House Finch bills are disproportionately strong

Most of us see House Finches in our north Texas yards quite often. Did you know it's a strong bird!!  A Finch can apply about 100 pounds of pressure against a seed; astonishing for a bird that just weighs an ounce or two.

To help even more with seed cracking, the edges of its upper bill are grooved to hold onto a seed securely, and the edge of the lower bill is especially sharp.

While some birds take a single seed at a time from a feeder, and fly away to crack it open, a House Finch will open it right at the feeder.

NOW WE'RE ALL ON THE SAME PAGE.  It used to be that different parts of the country used different names for the very same bird. Today, the American Ornithological Union has the last word - it's the final authority for bird names in this country. So we can e-mail a friend in Vermont, or publish a magazine article read in Montana, and not get muddled up in regionalisms.

As a result, "tree mice" became White-breasted Nuthatches, a "scrapper" became a Ruby-throated Hummingbird and "carrion crow" (which is actually not a crow) became a Black Vulture - nationwide.

Giving Mourning Doves what they want

Mourning Dove

Many of us like hearing the mournful call of the native Mourning Dove; being lessened in some areas of north Texas by the influx of other birds.

Provide Mourning Doves a nesting site and they may repopulate and reappear the following years too!   Here's how:

Start with a 12-inch (dia.) disc of hardware cloth (like "chicken wire") that's cut straight to the center in one place. Pull the disc edges so it forms a shallow "dish". Tie it with wire so it doesn't lose its dish shape.

Fasten it across the fork of a tree limb in a somewhat hidden place. (They like some privacy!)  The spot needs to be shaded, and about 10 to 15 feet high.


   Again this year, I used the simple, mix-it-yourself fire ant "discourager" that I've used for years.  It's non-poisonous to pets, children, birds, etc., safe and inexpensive. (The  mixture is explained in my March 31 post.)  It costs me about a dime per application.

I poured it on the mound and the ants swarmed everywhere. Ten minutes later I checked and couldn't see a single ant moving around; even when I poked what was left of the mound repeatedly with a stick.

Do you know a "Bunny Hugger"?

What to do with a bird that's fallen out of its nest. Almost always, the best thing to do is NOTHING. Certainly don't kidnap the bird and try to make it into a pet.

juvenile Cardinal

A baby bird hardly ever "falls out" of the nest. The mother usually pushes it out when she thinks it's time for the youngster to learn to fly and hunt for food on its own (drawing on millions of years of experience by its avian ancestors).

Chances are if you see a baby bird on the ground, its mother and/or father are very close by, watching attentively, and chirping instructions. The young bird may spend a day or two on the ground before it takes its first flight.


Occasionally it really needs relocating; like if a dog or cat is nearby or it's in traffic. Go ahead and do so gently, putting it down in roughly the same area so the mother can keep teaching it how to be a bird. If you're worried about that silly old fable about a human's scent, don't even consider it. Truth is, most birds have a very poor sense of smell.


"Bunny Hugger" is a term for a well-meaning person who takes a wild animal home, and tries to raise it as a pet, often causing severe injury or death to the animal. Of course, a wild rabbit, bird, lizard, possum, squirrel or whatever is a wild animal, and always will be. Nobody knows better how to raise it than its natural mother.
       The term was popularized in Thomas French's 2010 book, Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives.

Painted Buntings will RARELY come to a feeder

Painted Bunting

The diet of a Painted Bunting is mostly insects; very rarely seed.  Some may not eat seed in their entire lifetime, depending on food availability in their environment. When feeding their young (shown to left), they feed 100% insects!

Painted Bunting

No, it's not someone's escaped pet! Only the male is brightly colored. The female is a dull lime green, so it blends in with the natiral landscape. You'll hardly ever see either at your seed feeder.



The best way to lure one to your yard is with clean birdbaths, not feeders. Like almost all birds, they love splashing around in birdbaths, and will often appear at one while shunning a feeder.

Painted Bunting

WHERE TO PUT A BIRDBATH; GUIDELINES  Let me start by stating the worst and best places for a birdbath. The worst is right in the middle of a lawn, where there is no escape route for bathing birds if a predator appears. The best place is where you can conveniently see it through a window.

The edge of a vegetated area is almost always a good location. (The picture is of a birdbath at my house)  In that location a wet bird (which can't fly very well) can flutter to a nearby branch or into dense vegetation. Thus he or she can quickly escape a predator, like a cat or an unexpected human.

Speaking of cats, birdbaths should be 2 or 3 feet off the ground, making it more difficult for a predator to sneak up on a bathing bird. Birdbaths should also be about 2 inches deep at the most. If the one you have is deeper, just put a rock (or several) in it.

Pigeons, pigeons everywhere!!

Rock Pigeon

Pigeons seem to be everywhere in urban areas.  Why?? In the north Texas climate they breed from February through December (why they take January off, nobody knows). All this lets each adult female pigeon produce an average of 6.5 nestlings per year!

In their haste to reproduce, they don't take time to rebuild nests between broods, like most birds do. Often, fecal pellets from young pigeons accumulate, and help cement the nest together. Unhatched eggs and even bodies of dead nestlings are sometimes incorporated into a nest.




WHAT'S THE MAJOR CAUSE OF BIRD DEATHS?   If you said "cats" guess again. By far the most drastic declines in numbers of birds stems from habitat destruction via human activity. Some call it "development", and much of its impact is unplanned or poorly thought through. The second cause of death is birds crashing into man-made objects such as windows, power lines and wind turbines.    Cats (especially feral) are certainly guilty of something (hunting is in their nature after all) but aren't even close to the top of this list.

Roadrunners' built-in goggles

Greater Roadrunner

Roadrunners often run through some pretty dirty and dusty environments.  Plus, they usually bash their prey repeatedly against something hard to soften it up before eating it. Both activities raise a lot of dust/debris.

So Roadrunners (sometimes called chaparrals) have thin, transparent membranes for the eyes, which they can lower to protect their eyes - sort of like goggles. They can also be used to keep eyes from drying out when the day gets unusually hot.

Greater Roadrunner

The coloring of a hummingbird comes mostly from the density of its feathers and the angle of the sun, not from pigment. These things determine how light is reflected off the feathers, displaying a certain color - or not. That's why a Ruby-throated Hummingbird's throat ("gorget") may appear ruby-red sometimes, and sometimes black.

As it moves around the coloring will change. But don't expect it to move around frequently. A hummingbird spends as much as 80% of its time simply sitting on a perch, surveying the landscape.

Broad-tailed Hummingbird

An adhesive modeled after Geckos

However you feel about Geckos, you have to admire their ability to cling to anything. Scientists at UMass-Amherst did too. Inspired by Geckos, they developed an adhesive that sticks things to most smooth surfaces, holds up to 700 pounds, and can be easily removed (residue-free) and reused.

It's a pad about the size of a note card, called "Geckskin". It has both rigid and flexible components, and can easily be removed from surfaces such as glass, wood, drywall, various plastics, and metal. No trace is left and it can be reused.

Not long ago, I told readers of  "Crape Murder" - the damage that can be done by severely cutting limbs off healthy Crape Myrtles. This needless practice happens every spring, for no reason at all except that it creates busy-work for the  "cutter".


Well I've been watching Crape Myrtles all over north Texas. Out of the ones that were left alone, not one died that I know of.  However, about a third of the Crape Myrtles that were severely "topped", died.  In the worst case, 40% of them died at one institutional site, and the owner is now on the hook to pay for a bunch of new plants.

I'm really dumbfounded. Please tell me why this practice continues, and what the reasoning behind it is !!