Chickadee dee dee

Just picture in your head a little Chickadee flitting about a garden. Cheeping at you every now and then. So lighthearted, so carefree, imagine it drinking from the bird bath. Aww, such a sweet image...

Now let me tell you about the real critters; the angry, violent, highly skilled birds of prey known as the Chickadee. These natural born assassins are an insect's worst nightmare. Black-capped Chickadees can devour up to 1,000 insects a day each, their songs contain a highly sophisticated communication system and they can be hand-tamed (if you don't mind losing a few fingers in the process... I kid).

So naturally when I saw Japanese Beetles chowing down on our sad little strawberry plant I immediately thought "If only I had some hungry little birdies around." Considering neither of us know the song for "Please come eat these evil bugs" in Chickadee, we resorted to another option.

This is where I offer many thanks to the wonderful Shaw Creek Bird Supply site. Using their brilliant plans for building a Black-capped Chickadee Nest Box, we were able to quickly assemble a home fit for royalty (of the Chickadee kind). Somehow we happened to have a 4' section of 1" x 6" laying in the garage and using our handy-dandy saw, brad nailer, drill and Rotozip we produced this:


Oddly enough later the same afternoon we had two black-capped cuties eating at our bird feeder. I don't expect they'll move in right away but a cozy home awaits them. By the way, if you would like to hear more about the cute, innocent, sheltered, narrow view of Chickadees have a listen to this ditty.

Massacre in the Corn Patch

As I turned the corner around the house to take a peek at the garden yesterday evening, I couldn't help but gasp as I saw what had happened to all of the corn sprouts.

Some evil bird had discovered that if he pulled the plant out of the ground he could feast on the yummy corn kernels that the leaves were growing out of, and he proceeded to pull out every last one. Little baby corns lay strewn across the ground, dead, like in some kind of garden horror film. Now we must plant a new patch, but this time we will be prepared to fight back!