June 1, 2007 Nuthatch Display

There are sometimes days when things just don’t work out. Today rain, shopping, and a need to identify a wildflower kept me in the yard once I got home.

The wildflower was a wild hyacinth. Beautiful pale blue flowers. My mom was the botanist. She knew her herbaceous plants. Sometimes it is good to save things for later. Fun to keep learning throughout one’s life. For me I hope I continue to find new things to learn my whole life.

I continue to be astounded how many different kids of wild flowers are in my yard. I know they are here for one reason. I use almost no chemicals. This allows these native pants to thrive. Because I don’t weed. that is remove any plants not in the lawn, I don’t remove any wild flowers. I do go after 5 plants because I need to keep them from overrunning they others. Poison ivy, which I treat topically with systemic herbicide, Glossy Buckthorn, which I cut and apply the same to the stump to kill the roots. Raspberry, which I cut back, and chokeweed which I pull. I also have a minimal tolerance to thistles. I sometimes try to cut them before they seed. I have been successful in some parts of the yard with this strategy, unsuccessfully in others.

On my feeder a confrontation, between a Rose-breasted Grosbeak and a White-breasted Nuthatch. The Nuthatch has an interesting aggression display. It will spread its wings exposing the under wings. It then rocks back and forth. This both makes the bird appear larger and show a a black against white pattern. I did a little drawing of what It think this might look like. Vaguely like the face of a Raccoon.

The Grosbeak and smaller Nuthatch have a stand off for about 2 minutes. The Grosbeak then tires of this and chases the Nuthatch off the feeder.