Dickcissels - meet "progress"

Dickcissel (male)

Dickcissels

The colorful, melodious Dickcissel (pronounced "dik-sizzle") lives from central Texas all the way north through Minnesota and North Dakota.  But not in Denton, although it used to be abundant here. Ten or fifteen years ago the birds were abundant in the Denton area. The epicenter seemed to be the Rayzor Ranch, at University & I-35, where thousands of them lived in the tall grass, amid the Longhorns. That's all gone now, and the only Dickcissels are a few found in fields on the outskirts of town.

They are late migrators, arriving (if at all) in late April from their winter homes in Central and northern South America.  Here, during breeding season, they feed on both insects and seeds, and make nests amid tall prairie grasses (over a dozen grass species are suitable, bluestem and indiangrass among them).

Dickcissel (male)

The male looks a bit like a small Meadowlark. If you've seen one, remember the moment and think about the price of progress.

If you control insects with ladybugs (and lots of us do) I recommend that you release them in your yard at dusk.  Why? The domestic varieties want, instinctively, to return to their place of birth - often the foothills of the Rockies. They don't fly at night, so by releasing them at dusk, they'll stay around long enough to lay lots of eggs; and they won't get eaten by hungry birds.

Asian ladybugs began to be imported several years ago. They want to get in your house, and can be a nuisance. I recommend you not buy them! If the merchant where you shop doesn't know where they're from, shop elsewhere.


This past October 9th I ran a pucture of a brownish native plant asking "is this plant really dead?" It wasn't.  It had gone into dormancy in August, due to our extreme heat. It's a Wafer Ash, and it greened up just fine about two weeks ago.

Believe it or not, Hummingbird nests can expand as they grow

Hummingbird nests expand in size to snugly fit the occupants. Of course, the nest never gets "large" since the occupants themselves never get very large.  The nest starts out quite tiny, as shown in the picture to the left. 

The nests are built largely with strands from spider webs, which stretch. The Hummingbirds avoid getting it stuck all over themselves by selecting only certain strands. Specific strands of the web, those that are structural, are non-sticky (unlike most of the web). Hummingbirds know which is which.

They do use the sticky strands for the outside of the nest. To this they can stick tiny bits of lichen or bark to camouflage the nest.



Unwanted animals, including neighborhood dogs, often get into storage bins, bird nests, trash cans and so on. A low-cost remedy is plain old household ammonia.    Inexpensive!

Just soak a rag in some ordinary ammonia and fasten it nearby. Raccoons, dogs, squirrels, cats, rats etc. hate the smell and won't stick around. Birds, which have a very, very poor sense of smell, have no idea it's there.

Controlling Fire Ants safely without synthetic chemicals

Fire Ant mound

Fire ants, an imported plague, are hurriedly building mounds about now. I control them naturally instead of putting chemical poisons around. I'm certainly no entomologist but this homemade solution has always worked well for us.

quickly stick something (and
remove it) into the center
of the mound before pouring

I use a mixture of 40% orange oil, 40% compost tea and 20% liquid molasses. Shake. (Then it needs to sit for about a half-day to blend completely)   Mix about 8 ounces of this mixture with a gallon of water. Then I drench the ants' mound with it, making sure it soaks deep into the ground and doesn't just run off.

This stuff won't harm pets, children or birds. If your nursery doesn't stock these safe, natural ingredients, you might want to reconsider shopping there. 

Yes, birds eat ants. Fire Ants, however, are a relatively new introduction to their world.  It may take a few hundred years of evolution before they can handle Fire Ants.


Birdseed gets blamed a lot for killing grass. The truth, however, is that there is absolutely nothing in birdseed that kills grass (Scott's/Miracle-Grow had put something in theirs that poisons birds, but they got caught and stopped). But any birdseed killing grass is a total myth!

