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Backyardnotes

~ All things botanical in photos and words—in my West Seattle garden and elsewhere; seeing and creating art and assorted musings.

Backyardnotes

Category Archives: Birding

OUT WITH THE OLD POND, IN WITH THE NEW WATER FEATURE

30 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by backyardnotes in Birding, Birds, Ephemera, Fun in the Garden, Garden Wildlife, Inspriation, Nature

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bamboo standpipe, Little Giant Disappearing water feature basin, pond, pond replacement, Water feature

Original pond design, circa 1998

Original pond design, circa 1998

IT WAS TIME FOR THE OLD WATER FEATURE, A POND, TO GO. And in its place, a simpler, easy to care for one.

View from the house

View from the house

In the fall of 2013 (!) my grandson and I removed the old pond, all of its rocks, the bog, and pond liner. It was too much of a chore to keep clean under a couple of conifers and time for a new look. It took me a year and a half to figure out just how I wanted it to look and how to achieve that look.

The raccoon family visits

A raccoon family visits

The pond was attractive to our small, urban, wildlife population. I knew that I wanted running water to attract small songbirds; I liked hearing the sound of running water; I wanted to use a large rock from the previous incarnation and the bamboo standpipe as well. I missed the birds most of all.

A Western Tanager makes a rare visit

A Western Tanager makes a rare visit

A Cooper's Hawk makes a visit.

A Cooper’s Hawk rests a while—watch out little birds!

What I wanted was a pond less water feature that was easy to deal with. In March I got serious about it and in my research found the Little Giant Disappearing Water Feature Basin. It was the answer to my needs!

Placement of the basin

Placement of the basin

The Jumping Jack in action with the groundskeeper and grandson

The Jumping Jack in action with the groundskeeper and grandson

 

 

 

 

 

 

We set the empty basin in the old pond excavation for location and elevation. We then brought in 3.5 cubic yards of topsoil to fill the old hole. We rented a ‘Jumping Jack’ compacter to compact the first layer of soil and then set the basin in place and filled around it.

Preliminary layout

Preliminary layout with weed barrier fabric laid down.

 

Once the backfilling and compacting was completed we began laying out the rock saved from the old pond structure.

This is how the reservoir is set up; a central cone/support  protrudes about two inches above the perforated plates

This is how the reservoir is set up; a central cone/support protrudes about two inches above the perforated plates. The Little Giant will carry a load of up to 2,000 pounds, so my rock was back at center stage! Yes!

Downstream, dry streamed.

Downstream, dry streamed.

How do you make a not natural feature appear natural? That is tricky, so it took some time to get it right. I spent three days arranging the rocks. We ended up having to buy more small rock to complete the project. Had I known what I was going to do 18 months ago, I would have stockpiled all of the small rock instead of throwing it into the dry stream bed ‘downstream’.

Almost complete!

Almost complete!

By Saturday, I had the pump/fountain running and within 15 minutes of my walking away, the chickadees were there drinking and bathing! And then more small songbirds took advantage too. It has been so dry here this year that this is a real happy setup for the small birds.

'New' path to the bird oasis

‘New’ path to the bird oasis

Yesterday we finished up by resetting the stepping stones on the path to the pond, added the remaining topsoil and river rock. My goal was to have this project completed by the end of the month and we did it!

completed WF_2

'New' path to the bird oasis

‘New’ path to the bird oasis

All that is left now is to complete the planting and a little fine tuning. And, if at some point in the future I tire of the rock, I can easily replace it with a granite millstone, a stone basin or whatever strikes my fancy. An easy fix!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WHAT HAPPENED TO APRIL & MAY?

21 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by backyardnotes in Birding, Camping, Nature, Spring, Wildflowers

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basalt, central Washington, Crab Creek, Goose Lake, Potholes, Sandhill Cranes, wildflowers

APRIL ARRIVED AND THEN IT DEPARTED. AND THEN MAY CAME ALONG. And now it’s June! We managed to get to central Washington and the Potholes/Columbia NWR/Seep Lakes area the first part of April to see the last of the Sandhill Cranes before they flew to parts north. And boy did we see them!

Sandhills on a dike at the edge of Crab Creek

Sandhills on a dike at the edge of Crab Creek

I don’ have a telephoto lens that is large enough to get in really close, but you can see the numbers. Just multiply by ten and you get the idea. They were spread out over a very large area. We figured there were 2,000-3,000 birds.

 

300 maybe? Multiply by 10.

300 maybe? Multiply by 10.

