The Tree Swallow Fledglings June 28, 2011

The Fledglings

The baby tree swallows are getting ready to leave the nest anytime now! The little fledglings are 15 and 16 days old, cute little fluffy baby birds with all their feathers, a miniature copy of the adults. The fledglings have been flexing their little wings for several days now getting ready to use them. Some of the bigger ones have been poking their heads out of the birdhouse to view the huge expanse of the world beyond the confines of their 4 tiny walls.

Yesterday mama and papa stopped feeding them for several hours and just kept popping into the birdhouse and back out again trying to get the first of the little ones to leave the nest.
After a few hours both parents ended up in the birdhouse together and an argument seemed to ensure between the parents. One parent started feeding the babies again at that point.  Maybe it saw that the babies were very hungry and not quite ready to go out and find their own food yet.

Today a similar scenario occurred with mama and papa popping in and out of the house regularly sometimes feeding the little ones but often not. A number of other swallows also swooped around the birdhouse and peeked in to check on the babies, as if to offer them encouragement.

Baby Swallows all face the entrance hole

Tried to keep the cats indoor today as much as possible but since we had visitors today  the door was opened quite often and they managed to sneak out a few ties. They know enough not to let me get to close to them when they first get outside because they know what's on my mind. At one point I had to turn on the hose and aim it at Milo who went straight over to the birdhouse with the camera to annoy the parents ( or worse!) He had jumped up on top of the lower birdhouse next to the little apple tree this morning even though we had put 2 rings of chicken wire around it as a fence. That particular birdhouse has a young family with 3 or 4 early developing babies. Next year we will have to get a higher pole to attach the birdhouse to to ensure the safety of the birds.

Right now one of the biggest swallow babies is peeking its head out of the entrance of the house with the nest camera, as if it were trying to work up the courage to leave. It is 6:30 pm now and after a gorgeous sunny day, it has become overcast as if it might rain, not that we need it!  We have had so much rain this month already. Rarely has a day gone by without showers, or a downpour and even hail! This is probably not a good time for the babies to leave, but we have been watching them closely on the nest camera to see if anything new is happening just in case. It is quite a thrill too to watch the birdhouse outside from the deck and see a little head peeping out in curiosity. :)

One baby spreads its wings and jumps up to the entrance hole to peek out.

I will truly miss seeing the daily activity of my favourite swallow family from our TV set once the babies work up the courage to leave. I wonder if any other bird will chose to build its nest there yet this summer. This family had their babies quite early . The rest of the birdhouses that we checked mostly have new born babies or ones that are in early stages of development. Apparently some early nesting parents will even lay a second batch of eggs and raise a second family in the same summer! But it is really hard on the parents and wears them out. Many of them are quite weak at the end of the summer and they don't survive the strenuous migration back to their winter homes, many of which are in south america 2000 or 3000 miles away from here. *


* from "The Bird Detective" - Bridget Stutchbury

Ongoing Battle/ Marmot Lunch

Clematises are growing/ pink Oriental poppy is blooming

We had hail 2 evenings ago and I had to rush outside and drag/ carry all my deck pots in close to the house under our deck roof! Luckily it only lasted several minutes, then it turned to fat rain drops. Needless to say, I was soaking wet by the time I had most of the pots out of the rain!

We have had some rain here almost every day since the beginning of June! Everything is lush and green and full, but we need the sun now to help the plants to bloom.  Some of my annuals in my pots are so soggy that they are rotting off at the soil level (Had to replace a number of pansies.)

Pond is doing well. Not as much algae as last year.

I have added some birch mulch chips to my flower beds now. The beds look so much tidier with the mulch in between the plants.  We have had so much rain in the last few weeks and the mulch prevents the dirt from flying up and getting on the leaves of my perennials and flowers.
Yesterday we finally had a beautiful, sunny summer day with temperatures up to 24C and NO RAIN or showers all day! Fabulous!

More planting today...
I dug out the little lavendar perennial I had planted a few weeks ago. It was not growing in the spot I had it, (small spruce tree flower bed, next to the beautifully budding peony) as it was not getting enough sun there. Right now it's in a pot on the deck until I find a more permanent spot.  I planted a couple calendulas there which I grew from seed and which have big fat buds now.  Have to remember to go out and spray them with the animal repellent or they will become marmot and/or deer lunch.

Perennials are lush due to all the rain; Hollyhock on left, cranesbill on right, purple flowers of chives in centre, blue salvia annual in front centre

I weeded and cleaned out the tiny plot below the huge juniper bushes by the bird feeder. There's a slow growing false spirea there and a whole lot of weeds, so I replaced the weeds with  a ready to bloom dianthus (Pinks) which I thought might be safe there.

