Herself’s Houston Garden

These American Tree Sparrows have been gluttons at the feeder for a couple of weeks now. I am not sure if they are passing through or going to stay around?

They did winter over and are here year round. So far they have not been a problem at my feeders.

Too cool. It took me a few days to find out what kind of birds these are. They have made a nest not far from here. If the Mrs. hadn’t nearly mowed us down on our bikes we might not have noticed her and her nest. They are very hard to see.

These guys eat small lizards, snakes and other assorted gruesome things. I’m told the Mr. has been spotted running about with small snakes hanging out of his mouth.

There have been large flocks of robins every where for over a month now. About 30-60 will land in the yard, then spend a couple of hours eating all my worms. They disappear only to reappear a few weeks later. It is a wonder anyone has any worms left.

I use 1/3 cup white sugar and 1 cup water in my feeders. I re-fill them after a rain or if they have gone a week with out changing. If you put in too much sugar you’ll have yellow jackets all over your feeders and the hummingbirds will avoid them.

Put your hummingbird feeders up high. The males will fight over them and come close to the ground while fighting. This makes them prey for cats if the feeders are too low.

Atty. Donald Burger has the dates listed back through 1993 of the hummingbirds arrival in the spring and the fall. March 23rd is the earliest spring migration he records and Aug 3rd is the earliest fall migration he recorded.

He also notes the spring migration lay over here is much shorter than the fall.

The local expert on hummingbirds has told me this is the book to get if you want to know more about Texas hummingbirds: Hummingbirds of Texas: With Their New Mexico And Arizona Ranges (Tam Nature Guides)