Bird Friendly Backyards

Squirrels love my backyard. Mostly black squirrels. One morning a while back I looked out and saw 18 of 'em! They get sunflower seeds, peanuts and peanut butter.

That's a beautiful butterfly, Sabrina. When we were kids, my sister and I would keep a lookout for cocoons in our yard, then wait for them to hatch out. I don't remember any Black Swallowtails right offhand, but we had lots of Tiger Swallowtails and Monarchs.

Rob wrote:

Squirrels love my backyard. Mostly black squirrels. One morning a while back I looked out and saw 18 of 'em! They get sunflower seeds, peanuts and peanut butter.

When are you going to come and get my squirrel, Rob? Mine squirrel is still hanging around my car!! :sad5:

I'm not sure about this, but does anyone know that squirrels have very bad memories? They seem to always digging people's lawns, looking for their buried nuts.

You're right about the bad memories. Of all the squirrels in my yard, not a single one has ever remembered my birthday. :sillySmiley:

Your avatar is just beautiful, Sabrina! Makes me 'think Spring'...and that's a good thing! Your kids are lucky to have a mom so involved with nature!

LOL, Lily...yes, MY squirrels have very bad manners! Their mommies certainly haven't taught them very well! And they're theives too!

Rob wrote:

You're right about the bad memories. Of all the squirrels in my yard, not a single one has ever remembered my birthday. :sillySmiley:

And after all you do for them! Feed them day after day, and what do you get for it? Heartache! Nothing but heartache!


We don't see many black squirrels here. Mostly we have the red squirrels, and gray squirrels. But about a mile from here, there are a lot of the black squirrels! The red squirrels in my yard love to tease the cats. They'll come right by the window, and walk past it, right in view of the cats. It drives Thomas nuts! He loves to go out and chase squirrels, birds, other cats . . . . anything that moves. Last year, though, one bird got tired of being chased, and dive-bombed Thomas. He hasn't chased a bird since! :Hahaha:

Here's a black squirrel.



The Red Squirrel



And the Gray Squirrel

I"ve also seen flying squirrels in the backyard at night. Here's an actual one...



And an artist's rendition...

Talk about artistic license.

That first picture amazes me, Rob - that squirrel is in somebody's HOUSE!

How cool that you've seen some in your backyard!

Those flying squirrels look so weird and neat at the same time!! lol
I can see them gliding from tree to tree

I didn't know flying squirrels! What a weird animal!

Vanesa.

Vanesa wrote:

What a weird animal!

Vanesa.

Yes... but you have not really seen weird until you have checked this list out.

Weird, Weirder, Weirdest

I think someone should check out Rob's house. He seems to have an amazing slew of animals.

I've seen red squirrels and gray squirrels, but never black and flying. I've love to see a flying squirrel though. That'd be pretty cool.

That's neat that you and your family hatched a lot of black swallowtails! (That sounds funny!) Late fall I found a monarch caterpillar on one of my photography trecks and brought it home with me. That was a lot of fun to watch and photograph . I'll have to try planting some parsley near my flower garden. I didn't realize that black swallowtails laid eggs on them.

This is a photo of the hummers I see.

Wow, that's a beautiful pic!

Yep! We're a bird friendly house! We have a feeder up which the birds love. We fill it with the sunflower seeds and they can finish everything in a couple days. I'm always filling the feeder. We also have squirrels who love the seeds so we had to squirrel proof the feeder..they still search the ground around it for seeds. There's also a small pond in our backyard..that attracts the birds, squirrels, groundhogs, neighborhood cat. They just all get along.

Last spring we had like 4 nests, a couple in the back and a couple in the front. They were robins nests. Never had that before. I loved watching the babies grow. There were some nerve wracking times where I thought they'd fall out. There was one nest that was made in our trellis and it wasn't that deep. Unfortunately only one baby survived. I tried setting up a net right under the nest so if they fell out it would catch them One fell out before I could set it up, then another fell out after I put the net up..unfortunately he slipped through a small opening and fell to the ground. He was still alive and I put him back in the nest. Checked on him when the momma left the nest for food and he had died so I took him and buried him. The third one fell, was caught...was ok..then he fell out again and into the netting but something must have poked him during his fall and he died shortly after that..had to bury him. The last one was ok and he flew off. It was a very stressful few weeks for me and my husband, we were always checking on the babies. Before the winter I took the nest down and cut some branches from the rose bush growing over our trellis so a bird won't build a nest there again. I don't think I could take another one being there. It was upsetting to see these baby birds die.

Lol, Carol! Thank you for the link! I loved all those strange animals. O know some of them ( as Alpaca and Tapir and Armadillo...the last one is called "Peludo" here, in Argentina and it can only be found in certain provinces. In Uruguay, I've seen a GIGANTIC one! ) However, I've never seen some of these beats. Aye-Aye and Dumbo-Octopus are my favorite ones! Dumbo Octopus is very handsone...he has BLUE EYES!!!

Vanesa.

Ok, so I clicked on Carol's link and I think I'm going to have nightmares tonight! Some of those animals totally freaked me out! Eek..the star nosed mole...and the BLOB FISH!!! YIKES!! LOL, I like the red panda though! He's cute! Oh, and then there's the Komondor dog...ROFL...how would you like to have THAT hair!!

Rob wrote:

I"ve also seen flying squirrels in the backyard at night. Here's an actual one...



And an artist's rendition...

I'm sorry, but that is weird & will probably give me nightmares. If hubby wakes me up while I'm standing up in bed battling unseen squirrel forces, I'll tell its cause Rob posted a picture!