That pesky little marmot continues to help itself to my garden flowers! It's an ongoing battle!  I have replaced the gazanias in my top rock garden bed twice now and sprayed them often, but the marmot destroyed both sets.  I went to Tail Creek Greenhouse and bought some flowering burgundy verbena to put in that bed. Since they have fuzzy smelly leaves, I thought that might deter the marmot but I sprayed them, too, just in case...
If anyone has a sure-fire method of deterring marmots from lunching on their plants PLEASE let me know!

I also went around the yard and sprayed Bobbex on all my growing lilies, dahlias, rose bushes, delphiniums,  lupines, and even the buds on my peonies. These are all plants which the deer have eaten in the past. The Bobbex is rather stinky, with wintergreen oil, garlic,  but it seems to do the trick against deer nibbling. Not so again rodent lunching, though.  I may have to mix up some Plantskydd and go back to using that...

Shasta daisies blooming in a sea of white blossoms; red currant bush is loaded with fruit.

My husband removed a large dead juniper bush in the wild rock garden by the road. There was a big bare spot there, so today I planted a couple of young first year daisy plants there, and a Malva that  had seeded itself and was growing in a bad spot in my long flower bed. The Malva did not like being dug up and is quite droopy right now.
I also transplanted 3 little Hen and Chicks that were growing in the shade under a bush in that same wild rock garden bed. Two years ago I  had bought them from the greenhouse where I was working and had planted them in a relatively sunny spot. Now they are back in a sunny spot! :)

My perennials are growing like gangbusters with all this rain! (So is the lawn, much to my husband Chris's displeasure...)  They are getting tall and have set quite a few buds, the 2 monkshoods- 2 blue, one pink,  8 or is it 9 delphiniums; the cluster bellflowers have never been so big and my favorite peony near the pond has 8 fat buds! The maltese cross is doing well, (not unusual) except that much of it was beaten down in all the wicked rain storms we've had recently.  It usually stands up well on its own so they have no stakes or cages surrounding them.  I stood some of them back up immediately after and even propped a few with some garden stakes so many did recover, but I had to cut off a number of others today which were flopped over.

pink lupines are huger than ever before

And the best news of all... my new Morden sunrise rosebush has opened its blossoms !  It is beautiful!  My other 4 rose bushes all have fat buds and so are not far from blooming either. So as long as the deer stay away, I think I will have a bumper crop of roses this summer! YAY! :D

We had a wicked rain/hail storm this late afternoon, just after I finished this post.  Luckily I had time to get all my pots  up close to the house out of harm's way... The sun is back out now drying up all the rain. (And "incy wincy spider's climbing up the spout again!"  :)

Foxglove surrounded by maltese cross, monkshood and cluster bellflowers soon to bloom; thrift in front.

Tree Swallow Nest Camera 2011

The first 2 swallow babies hatched early on Sunday June 12th. Another swallow, presumably a female, tried to take over the nest today!  As we watched the TV screen we saw a swallow enter and jump on mama and fight with her. Chris went out and lifted the lid on the birdhouse and the intruder flew out. A few minutes later, it was back and attacked mama again! We were worried that she might get injured or the 2 little babies in the nest at the time might get hurt.  We both went outside and Chris got a ladder this time. He reached in and took one bird out. I thought was should remove them both because at that point we really had no idea which one was which. The second bird flew out on its own just then.

Swallow babies with mouths open ready for food

I stood and watched the birdhouse for a while to see if we had spooked mama for good or what? Which one was going to come back first? Would it be the intruder and would it hurt the babies. I had read on a bird website that sometimes birds will invade the nest of another to try and take over the location. They sometimes kill the other adult on the nest, then kill the babies or get rid of the eggs so they can nest there. I have no ides where papa was all this time...

The real mama did come back and 2 more babies hatched later that day. The 4th hatched late that evening and #5 hatched the next day June 13th. Egg #6 had disappeared from the nest  a few days ago (June 9th). We aren't sure what happened exactly as we were away for the day. We had noticed that morning though, what looked like  2 tiny black spots, maybe holes in one egg. We had thought it was hatching but when we came home that evening, that egg was gone.

The adult swallows have been quite diligent about not leaving the nest for very long without one of them there. I hope that is the end of the nest takeover attempts!

Today the babies are 5 days old and they have grown some fuzz since yesterday. At first they were all pink, floppy and weak. They were very helpless and had a difficult time holding up their little heads. They have grown bigger and stronger already.

Papa and Mama are both in the nest

Both mama and papa feed them, but mama always brings them more food than papa. Mama always chirps at them when she enters the nest and the babies automatically open their little beaks for food. Papa sometimes only brings enough to feed one or two and it always looks like the same one.  Mama also sits on the babies regularly, but Papa just sits next to them and watches them while he waits for mama to come back.  We have recorded some of the nest activity on the VCR.

