Finches this year

This year the finches arrived and claimed the nesting box out front before the swallows returned to the area. I got to watch baby finches grow up instead of swallows. I will say that it wasn't as easy to watch them as it is to watch the swallows. Swallows are bold and the adults will dive bomb you if they don't like your proximity to their nest. The young will hide, but not to any great extent. The finches on the other hand are scaredy-cats. The female will fly away at any tiny sound and the babies hunker down into the nest and become invisible at the slightest provocation. None-the-less, it was fun to watch them.

I almost didn't have any babies birds at all this year. One afternoon right before my traveling started I came home and when I was walking back from the mailbox I glimpsed something brown hanging from the nesting box that isn't being used. I walked over to see what it was . . . and this bad boy in the picture was about a foot away from a tasty meal of finch eggs. This is a small rat snake, maybe about 2 1/2 feet long. What I had glimpsed was the part of him looped below the box. I'm not sure which of us was more startled when I stepped onto the porch and turned to see him there. At any rate, I spoiled his meal by making him go away. No, I didn't kill him, just convinced him to leave with a long stick and persistence. Then I quickly got a step stool, climbed up and took pictures of what was in the nest so I would know what I had just rescued. Then I quickly left the nest to Momma Finch. Surprisingly, she came back immediately after I left. This next picture down is the finch eggs that were in the nest. It still amazes me how close they came to being snake food.

I managed to get one sort-of picture of the young finches. They were very adept at hiding, not at all cooperative like the young swallows. Although I did see them fairly frequently, all I managed to catch in a picture was a little beak, top of the head and a beady black eye. You probably can't see that in the small picture below, but this was all I could do. They were VERY skittish. They've all flown now, which also amazes me. The young birds grow up so fast. It's been just over three weeks between when I took the egg picture and when they flew away.

My poor peach tree is dead. The growth that was on it two blog posts ago, broke off in the high wind a few days after that picture, and there's no other growth. *sigh* Too bad. I suppose it's time to buy a tree to put back there. I'll have to do a little tree research I guess. A couple of the small dogwoods are still managing to survive. They look terrible, but they're hanging on.

This morning I went out and trimmed up the shrubbery out front. It was looking a little raggedy. We're finally getting some periodic rain, so my lawn's beginning to look like a lawn. One of the most amazing things is how strongly the St. Augustine grass is coming back in the back yard. Granted the yard is still about half weeds, but at the end of last year I had two sickly-looking patches of St. Augustine left, in opposite corners of the back yard. The patch down by the fence has spread out and up to the peach tree and continues to put out runners across the bare areas. The patch up by the house is also spreading. And both patches are dark green and thriving. Sugoi. The Bermuda grass in the front yard is still struggling, but beginning to fill in. Apparently early rainfall is really important to Bermuda, less so for St. Augustine.

The cats are being furry leeches. They really hate me being gone for extended periods, and become really clingy when I get back. If I sit still for a minute, they're right there to get attention. Like right now. Zoe is making my leg look like I've been running through briers, trying to get me to stop typing and start petting her. Zoe is not the brightest cat in the world, and despite years of trying, she doesn't get the concept of sheathing claws. When I'm wearing jeans it's no biggy, but with shorts on she's guaranteed to get my attention. *laughing* Yes, yes. Time to call this a short blog and go pet the cat.