Riddle: How Many Barbary Doves can you fit into a small Birdhouse Feeder?

The answer:    Plenty!

This was the scene at one of our birdhouse feeders, this morning.  As you can see, there's even room for more on the roof.  Yes, I put feed on the roof as well, because otherwise they just stand on top of each other in the little house. There's no such thing as 'personal space' for these guys.

 This is what two birdhouse feeders looked like this morning.  At this point, a lot of them were still up in the tree (see it's leaves to the right of the picture) because an unknown sound had scared them all into flying up there. Bit by bit they returned to the feeders. They're funny little things.

The white doves are Barbary Doves, commonly called Ring Necked Doves in our corner of the world. We've heard them called 'Collar Doves' in England.
They are sociable, gentle, curious and friendly and we love having them in our garden.

Our other dovey friends are  Malay Spotted Doves . At our place we call them "Brownies" for short.  These gentle, nervous, creatures are so pretty.  Unlike the Barbary Doves, who'll eat anywhere that the food is laid out, the "Brownies" seem to strictly be ground feeders so I always throw a  scoopful of food on the lawn for them.

When we first moved into our property it seemed that, for the first four December/January periods, someone was setting out to poison these lovely birds. We'd find them dead on the deck, or on the driveway, on the lawn, on the path, in the garden. One year a mother and half grown baby died within two hours of one another, in front of our eyes. The mother had crawled into our shed and the baby sat beside her while mother suffered huge spasms and died. Then two hours later the same thing happened to the baby. What had grown to be a population of about fifteen doves, during each year, was cut back to about three doves in the new year..

This past December/January it seemed that no Brownie Doves were poisoned.  They carried on happily into the new year and at the moment we have about twenty of them coming in for the feeding frenzy, morning and night. In between times they either lie on the lawn and sun their wings, or disappear into the trees. They are peaceful, pretty, birds and we love having them around.

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CATERPILLAR UPDATE:

On a sad note, the two monarch caterpillars I took into the house last week, died.  Both were already very sluggish when I took them inside and after only 2 days they succumbed.

On a positive note, the chrysalis carries on well and, guess what?  Yesterday I found at least four caterpillars happily munching on our outdoor swan plants and one is quite large.
The wasps had a field day on these swan plants during Summer and we had no caterpillars on the plants,  whatsoever.  Now it seems the wasps have cleared off and  a few late-in-the-season caterpillars are growing happily.

Isn't it nice to know that Nature still has some positive surprises up her sleeve?

Our last 3 Caterpillars of the Season

It's May and our weather is changing at last.
Whilst still not at all cold, after a long and very dry Summer we now have rain - and rain - and rain.
Our square feet of paradise became super-dry over Summer and the ground cracked badly. Some plants and trees died through lack of water (we collect our own water in a large tank and then have to buy water when we run low, so I tend not to water the majority of the garden through this time). Our lawn died back to a fawn-brown colour, however a bonus of all the dryness was that the weeds didn't grow either  :-)

In the last few weeks we've had rain and it's amazing how quickly the lawn has regenerated and some trees have sent out new shoots.

Also in the last few weeks there have been very few monarch butterflies seen in our garden.  We released one butterfly 2 weeks ago and that left only 4 caterpillars on the plants - last week one of them formed it's chrysalis.

Today I found that one of the last 3 caterpillars had been killed, overnight, by a predator so thought "that does it" and brought the chrysalis and remaining 2 caterpillars into the house.

The caterpillars seem quite sluggish, which I expect is their response to our cooler weather, so I've put the caterpillar castle on a table beside a sunny window. I hope that helps them to feel more lively.

In fact one of them had a great time today, exploring the new environment. I put another plant (growing in a pot) into the castle after taking these photos, and he's crawled over all the plants before finally settling down for the night.

If you're wondering what the dark grey 'post' in the caterpillar castle is, it's a piece of florists block (a stiff foam compound) that we poke toothpicks with attached chrysalis' into.

