Gardening has all but stopped during these winter months. I have started focusing a little more on my indoor plants and luckily they don’t need too much attention. What is very nice right now is observing the birds. I have made a couple of observations that are different from the usual habits I’ve come to know.
We have a tree in the backyard that has pretty white blooms in the spring. It’s been there since we’ve moved in and never noticed anything in particular about it until this year. After the blooms, it started to produce fruit. Throughout the summer I watched it and they looked like cherries. They didn’t mature until the fall when they turned red. The fruit, even though red, were very tough. I cut off a branch with fruit and took it to Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens to speak to a horticulturist and find out what kind of tree this is.
Because of Covid, there was no horticulturist available. I wanted to go the the Extension office and talk to ED, our agent and lead contact for the Master Gardener Program, but no one was allowed to enter the building. For now I’ll have to wait. Of course I googled cherry trees and could not find the information I needed to identify the tree. Also by the fruit ripening in the fall, it is not the season for cherries.
My winter observations came in watching the activity in the tree right now, this week, the first in January of the new year. The leaves are all gone but there is still some fruit on the tree. First I observed a squirrel climbing around and eating the fruit. He’s been there a few times. This tree is outside my kitchen windows so I can observe all the action!
Next, there was a red headed woodpecker, I don’t know what kind, I can’t make it out. He literally hung out on the tree for at least a half hour. Yesterday I saw robins in the tree eating the fruit. I have only ever seen robins searching for food on the ground. I am very happy to see the wildlife that has come to this tree!
I have also observed something new happening at the bluebird feeder. We keep it filled with meal worms and the bluebirds go in and out of the feeder regularly. I have mentioned before that I’ve seen thrushes also go into the feeder. This morning for the first time I watched a bigger bird trying to figure out how to get the food. Again, I couldn’t identify the bird. A short time later I saw the same red headed woodpecker trying to figure out how to get the food. There was a bluebird getting ready to enter the feeder, but flew away when the woodpecker came by.
My biggest problem is trying to get pictures of all this action. Most of the time I’m in the house and cannot get a good enough picture through the windows with the screens. I am way to slow to run outside and capture these moments. First of all I can’t run and by the time I move myself onto the deck with my walker, they fly away. It is also difficult for me to take a picture with one hand, since I always need one to hold on to something.
I’ve been wanting to set up a camera around the pond to catch the action there, but now I’d like one for the whole backyard! Most people want cameras for security, but I want to watch all the action outside my windows,