Mother Nature's Beauty

Late blooming tulips, red current shrub, lilies coming up, Morden Ruby growing, Salpiglosis annuals starting to bloom, dahlia making a comeback after Jack Frosts's visit, Stone crop sedum bottom right.

Yellow swallowtail butterfly visiting my lilacs

I love the fragrance wafting towards me on the breeze as I work in the flower bed nearby.

bearded irises, with hollyhocks in background

Bearded iris in the evening

Blue sage 'May Night' attracts the bees

Lewisia 'little plum' 

tuberous begonias and sunrise pansies 

Oteospermum daisies, one of my favourites

Planting Nearing Completion

The planting is close to being finished now, but I always seem to find one or two more things I want to find space for.

I carefully hoed the vegetable garden yesterday as the 'chickweed' (Creeping Charlie) is growing profusely. The radishes are a couple inches tall and we have our fingers crossed that they will amount to something edible this year. Have not had any success with radishes in this garden although we managed well in northern Manitoba and we had no idea radishes would be so difficult!

The carrots are very, very tiny and the lettuce is sprouting, but much of the rows are still bare.  I decided we would get fresh lettuce one way or another, so I bought a flat of 5 (one was missing) little head lettuce bedding plants and planted them out in the veggie garden today. They put the rest of the seedlings to shame, but maybe it will give them motivation to grow! :)

Last weekend I made a rhubarb apple crisp out of our garden rhubarb and there is still plenty left! Will probably make some rhubarb muffins this weekend or maybe a rhubarb cake, and also some rhubarb jam in the next week or two.

Red Durango marigolds started from seed

Yesterday I planted Red Durango marigolds in my new flower bed. I know that no deer or rodent are likely to eat them (too stinky) so they are safe there. Three of the plants were store bought, but I started the other 4 from seeds and they are blooming now, so I'm quite proud of them  :)

I'm a sucker for a bargain and the plants at Peevey Mart were all 20% off today. My husband, bless his heart, bought another tomato plant (Early Girl) as if we didn't have enough of them already! We have over a dozen tomato plants in various stages of growth, 8 in the veggie garden and many more in pots on the deck.  Not sure how many of them will actually bloom and produce fruit, but I started most of them from seeds so I'm willing to baby them along. :)

We have Black Krim heirloom tomatos, Lemon Boy yellow ones, and Red Hat tomatoes which I started from the seeds of a tomato which we had bought at the grocery store this winter 'on the vine'.
Plus there are 3 medium sized 'beef steak' tomatoes which Husband bought and sneaked into the garden... As if I wouldn't notice!

2 New Plants:
At the same sale I bought a ligularia and a Lewisia Little Plum.

I decided to dig out one of my dahlia plants which had gotten zapped by Jack Frost about 10 days ago and return it to its pot on the deck as a deck plant. Then I planted the Lewisia in its place. Have never seen or heard of this plant before, but I like to try growing something unusual now and again...

Lewisia 'little Plum'

The website I checked seemed to indicate it was easy to grow and was drought tolerant, usually a plus in our normal summer climate here, but this summer we have had a lot of rain just like last year, so maybe that's the new normal. It is supposedly an ideal rock garden plant, but doesn't like to much sunshine...

It has a low fleshy rosette of leaves ( 4-6 inches tall) with star-shaped pink flowers late spring/ early summer. It is already blooming, but I'm not sure how long the flowers last.

Ligularia- no tag so I'm not sure which variety

The ligularia is still waiting for its permanent home. I started digging a hole for it in my wild bed at the end of the yard, but the mosquitos were so fierce and were trying to eat me alive, so I retreated into the house. Probably just as well as I'm rethinking the idea of putting the ligularia there... I also bought a new hosta yesterday so I might just put it there instead, but... where to put my ligularia....? 

There's a spot in the flower bed next to the house which I was saving for my canna lily... if it ever grows big enough to take out of the pot that I started it in.

	Will decide tomorrow.  :)

Roses and Blossoms

Morden centennial rose bush

I am so thrilled to be able to grow roses, something I had little success at in northern Manitoba, although some gardeners up there do well with roses. My Morden Centennial rose bush has the best growth so far. No blossoms in evidence yet, but admittedly I haven't checked really closely lately either... 

I planted a new Morden rose bush yesterday (new for me, at least) called Sunrise. It gets blossoms with a single row of petals in an orangey- yellow color.  It also is supposedly very disease resistant and so it seemed to me it would be non-fussy and relatively easy to grow and particularly to over-winter.  It does have 2 long stems with a number of buds on them, so we'll see if it is the first to bloom. 

My little Winnipeg Parks rose which I moved forward about 18 inches in the flower bed in May is growing faster than it usually does! Maybe it was the shot of 'bone and blood' meal I added to the soil around it...

The Morden Blush and the Morden Ruby bushes are both growing well and I am so looking forward to seeing them bloom!

