Little Birdies in My Yard

[LarryO1970]

Originally Posted by BunnyWabbit

Look at the female's feet. Didn't know I caught her jumping.

Ducks in my back yard...

[Brother Bob]

Originally Posted by LarryO1970

Ducks in my back yard...

Yep, got them, too. They hang around the Japenese Koi pond. One couple nested under a bush and had babies. He also have squirrels we feed pecans to. The dogs are confussed about what to do sometimes. I finally got them trained to leave the "critters" alone. .........Except cats! They've never killed a cat, but they sure keep them out of the yard and that's a good thing. LOL!

[LarryO1970]

Originally Posted by Brother Bob

Yep, got them, too. They hang around the Japenese Koi pond. One couple nested under a bush and had babies. He also have squirrels we feed pecans to. The dogs are confussed about what to do sometimes. I finally got them trained to leave the "critters" alone. .........Except cats! They've never killed a cat, but they sure keep them out of the yard and that's a good thing. LOL!

LOL ... my dog is a mix between a black lab and a dalmation... strong as can be but pretty dumb most of the time. My cats don't back down from the dog.. so she's a little gun-shy with them.

In addition to the ducks, we also have a red tailed hawk...

[Brother Bob]

Originally Posted by LarryO1970

LOL ... my dog is a mix between a black lab and a dalmation... strong as can be but pretty dumb most of the time. My cats don't back down from the dog.. so she's a little gun-shy with them.

In addition to the ducks, we also have a red tailed hawk...

Yeah, when you're feeding the birds and squirrels, predators show up. Thought I was going to have to kill a hawk at one time. When it swooped down on the neighbors dogs and many phone calls, the "powers that be" came and caufgt the hawk. They relocated the hawk. Good thing. I was tired of it killing everything in our yard. I told the Wildlife officials that I was going to shoot it if they didn't handle it. I guess they believed me.

[LarryO1970]

Good points Brother... my dog would be clueless and my cats are not allowed outside anyway. Hopefully Mr. Hawk takes care of any mice in the area...

under all the snow before the tree line is another long, deep pond...

[Brother Bob]

Originally Posted by LarryO1970

Good points Brother... my dog would be clueless and my cats are not allowed outside anyway. Hopefully Mr. Hawk takes care of any mice in the area...

under all the snow before the tree line is another long, deep pond...

Sure looks pretty there. The trees are beginning to bud down here in southwest Tennessee. I'll have to take some pics of the sleepy little town I live in. The Wolf River is half a mile north. It's heavily wooded around here. Got heaps and gobs of critters around here. There's some really big catfish in the river. We have a Kellogg's plant and the workers throw food stuff in the river. The catfish surface and chow down. You've never lived till you eat catfish that tastes like Fruity Pebbles! LOL!

[LarryO1970]

Originally Posted by Brother Bob

Sure looks pretty there. The trees are beginning to bud down here in southwest Tennessee. I'll have to take some pics of the sleepy little town I live in. The Wolf River is half a mile north. It's heavily wooded around here. Got heaps and gobs of critters around here. There's some really big catfish in the river. We have a Kellogg's plant and the workers throw food stuff in the river. The catfish surface and chow down. You've never lived till you eat catfish that tastes like Fruity Pebbles! LOL!

I may have to ask you to send me some ! LOL ... Fruity Pebble Catfish, should show up on a menu somewhere...

[redhed]

Where I used to live I fed the birds regularly until I found little dead bodies strew across my yard missing their little birdie heads and minus their breast meat. I couldn't figure out what was taking all my song birds until my neighbor called me one day and informed me that she had just seen a hawk dive down on my bird feeder and take a bird. Sure enough, I looked out in time to see what I later identified as a sharp shinned hawk sitting near my feeder.

A trip to where I bought my seed awarded me with advice never to place a feeding station in the open where anything can swoop down on them from above. Place your station near bushes that act as shelter for the birds should a hawk prey on them.

Amazing picture, BW.

[Brother Bob]

Originally Posted by redhed

Where I used to live I fed the birds regularly until I found little dead bodies strew across my yard missing their little birdie heads and minus their breast meat. I couldn't figure out what was taking all my song birds until my neighbor called me one day and informed me that she had just seen a hawk dive down on my bird feeder and take a bird. Sure enough, I looked out in time to see what I later identified as a sharp shinned hawk sitting near my feeder.

A trip to where I bought my seed awarded me with advice never to place a feeding station in the open where anything can swoop down on them from above. Place your station near bushes that act as shelter for the birds should a hawk prey on them.

Amazing picture, BW.

I had a bunch of birds missing heads too! It wasn't a hawk or cat. It was an overly aggressive Grackle. I went and got my pellet gun and waited. Sure enough, I watched him take a bird down and so I shot him. No more dead birds.

[ArkansasHunter]

In So.Arkansas you can see Humming Birds year round and any day now swarms of Blue Birds will arrive.
By mid summer the ones that nest here will let me walk within 5 feet of them.
We have an abundance of Mocking Birds, Brown Thrushs, Red Breast Robins, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Sparrows and many more.
Tweet tweet !