Grass sometimes dies beneath a birdfeeder when the accumulation of empty seed hulls gets so thick that it acts like a mulch - preventing sunlight from reaching the grass. Result; the grass dies.

Cowbirds don't do it intentionally

Red-winged Blackbird (l.) and
Brown-headed Cowbird (r.). Females

The Brown-headed Cowbird is found in 48 states; open country more than urban environments. The female (shown here) chooses the nest of another bird species. The Cowbird hatchling emerges sooner and is larger, than most other species. It will often shove unhatched eggs out of the nest.

The Cowbird is not intentionally being mean; it is in survival mode. For centuries, it followed herds of wild buffalo and cattle, eating the insects stirred up (hence the name "cow"bird). There was no way the female could incubate her eggs in her own nest, while the herd moved on. So it developed the practice of using other birds' nests.


Cowbirds avoid "parasitizing" the nests of House Finches. Why?? Most baby birds, including Cowbirds, are fed easily-digested insects by their parents. Not House Finches.  House Finches are one of the few birds that feed seeds to their nestlings. Baby Cowbirds cannot handle the all-seed diet.

a very common bird you'll rarely see / Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

It's one of the most common birds in the US - found in every state but Hawaii and North Dakota. It lives in large areas of Canada and Mexico too. But it's not really a "backyard bird". To see one, go for a drive in the country - Red-tailed Hawks commonly sit on fenceposts (trees, signs & phonepoles too).

Or you could check out the streaming "nestcam" of a RTHawk nest in New York, at
www.allaboutbirds.org/cornellhawks  As I write this, the female has laid two eggs, but who knows what has happened since!

On a recent trip to Austin, we saw 5 just between Denton and Ft. Worth, alongside I-35W. There were probably several more we didn't spot, or were flying overhead. A full-grown Red-tailed Hawk might weigh up to 3 lb., so they're hard to miss.

W. Asher Yost & Owen Yost

              On a personal note, Nancy and I were just down in Austin, seeing my (second) grandson for the first time. Beautiful boy and his   wonderful brother Carson.

Oh yes, we saw my son Creighton and his wonderful wife Lindsay too. And Lauren was a huge help.

                                          LIFE IS GOOD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

empty nests: what to do with them

A question I often get  about now concerns "used" bird nests. My answer recognises the fact that we live in The South, with its longer summers and higher heat. 

These combine to spur the growth of microscopic mites, which can pester nestlings mercilessly. And we may even have more mites this coming season since our winter was relatively mild - even for Texas.

My advice is to remove the empty nest from wherever it was, soon after the newborn birds fledge. They will never return! But eggs of mites will hatch in time. So shred the old nest and just scatter the pieces on the ground. The exposed mite eggs will die, and the nest-builder can re-use the shreds if he/she wants.


Friends of mine, and me, will stop our cars and take action whenever we see a turtle making its way slowly across a road. Without being picked up and moved, it probably wouldn't make it across.


If you do this too, please make sure you relocate the turtle to the side of the road where it was headed. Otherwise it may just crawl onto the pavement again.

Bat reduction could make food cost more $$$$

Mexican Freetail bats

BATS SAVE US MONEY.  Pest control provided by bats save American agriculture as much as $53 billion a year, according to U.S.G.S. analysis. The flip side of that is: if our native bats didn't provide this service for free, our groceries would certainly cost a lot more.

On a cautionary note, there could be noticeable economic losses (and higher food costs) in the next 4 or 5 years as a result of threats to bat populations, including loss of habitat. Reason: bats eat a tremendous quantity of flying insects that would otherwise ruin crops

Red Yucca

A favorite plant in north Texas is the Red Yucca. Not only because it's colorful and relatively disease-free, also because its appearance is uniquely "Texan" - it looks like it should be growing in the wild west. Actually, it did!

It grew here naturally before the west was "tamed". It still does, in some small areas. But it's often used in landscapes with terrible soil in full sun. It requires almost no care, and lives through drought and temperatures of over 100.