Close up of the cherry blossoms

In previous springs, the blossoming trees have staggered their blooming; usually the pear blooms first and then the plums start to blossom a week later. When they are done, the Saskatoon bushes start to bloom and about the same time, the apples and crab apple trees bloom. After they are done, the lilacs start. This year the whole schedule has sped up and although the order is about the same, many of the above mentioned shrubs bloomed at the same time. 

My lilacs just began to bloom a week ago. Sad to say, the small lilac shrubs behind the house have almost NO blossoms! I trimmed them down last year, and I followed the advice of my pruning book, so I'm not sure where I went wrong...  The big lilac bush in the front is covered with fragrant clumps  and  they are just opening now.  I always enjoy working out in the flower bed nearby and getting a whiff of the scent of the lilacs.

Also moved my little "Miss Kim" lilac  into my new triangular stack stone bed, so I don't know if I will get any flowers from it this year... here's hoping! :)

June is my second favorite month, after May because of all the blossoms!   :)

First shasta daisy blossom of 2011

I culled a huge number of shasta daisy clumps this spring. I am trying to limit them somewhat because they seed themselves almost as voraciously as dandelions. They were coming up every where! I do like their beautiful white flowers, though and they last quite a long while.

bearded irises along the house

The bearded irises next to the pond started blooming last week. They are an unusual dark purple color, but have pretty much finished blooming now.

The light purple and white irises next to the house started blooming yesterday. Irises are such a gorgeous, unusually shaped flower! Unfortunately they don't last much more than a week or so and just when you are getting used to seeing them, they are done.
This year I dug up and separated many of my crowded  iris clumps, something that a gardener has to do about every 3 years; otherwise the irises will stop blooming if they are too crowded.  Unfortunately the ones that are dug out in spring won't bloom till the following year; which is why it's a good idea to separate crowded irises in the fall.

Japanese Irises

I started out with a small clump of Japanese irises at first, but after 3 years my clump is getting to be a nice size. They just started blooming a few days ago. That's pretty unusual since the bearded irises are usually almost finished blooming when the japanese variety starts. But, like I said, this spring was so late in happening that all the normal schedules have become compressed.

Tiny blue creeping phlox flowers

I love this unassuming short little plant! It comes up early and grows well at the corners of my stack stone bed, at least the blue phlox has. My little pink phlox plant is still the same size as it was 3 years ago! (puny) (At least you can't accuse it of being invasive! :)

Low growing blue creeping phlox spreads well  along the edge on my stack stone bed.   The pink sister plant has barely grown in 3 years!

Pyjama gardening

You know you are passionate about gardening if you have ever done it in your pyjamas! LOL!

This morning I went outside to check my garden with my first cup of coffee in hand, still wearing my PJs.  We have had a fair amount of rain/ rain showers, whatever you want to call them- copious amounts of precipitation from the skies!

The flowers only appreciate so much, then they really need some sunshine to balance out the wetness. Except the dandelions. They thrive no matter what! A sea of bright yellow faces greeted me this morning! Mocking, is more like it! We have been digging them out by the dozens, even (don't tell anyone) zapping some with Killex. We seem to have more and more each day no matter what we do. 

Even the 'zapped' plants were having their last hurrah!  I read on a web site that Killex speeds up the dandelion weeds growth process to the point that it kills the plant, but it also causes the plant to quickly send out long flower shoots that go to seed right away, so in essence, you are killing one plant but in the process, causing it to drop hundreds of seeds of itself in the same location. End result: you will create 10 times more dandelion plants or more!  Except if you pick up all the little puffy white seed clouds nodding their heads all over the yard. And their little yellow brothers are not very far behind in the reseeding department! 

So, with my pyjama legs soaking up the moisture off the lawn, I scooped up dozens of little yellow heads and little white puffs of seeds.  What a way to start your day! Am I getting obsessed, I asked myself. Self didn't want to answer that... 

Hyer Apple tree in blossom in spite of the porcupines' valiant attempt to kill it...

We may get some apples on our Hyer apple tree this fall after all, at least we might if the cute little cedar waxwings would stop picking off the blossoms! I have no idea why they would do that... Are they after insects sitting in the blossoms, or what?  No photo of the cedar waxwings just yet. They always seem to know exactly when I'm going back into the house for my camera. :o

But I did manage to capture the elusive Baltimore Oriole at our feeder the other day.  He has the most beautiful cheery song!

Baltimore Oriole at the feeder by the kitchen window

Another fabulous songster is the bird in the above photo. We think he's a gray catbird. Doesn't look like much, I know, but he has a long cheerful, complicated song. Apparently cat birds (who also give a 'meow' type call) will mimic other birds' songs and incorporate them into their own long eloquent songs. Talk about 'piracy", LOL!

Ornamental cherry tree

Close up of the cherry blossoms