The Untended Garden in March!
Excuse the weeds, but the bumbles bees like them.
~Garden and Poster by Goly Ostovar, AGC Member
Garden Poster
Backyard Birds: Lesser Goldfinch
Lesser Goldfinch: Lesser Goldfinches are in great abundance in the Rogue Valley where they are year-around residents. Lesser Goldfinches forage on grains and seeds so they are often seen in weedy fields, steam side trees, bushy thickets by open fields and in the treetops by open areas. Their habitat is lower valleys to high in the mountains. They are very common in the suburbs during the winter when they migrate to lower elevations for food. Lesser Goldfinches are regular visitors to backyard feeders where they eat black oil sunflowers seeds, hulled sunflower seeds, nyjar thistle seeds and suet.
Photo by Richard Griffin, Flickr
Backyard Birds: Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Chestnut-backed Chickadees: These birds frequent backyard bird feeders regularly where they eat black oil sunflower seed, hulled sunflowers seeds, suet, nyjar seeds and some fruit, but 65% of their diet is made up of insects and other arthropods, including aphids, caterpillars, spiders, leafhoppers, tiny scale insects and wasps. Chestnut-back Chickadees are found up and down the West Coast and in the Pacific Northwest. Their habitat is dense wet coniferous forests of Douglas firs, Monterey pine, Ponderosa pine, Sugar pines, White firs, Incense-cedar and Redwoods. But, while these social noisy little birds prefer dark wet forests they have moved into cities where they utilize stands of willows and alder trees along streams, madrone trees, shrubbery along the edges of oak woodlands and ornamental shrubs in parks and gardens.
Photo by Kathy Munsel, ODFW https://myodfw.com/wildlife-viewing/species/chickadees-and-nuthatches
Article by: Carlotta Lucas, AGC Member
Backyard Birds: Brown Creeper
Brown Creeper: This tiny woodland bird eats mostly insects, but in winter at a backyard feeder they will eat suet, peanut butter, and occasionally sunflower seeds and corn. During the breeding season, Brown Creepers eat a long list of insects and their larvae. This includes stinkbugs, fruit flies, gnats, beetles, weevils, bark beetle, butterflies, moths, lacewings, caddisflies, scale insects, leafhoppers, katydids, flat-bugs, plant lice, ants, and sawflies along with spiders, spider eggs. Brown creepers are found throughout Oregon in forested areas. They use large conifer forests for foraging and breeding, but they need dead trees for nesting, because they build a hammock-like nest behind a flap of dead bark.
Photo credit: Mdf, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia
Today in the Garden
Flowers blooming in Goly’s snowy garden: Quince, Daffodils, Forsythia, Hellebore, Camellia
Photos taken by Goly Ostoar, AGC Member, March 3, 2024
Backyard Birds at the Feeder
Dark-eyed Junco is a common bird found in Oregon at bird feeders. Juncos are primarily seed-eaters, with seeds making up 75% of their year-round diet. At feeders they eat millet, hulled sunflower seeds, nyjar seeds and cracked corn. During the breeding season, Juncos also eat beetles, moths, butterflies, caterpillars, ants, wasps, and flies. Their habitat includes conifer and pine forests, deciduous forests of aspen, cottonwood, oak, maple, and hickory and during the winter they can be seen in open woodlands, in fields, along roadsides, and in parks and gardens.
Photo by: DKRKaynor, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons