Re: [gardeners] Threaten to disband and they will come...
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Mon, 25 Jun 2001 10:53:58 -0500
I sympathize about the mockers. I have several around here who think our garden
is their personal larder. I don't mind too much as they also eat lots of
insects. Have seen them chasing grasshoppers, katydids, etc, and even picking
caterpillers off of plants. Cardinals are another problem, being seedeaters they
take a bite out of a tomato and then hollow it out to get the seeds. On top of
that they don't pay any attention to insects. Bought the neighbor next door some
seeds for her big bird feeder and stopped the redbirds from eating my maters.
There's one old male mocker that may meet his end soon. He usually starts
singing about 1 am each morning and continues until dark. Makes more noise than
10 other birds put together. Getting a little tired of his plan to attract a
mate. Got a friend with a hawk that might need a snack. Naw, the mockers are
protected here and I don't want to go to jail just to get a good nights sleep.
Oh yeah, the mockers, grackles, and blackbirds just love our raspberries and
boysenberries and the mockers like the blueberries best.
George
Dan Dixon wrote:
>
> I mostly lurk, primarily to read George's garden reports, which are usually
> embued with a distinctive style that I find entertaining. [disconnects lips
> from George's posterior]
>
> OK, ok, so I'll contribute something... :)
>
> A while back I asked the list about bird netting over raspberries. Listers
> may recall the problem was that I had miscalculated when covering our
> raspberry patch with bird netting and had left gaps near the ground. My
> concern was that birds and squirrels would just go under and eat the
> berries. George suggested using CD-ROM disks hung from a line to scare the
> critters. Sort of a dot.com version of the old pie tin trick. So I hung
> about a dozen or so about 2 feet off the ground around the perimiter of the
> patch. I learned that the squirrels and most birds are definitely wary of
> hanging CD-ROMs. I've been thinking about why this is. The CD-ROMs reflect
> the surroundings a visual illusion of rapid horizontal motion with the
> slightest breeze. My guess is that the sensation of rapid horizontal motion
> is disconcerting to the critters, since it looks like more is moving than
> actually is. The only birds which were undeterred were a couple of
> (ostensibly) very smart mockingbirds. I pondered removing them from the gene
> pool (what gardener wants smart mockingbirds around?), but in the end
> decided just to let 'em have some of the berries.
>
> Dan Dixon
>
> > From: George Shirley <gshirl@bellsouth.net>
> > Organization: Sacred Order of St. Pectina of Jella (Saints Preserve Us)
> > Reply-To: gardeners@globalgarden.com
> > Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 22:53:00 -0500
> > To: Gardeners List <gardeners@globalgarden.com>
> > Subject: [gardeners] Re: Sunday in the garden [sic]
> >
> > There has been no gardeners mail for at least a week now. If volume doesn't
> > pick
> > up soon we will disband the list for lack of interest. Come on folks we know
> > you're lurking out there. Is everyone busy gardening?