A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 What birds did you see today?

Kaytee is a GOOD brand! I buy whatever's cheapest. Rabbits do NOT like carrots! They do however LOVE lettuce, weeping willow branches, clover, apples, and CHOCOLATE!!!!

Here I am with my Sibley's

Thorn Working Hard (so you don't have to)

LOL !!!!

Your rabbits eat chocolate? I thought it's toxic to all animals except some cocoa bean eating monkey.
Do you mean your wild rabbits or tame pets?
The way I learned that rabbits like birdseed is that years ago I had a birdfeeder in a tree but no birds used it.
I kept hanging it lower and lower, and one night saw a rabbit pulling it down and eating the seeds.
So from then on it was true love and I feed the rabbit and her family and friends every evening.
Figured out apples by the process of elimination-just kept tossing onto the clean grass different foods 'til I saw the one they like-apples.
BTW, they won't touch the green ones, which I bought because they're cheaper. They will eat only Washington Delicious and Galas.
People freak out to see how calm the rabbits are and how close they come to me.
What I love best is their trust, which has taken YEARS. When we hear a dog bark somewhere, they all get scared, but when I talk soothingly they calm down and resume eating. Talk about a thrill.
Do yours drink water? Westerns won't touch it, even on the hottest days. I keep the grass they eat soaking wet-much to the horror of our water folks, I'm sure.... (And tough turnips!)

Deborah, the western meadowlark is one of my favorite birds too. I used to live in the country in Clovis, CA, before my husband retired and the meadowlark's song were the most beautiful sound during the day.

I have eastern towhees in my woods here. They are pretty shy and I only see them in the winter when we have snow. Then they come to the feeder. I had to take my feeders down because rats came. I am trying to decide where to put them this winter. I think far from the house as we killed 14 Norway rats. I didn't want to kill them because I thought there was just one and he was cute but then I saw smaller ones and then they tried to chew into the house. The pest control guy said it is because we live near the water. They are the wharf rats. They loved birdseed too.

Wow you are afraid of the ocean! I am respectful but not afraid. The shorebirds in CA are so plentiful. When our son got married in Santa Barbara, I saw and photographed night herons, a willet, long billed curlews, brown pelicans, brown gulls, grebes etc. It was fantastic.

My pet male lop-eared rabbit, Two Bean Bags has been eating semi-sweet chocolate drops with me for a year. I see no harm so far. He LOVES them. And he LOVES Apples, too.

TWO BEAN BAGS

Gailo, I had some bad experiences as a child and had dreadful nightmares all of my life until I began to pray about them and now I'm nightmare free ! (But I still will not ever go near the beach).
Thornius, what a cutie ! What's the reason for his name-his ears?
Does he eat real rabbit food?
Is it true that rabbits can be litter box trained?
I wonder how that's done, the teaching them part.

We bought Two Beans for my 5 year old grandson and when we asked him what he wanted to name the bunny, he looked around the room and saw his two bean bag chairs by the wall and said, "I will name him Two Bean Bags." That has been his name ever since. He does eat real rabbit food. I buy 50 pounds of Manna Pro rabbit food at Tractor Supply Company for $10.00. a fifty pound bag lasts him 3-6 months. All rabbits litter train themselves. They find one area they want to use and use that area from then on. Two Bean's area is the back right corner of his cage. He runs through the house like a dog or cat but LOVES his cage and spends 2/3 of his time in it and always goes to his cage to use the bathroom. Rabbits don't have to be taught they are 10 to 100 times cleaner than a cat and delight in constantly grooming themselves. They are EXTREMELY particular on the arranging of familiar items, and I have had Two Beans attack and bite me furiously if I mess up the arrangement of his cage or toys. (Had to go to the ER for stitches for the bites, too. Those bunny teeth are SHARP!!! )

Here are some more Two Beans pictures:

A BIG BUNNY KISS


THE WINNER BY A NOSE


STAND IN THE PLACE THAT YOU ARE

Great shots ! He is really cute !
That's so darling, the little boy naming the rabbit.

OMG......Too cute

I just had a Coopers Hawk attack the birds at my feeder!

Thorn, where's the picture? Cooper's are so pretty. Today I had golden-crowned kinglets visit.

What a great close up photo !
That's a pretty bird-do I have them here?
Hmmmm... maybe I should Google and quit being lazy and asking you and Thorny !

Didn't have my camera with me. Was just checking the temperature and NEVER expected to see a Coopers. I imagine he will start hanging around now. I'll try to get a picture.

Deborah, You have both Golden-Crowned AND Ruby-Crowned Kinglets. You have the best chance of seeing themi mid-Autumn to Early spring; about right now through mid to end of April. Do a Google Image Search on these two species. They are quite lovely and EXTREMELY tame. I have often walked up to within 12 inches of a Ruby-Crowned.

OK, I'll do the Google search today. Thanks !

Here is a Ruby-Crowned Kinglet I took in the Burning Bush by my front window during the ONLY snowstorm we got in 2006. I took this in February of 2006. Note the red cap.

RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET

There are some close-up pics of ruby crowned kinglets in this section on page 5.

I've never seen this one, but I believe you when you say we have them here.
Great shots !

Kinglets, like many birds, are VERY habitat specific. If you want to see Kinglets, Deborah, you need to go to their favorite habitat, which is the beach. At the beach they engage in their favorite activity, which is surfing on Abalone shells. You can see them far off the shore hanging ten (or hanging eight in the case of birds) on the edge of a colorful shell as the shoot the tube. Their call sounds very similar to, "Cow-a-BUNG-a doooood". Got to the shore if you want to see Kinglets. (Just teasing you Deborah. To find Kinglets look in brushy, thick, old growth forests. They also like to hang out in thick understory brush,like my burning bush hedge.)

LOL ! You got me ! I was reading along and thinking, "NO WAY !"
Good one ! You really did get me !

Actually, their call actually sounds like. :Tsii-tsii-tsii" The Ruby-Crowned Kinglet's Springtime song is a sweet, Heart-achingly BEAUTIFUL
crescendo of triplets and slurring warbling tones with an almost angelic feel.. I've heard it several times in person myself. Go to bird song recordings on Google and put in Ruby_Crowned Kinglet to hear it.

Big flocks of Robins have been visiting my property this week. I also saw a flock of mourning doves yesterday or the day before which seemed unusual. I don't know that I've ever seen a whole flock of them before. There was probably a dozen of them or more. Usually, there are just a pair or two of them. Also, today and once more within the past week, I saw a Yellow-Rumped Warbler. I think I flushed an owl as I was approaching home from work tonight. It was too quick for me to identify it, but it was fairly small, so I'm guessing it was a screech owl. The Cedar Waxwings have been up in the White Pines near my house feasting on wild grapes. They have already devoured all the berries on my dogwood trees. My mom who lives a few miles away, said she probably had a hundred of them eating from a deciduous holly at the edge of her property.

Robins flock in HUGE flocks this time of year and switch from a diet of earthworms to a diet of berries, especially hackberries. Yellow-Rumped Wablers are one of the few species of warblers that are here in the Wintertime. Cedar Waxwings are back in Tennessee after the Summer to strip our trees of berries. I personally don't see many Waxwings until May when I get HUNDREDS in my yard for the WHOLE month of May. I have several Mulberry trees in my yard that the Waxwings, Robins and Mockingbirds glut themselves on for a month.