Another Day Older
Jul. 6th, 2019 02:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rain_gryphonChef Boyardee's canned pizza sauce makes an excellent instant tomato soup, especially if you like oregano. Bizarrely enough, it's cheaper than Campbell's, too. For some reason, I'd been using Campbell's and adding oregano and red pepper, until the little light bulb finally went on.
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On my way out back to top up the seed tube earlier, I found a dead shrew almost below the Sparrow colony. I thought at first that his head was missing^1, but his spine's been bitten through, and the head is folded under the body. You can see how his upper back was pretty much skinned in the process, with his ribs showing. He's pretty obviously lost a territorial battle. Unlike most birds, shrews don't do the stylized dominance battles where the loser just submits and leaves unhurt.
Strangely enough, I found a dead shrew last Fourth of July too, with his throat torn out. In keeping with the spirit of the day, I blew that one up with fireworks.
^1 And I was having real trouble imagining who would take the head, but leave all the rest of the meat lie there for the ants. Happy day for the ants, certainly.
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The Sparrow babies in the D box, as they were yesterday mid-day. The way it's mounted I couldn't really get a direct look inside, so had to use a mirror. I can see three hatchlings and one egg. I didn't really want to poke around too much in the nest, so there may be more I didn't see. They're maybe a day or two old. They change really fast at that age. I'm not going to inspect the box today, as it's going to rain, and I don't want to drive mom and dad away. I'll prolly have another look tomorrow. If the egg hasn't hatched by then, I'll probably remove it. Don't want a rotten egg breaking inside the nest.
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A general view of the Sparrow colony. D is the far-right box.
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The E box a few days back, showing how the Wrens just built over the top of the Sparrows' nest. This is away from the other boxes, among a little grove of trees. I put it up last spring really for the Bluebirds. They may have scouted if briefly last spring, but then the Wrens took it over and raised a family. Come the fall, I cleaned out the abandoned Wrens' nest, then a Sparrow hen claimed it for a winter home, and lived in it through March at least. It seemed abandoned for a bit in early summer, then Sparrows built in it again, and were sitting five eggs, before the Wrens took it back.
You can see really three nests here - the bottom with the very fine grass is the Sparrow hen's winter nest. Over that, the looser grass is the bottom of the breeding pair of Sparrows' nest. Sparrows pretty well fill the box with grass and feathers, with a cavity in the middle, but the Wrens removed the top part of the nest. Lastly, the sticks are the Wrens's nest proper, such as it is. I don't think they'll finish it, but I may be wrong.
*****
On my way out back to top up the seed tube earlier, I found a dead shrew almost below the Sparrow colony. I thought at first that his head was missing^1, but his spine's been bitten through, and the head is folded under the body. You can see how his upper back was pretty much skinned in the process, with his ribs showing. He's pretty obviously lost a territorial battle. Unlike most birds, shrews don't do the stylized dominance battles where the loser just submits and leaves unhurt.
Strangely enough, I found a dead shrew last Fourth of July too, with his throat torn out. In keeping with the spirit of the day, I blew that one up with fireworks.
^1 And I was having real trouble imagining who would take the head, but leave all the rest of the meat lie there for the ants. Happy day for the ants, certainly.
*****
The Sparrow babies in the D box, as they were yesterday mid-day. The way it's mounted I couldn't really get a direct look inside, so had to use a mirror. I can see three hatchlings and one egg. I didn't really want to poke around too much in the nest, so there may be more I didn't see. They're maybe a day or two old. They change really fast at that age. I'm not going to inspect the box today, as it's going to rain, and I don't want to drive mom and dad away. I'll prolly have another look tomorrow. If the egg hasn't hatched by then, I'll probably remove it. Don't want a rotten egg breaking inside the nest.
*****
A general view of the Sparrow colony. D is the far-right box.
*****
The E box a few days back, showing how the Wrens just built over the top of the Sparrows' nest. This is away from the other boxes, among a little grove of trees. I put it up last spring really for the Bluebirds. They may have scouted if briefly last spring, but then the Wrens took it over and raised a family. Come the fall, I cleaned out the abandoned Wrens' nest, then a Sparrow hen claimed it for a winter home, and lived in it through March at least. It seemed abandoned for a bit in early summer, then Sparrows built in it again, and were sitting five eggs, before the Wrens took it back.
You can see really three nests here - the bottom with the very fine grass is the Sparrow hen's winter nest. Over that, the looser grass is the bottom of the breeding pair of Sparrows' nest. Sparrows pretty well fill the box with grass and feathers, with a cavity in the middle, but the Wrens removed the top part of the nest. Lastly, the sticks are the Wrens's nest proper, such as it is. I don't think they'll finish it, but I may be wrong.
