breakfast to be dispensed:

Waiting for breakfast

A brave/stupid jay in the cat feeder:

Bird in cat feeder

Three cats:

Three cats

The front shop cat, Pepper, sitting by the duck house:

Shop cat

Two cats in the shelter:

Two cats

Very relaxed cats:

Two cats

Another joins them:

Three cats

A very Poppy face at the water dish, with Porcini relaxing on the ground:

Three cats

Poppy is the mother of the kittens, but she can still be kitten-like at times:

Psycho cat

Too close!

Up close

Cat snuggles:

Cat snuggles

Two cats climbing the tree next to the cat house.  I removed the heated water dish, now that it’s getting warmer; we probably won’t be below freezing again:

Climbing tree

A sequence of three images of jumping down from the roof:

Jumping down

Jumping down

Jumping down

Poppy greets her kids:

Three cats

I saw a new alien cat when reviewing the footage this morning; I don’t think I’ve seen this one before:

New alien cat

Finally, Spud came and stared at me in the office, from the front steps:

Cat on steps

Heron, raccoon, and me in the pond

Some pictures from the big pond.

I recently added a camera that has a view of the pond, in anticipation of having ducks there. It has been interesting to see some of the wildlife that visits the pond.

Apparently raccoons can swim:

Swimming raccoon

We were pretty sure that herons visited the pond, but hadn’t seen one till a couple of days ago, when it was captured via the camera. Here’s a heron landing:

Heron landing

And strolling around in the shallow part of the pond:

Heron in pond

The heron visited again that night; I didn’t realize they were nocturnal hunters too. Here it has a frog, which it ate (sorry about the spiderweb in front of the camera):

Heron with frog

Yesterday I waded into the pond and righted the fountain pump, which had fallen (or was pushed) over, and switched it on:

David in pond

The fountain helps aerate the water. We also have a waterfall and stream, but that tends to make the pond level drop, so we usually don’t have it active.

Here’s the fountain pump:

Pond pump

I noticed one of the water lily baskets on its side, so righted that too, and found several sacs of salamander eggs on it. Interesting how the stalks were trying to compensate for being on its side, too:

Salamander eggs

Here’s a salamander:

Salamander

The pond level was low, so I also turned on the water to the pond taps, and turned on the tap to top up the pond:

Filling pond