Sandhillcranes_1The central part of Washington is so different from the west side of the Cascade mountains. It is considered Shrub Steppe. Towering basalt cliffs and potholes scoured out by the Great Missoula flood of the last ice age.It is an arid, desert like environment with cactus and cattails alike.

Crab Creek basalt cliffs

Crab Creek basalt cliffs

There is a lot of agriculture in this area too; a benefit of the federal government’s reclamation project in the wake of building the Grand Coulee Dam. There are acres upon acres of potatoes, wheat, corn, alfalfa, apples, cherries and vineyards for winemaking. All of this intermingled with bird habitat. It is a real jewel.

Lower Goose Lake

Lower Goose Lake

This is a great migratory stopover for the Sandhill Cranes as well as many varieties of waterfowl and songbirds.

Fritallaria pudica

Wildflowers like this Fritallaria pudica ,were just beginning to bloom

Beaver lodge at Lower Crab Creek

Beaver lodge at Lower Crab Creek

It is a great area to hike, camp and watch wildlife. And this trip was a nice four day break from a renovation project that began last month.

Zigadenus; also known as Death Camas. It's quite .lovely

Zigadenus; also known as Death Camas. It’s quite .lovely

 

 

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A LITTLE TRIP TO NEW ORLEANS

07 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by backyardnotes in Birding, Travel

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Tags

bead art, beetles, birds, butterflies, Halloween, moths, New Orlean, New Orleans

THIS IS OUR FAVORITE CITY IN THE U.S. The groundskeeper was attending a conference and it happened to be over the Halloween weekend, so I tagged along.

We had never visited during Halloween. Lots of homes decorated for the occasion throughout the city. Some simply, others quite elaborately. This one is in the Garden District.

This one was at the corner of Chartres & Barracks, next to our hotel.

On Saturday night and Halloween night costumed revelers roamed the French Quarter, particularly on crazy Bourbon St. and along Frenchmen St. in theFaubourg-Marigny area.  Unfortunately just as Halloween closed out and the clock turned over into Tuesday there was a shooting on Bourbon St.; one person killed and seven wounded. Scary.

As seen above, everyone is welcome on Bourbon Street. My guess is that not too many souls were saved this night.

On Monday, I met some friends in the Garden District where we walked Magazine Street; lots of upscale and junk shops, eateries, antiques stores, and assorted art. We discovered this very interesting the artist Stephán Wanger, in his studio. He creates New Orleans themed works of art with discarded Mardi Gras beads. This photo is a small section of a very large painting. He begins with an underpainting then covers it with beads. Very impressive.

Once the conference ended we took a day trip, south to Grand Isle to do a little birding. We saw 19 species of birds. Most notable were the Black Skimmers, Tri-colored Heron, and Reddish Egrets. The following day we drove to the Atchafalaya NWR hoping to see more bird species.  Slimmer pickings here. New to us were the Carolina Wren and Eastern Phoebe.

We also saw some other ‘wildlife’, like this butterfly who was resting in leaf litter right next to…

this small snake!

Underfoot throughout the forest trail were tiny wild strawberries unlike any I’ve seen. I have not been able to identify this fragaria. According to the USDA plant database map there are no wild strawberries in Louisiana. They are about the size of a shirt button!

On our last day in New Orleans we visited the Audubon Insectarium. One room was dedicated to beetles, butterflies, and moths, arranged in arresting displays.

Beetles, moths and butterflies.

We always try to find something new to see and explore on each visit and this was new and interesting. We heard some great music on Frenchmen Street, at Vaso, and at the Balcony Music Club on Decatur Street. We ate some great food at Emeril’s on Julia & Tchoupitoulas and at Slyvain, a new restaurant on Chartres Street. We had wonderfully warm weather, saw and did a few new things, a few old standbys, and were ready to come home on Saturday.

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APRIL PHOTO A DAY: SANDHILL CRANES

18 Monday Apr 2011

Posted by backyardnotes in Birding

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Tags

birds, Sandhill Cranes

WE WENT TO OTHELLO, Washington area to view migrating Sandhill Cranes over the weekend. Small cameras have limitations and overall the new camera as a point-and-shoot does pretty well, but in this situation the zoom was not good enough. But, just imagine this as one slice of a fifty (?) acre + field. In this field there were thousand upon thousands of cranes and Canada Geese. We were as close as we could get to them without spooking them and had to stay in the car. It was a truly amazing mix of  sound and sight, birds as far as we could see – in flight as well. Really memorable.

These cranes were in another field about five miles down the road; probably four or five hundred.

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