Page 20 - Sentinel Septemberl 2017

WILD SIDE Continued from page 18 If you are curious as to what happens if you leave your bird
About 10 minutes later, she started testing her wings and then feeders out during bear season, catch this video of a bear family
she was gone! Mission accomplished! and their rollicking adventure:

http://youtu.be/kyIHR531SZo
Maybe it
has been the At least those feeders were still intact...I have a bone yard of
cooler tem- mangled bird feeders.
peratures
coupled with Our local bear feasted on a yellow jacket nest in the ground
pre-migra- along our usual property path. Until then, the nest has gone
tion prepa- undetected, but now the surviving wasps are really mad and
ration, but literally out for blood. Ours will do nicely.
the birds
have really *****
socked in the bird food. And the young-uns are sure to get their
share. A young black-headed grosbeak lazily pecked at the suet That’s all, folks, for this month. Gotta run – there’s lots more
feeder until his dad came along, took a large bite and fed it to cockleburs to be pulled and bagged...sorry hummers...check out
his eager, open-mouthed fledgling stationed on the deck railing the butterfly bush.
next to him.
How to Contact Me: Email is best at susan@larskpurconsulting.
And the com. Alternatively, call my cell phone at 303-725-6868 or send
hawks have a short write-up to 2255 Quartz Mountain Drive.
been hanging
around to take Sharp-shinned hawk and hummingbird photos by Dave Peters.
advantage Cocklebur extraordinaire photo by MOI. Juvenile red-tailed
of the situa- hawk eagle by Lenore Raff.
tion – young,
reckless fledg-
lings, snakes,
and scurrying
rodents. See
the juvenile
Sharp-shinned’s hawk picture. And a friend was able to get
photos of a juvenile red-tailed hawk eating a mouse in her horse
ranch’s coral.

Speaking of snakes, AGAIN, a recent visit to a pond tour in
the Black Forest brought us to a home with incredible ponds
and landscaping. I asked the owner what she does about the
snakes getting into her ponds and this tiny woman went into her
offensive “NOT my babies!!!” pose. If a snake goes after her
koi, she grabs it and cuts off its head with scissors. Now, that
to me is totally outside my sphere of hunter-gatherer. Besides
it would probably dull my scissors and make a mess. I say to
leave the snakes to the hawks and eagles.

And maybe all the rains have
caused a banner year for cockle-
burs, whose flowers the hummers
attack with pure gusto. And whose
nasty burs with their teensy hooks
bury themselves in our long-furred
pooch Ollie, who then makes sure
that they get distributed over the
property for next year’s bounti-
ful crop. And we had them tamed
during the past years.

Page 20 - September 2017 Perry Park Sentinel