We've glued the florists block to thin fiberboard (MDF) cut to fit the base of the castle - this keeps the florists block upright and firm.  I've then added a 1.5cm deep, piece of regular foam with bubble wrap plastic on top. This sits on the MDF to provide a soft waterproof base.  The idea is to protect any caterpillar "J's" that might fall down during their wriggling houdini trick of forming a chrysalis. The attachment might be a cotton bud, say, that I've used to help caterpillars that have fallen down after forming into a J.    If they're on a cottonbud (see below), I find that they almost always fall off when forming into a chrysalis.

 

I put the above caterpillar close to the soft base and, yes, he did fall off while forming into his chrysalis.  While the chrysalis was on the ground squirming into shape, I used cotton thread to quickly tie the top of the cremaster onto the end of a toothpick.  I then poked the toothpick into the florists block while he finished his task.  He formed a perfect chrysalis and later emerged as a perfect butterfly.

In bringing our chrysalis inside, today, I made sure that I pulled away as much of the web-gossamer that he had spun when attaching himself to the plant, and then wound that around the end of a toothpick, which I poked into the florists block.  I've poked it up quite high, to give the emerging butterfly plenty of hanging room for its wings to dry when it emerges.

For our little charges, all is well as they stay safe and dry in the caterpillar castle this evening, while the heavy rain and wind rages outside.

We've got Monarch Caterpillars at Opua at last :-)

We've got monarch caterpillars at Opua after some years of having none whatsoever.
Paper wasps are the culprits, we reckon.  I've tried all sorts of traps, some ingredients being quite pongy, yet nothing has kept them away.  We've removed a few small nests that we've found in plants or under eaves, yet there have always been plenty of the wasps and no monarch caterpillars.

When we bought the cottage in 2007 (our holiday retreat), we had a great crop of monarchs that first Summer. There were self-seeded swan plants all over the property, so I moved most of them to an old garden area and the plants did well.  Before long we had caterpillars by the dozen.

I planted a vege garden beside the swan plants and the caterpillars enjoyed venturing off amongst the pea vines and lettuces.  Some even formed their J and chrysalis amongst the peas and emerged looking wonderful.

This was my first real experience with Monarchs, so I became concerned when they went walkabout during the day.  I'd find them down the plants on the dirt, or walking along the garden a long way from their plants. I would helpfully put them back onto a swan plant, only to find they'd walk straight off it.  In the end I left them alone and noticed how they always went back to the swan plants at night, which was a relief to this novice.  Clearly, they knew better than me.

Here are some of our first chrysalis' and one gorgeous butterfly newly emerged (2007)

Since that first Summer, despite there being plenty of swan plants, we've not had one single caterpillar on the plants at Opua, so why do we have some now?

We think it might be because, just before we left for home the last time we were here, we removed 3 large wasps nests we hadn't been aware of before.  Having said that, there are wasps buzzing about this morning, but somehow the caterpillars have escaped them and are growing well.

So now just look (I took these pics this morning)

Its not the best time of year for these fellows to be so young and growing, because we're coming into Winter.  Fortunately air temperatures are warmer at Opua, compared to the rest of the country.  This region is referred to as "the Winterless North", so they might just stand a chance of surviving until maturity.

Before I go, I'll show you this beautiful place.  Opua is in the far north of New Zealand, in the Bay of Islands,  it's wharf being the first obligatory stop for smaller vessels coming into New Zealand to be checked by Customs officers.

This is a photograph I took early this morning, with the misty clouds folding down around the distant hills and the water glistening silver.

Until next time :-)

Our Birds - Their Food - Their Garden

Our few square feet of paradise is usually rather full of birds.
In fact we've pretty much made over a specific part of the property to our birds - and why not?
We've made bird perches, set up hanging feeders and little house feeders, water bowls and (of course) the bird bath which acts as both drinking fountain and bathing pool.

This is one of the bird houses (we have 2 the same) to which we've added 4 perches to allow the birds somewhere to land.  The feeder house has worked so well that we recently bought a second house the same (and added perches to that one as well).

We crumbled "Top Flight" energy truffles into this feeder, which went down a treat with the doves and sparrows.

In addition to the two houses, we have 5 free standing perches dotted around our "bird" area, strategically positioned near to the bird houses, the hanging feeders and the bird bath. 
We made these from broom handle parts bought at the local hardware chain, Bunnings. 
Although not easy to see, you might notice that there's a perch rear-left of the birdhouse in this picture below. 