[LarryO1970]

Originally Posted by Brother Bob

I had a bunch of birds missing heads too! It wasn't a hawk or cat. It was an overly aggressive Grackle. I went and got my pellet gun and waited. Sure enough, I watched him take a bird down and so I shot him. No more dead birds.

We are planting some Dogwood trees as well as flowering shrubs along the property line before the pond... so there will be ample cover for the smaller birds to avoid the Hawks. While they are attractive to watch, they will drive other birds out of the area. It will be interesting to watch them hunting both land and water foods...

Under the snow ... you will find ...

[Brother Bob]

Originally Posted by LarryO1970

We are planting some Dogwood trees as well as flowering shrubs along the property line before the pond... so there will be ample cover for the smaller birds to avoid the Hawks. While they are attractive to watch, they will drive other birds out of the area. It will be interesting to watch them hunting both land and water foods...

Under the snow ... you will find ...

Got fish in that pond? LOL! My wife loves the cardinals and bluebirds the most. Gotta keep the Mrs. happy. It's a small sacrifice to make to I can have peace. LOL! By the way, she's letting me get a new AR-15.

[LarryO1970]

Originally Posted by Brother Bob

Got fish in that pond? LOL! My wife loves the cardinals and bluebirds the most. Gotta keep the Mrs. happy. It's a small sacrifice to make to I can have peace. LOL! By the way, she's letting me get a new AR-15.

... sure do. Panfish in the foreground and trout in the long, deep pond in the far back.

... a new AR-15 for the SEAL eh? Scary... which version and make are ya gonna get?

I am saving up for a 19.5" 6.5 Grendel flat-top upper... gonna pit a Zeiss atop it and get back into my shooting jacket... I miss the long range stuff.

BTW, check out my post in the Specialty Forum titled, "
Veteran cuts down Illegal Mexican flag flying above U.S. Flag"

... you will be proud as hell of this guy.

[Brother Bob]

Originally Posted by LarryO1970

... sure do. Panfish in the foreground and trout in the long, deep pond in the far back.

... a new AR-15 for the SEAL eh? Scary... which version and make are ya gonna get?

I am saving up for a 19.5" 6.5 Grendel flat-top upper... gonna pit a Zeiss atop it and get back into my shooting jacket... I miss the long range stuff.

BTW, check out my post in the Specialty Forum titled, "
Veteran cuts down Illegal Mexican flag flying above U.S. Flag"

... you will be proud as hell of this guy.

Let me buy the man a beer! Gawd that video made me feel good!........Yeah, I prefer a .45 and a knife. I like to get up close and personal! LOL!

[LarryO1970]

I'd buy him a case of whatever he wished for ...

When will these Mexicans realize that we are NOT part of their country... and that they need to respect our laws and traditions if they wish to live here.

[Father Time]

I just saw the first robin of spring this morning. He was frozen to the road.

[LarryO1970]

We just had a pair of Cardinals yesterday... but my camera wasn't handy. However, the camera was handy for these shots ...

[Brother Bob]

So what's the deal with lead bullets and the California Condor? Should we start shooting them with copper bullets?

[LarryO1970]

Copper? Getting away from lead eh?

Army officials at Camp Edwards believed they were being eco-friendly when they started using a "green bullet" that contains no lead — a move meant to prevent polluting an aquifer beneath the base.

But six years later, after a million rounds have been fired at the base's shooting ranges, new information suggests the green bullets may not be much better for the environment than the lead ones.

"It's frustrating," Col. William FitzPatrick of the National Guard's Environmental Readiness Center said Thursday. "You're doing what you think are the right things. As science evolves, you wonder, 'Am I in front of the curve, or behind?"'

The green bullets are made of nylon and tungsten, a metal that supposedly does not seep into ground as quickly as lead. That's important because the aquifer below the base supplies upper Cape Cod with drinking water.

But conventional wisdom about tungsten has been challenged by tests done in recent years at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.

Lab tests there found in 2002 that tungsten was not insoluble and that it could travel through soil under certain conditions. It also found that tungsten enables lead to move through the soil more quickly.

The Army has now begun field tests on how tungsten moves through the ground.

Camp Edwards is part of the Massachusetts Military Reservation, which covers 30 square miles. It's been a major training center for decades.

The camp has had a history of environmental problems since it opened in 1911.

Jet fuel, solvents and other pollutants contaminated the aquifer and the groundwater is now under constant monitoring.

In 1997, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered target practice halted at the camp and ordered a clean-up of lead buried in and around the berms at the base shooting ranges.

Lead was later found 19 feet underground and moving toward the aquifer — though it never reached the water.

For now, the tungsten bullets are still officially considered safe by the Department of Defense, and they are still used at the base.

[TheWall]

Caption with female saying, "Are you sure you payed the heating bill?" Great quality photo!