Each perch comprises a large (i.e. fat) broom handle that has a thinner broom handle attached across the top (i.e. the thinner broom handle is cut into 3 pieces about 60cm long, so you get 3 complete perches out of 3 fat handles and 1 thin handle - we use a thin handle for the top cross piece because it's easier for the birds feet to grip onto).

Then we have hanging feeders. We tried Top Flite wild bird energy cake in the little hanging 'cage' feeder and the sparrows went wild for that.  We put Wild Bird energy pellets into the pale green hanging feeder, but that didn't work at all and none were eaten.  Later we put the pellets into one of the feeder houses and they were gone in a flash.

Birds seem to have seasons, just like the trees and plants. During some parts of the year there'll be a lot of one type of bird, at other times there'll be a lot of another type of bird.  The doves go all year round, as do the sparrows.
Whatever the time of year, there are always many different types of birds in our birdy garden.


Sparrows are aplenty at all times.

They especially love the hanging seed bell.

Tui comes in for a bath every day and seems to have an eye for when the bird bath has just been cleaned and refilled. Within 5 minutes of that happening, he's there, drinking, bathing, fluffing, shaking his feathers and generally giving himself a wonderful bath time.

Wood Pigeon regularly comes for a drink.

We get the occasional seagull.

There are chaffinches.

We have several kingfishers coming in to catch crickets off the lawn.

Sometimes there's even a magpie or two.

Mainly we have doves and more doves.  These ones are Barbary Doves, commonly called (in these parts)  ring neck doves.  I know that in some countries they're referred to as collar doves.

These guys think they own us and can be quite cheeky, landing on our heads or our shoulders at times.

They hang about in the trees, in the early morning and evening, looking starved and expectant and giving us the hurry up  :-)

If we don't appear when they think we should, they come up to the house to hurry us along.

We also have a few Malay Spotted Doves.  There's not as many as the Barbary Doves and these guys are timid and keep their distance.  They seem to be ground feeders and, rather than joining the other doves in the feeder houses, they eat up scraps through out of the houses by the white doves.

Then, of course, we have ducks..............

and more ducks...........

They even bring their babies.

Birds love water - they drink it, they swim in it and they bathe in it.  You'd be amazed at how much fresh water the ducks actually drink.


What's the moral of the story? 
Give them what they want to eat and drink and give them plenty. 
Give them perches to land on, preen on, sit on, chatter on. 
Give them all sorts of different feeding stations and, of course, give them food.

They might not thank you for it and might just keep demanding more but, more than anything else, they'll reward you by coming back and back and will most certainly delight you with their antics.

Seeds Update - they're all growing !

The seeds are up!
I'm talking about both the seeds in the plastic bottle self watering growers, and also the seeds I threw around the new butterfly garden.

The seeds are up, in the plastic bottle self watering growers.

The seeds I planted in the plastic bottle self watering growers, are up!
I have the bottles in a plastic crate, and we're keeping them inside our house right beside a window. 
By having them in the plastic crate, it's been easy to move them around and anything that drops out of the pots, just falls into the solid base of the crate rather than on the floor.  The string wick idea has maintained a constant soft moistness to the soil, despite the sun being on them during the day.  I did have to top up the water in each bottle, at one stage, which shows the idea is working.

                              


BUTTERFLY GARDEN UPDATE:

The butterfly garden is going really well. Here's a picture I took of it this morning.

The little creeper on the trellis (Blushing Susie  - Thunbergia Alata) is flowering sweetly. I chose it to retain a small size and look pretty.

Blushing Susie  - Thunbergia Alata

All the plants in the garden have had new flowers and some of the seeds, I threw around, are up.   
I'm not sure which seeds are up, because I threw several different packets of seeds around on the soil.

And then there's the butterfly.  I found a little ceramic butterfly, in a garden centre having a closing down sale.  Before putting it up, I sprayed it with a clear gloss to protect it from the weather.  I like it because it's small and understated, yet eye catching.  If you go back and look at my butterfly garden picture you'll see it on the top corner of the trellis, far right. 

Butterfly Welcome - do you think butterflies can read?