Planning the Garden in the time of COVID-19

I’ve been thinking about my garden for a few weeks now – ever since the shutdown of essential services I’ve wondered if I would be able to get to the nursery in the spring to buy flowers. Usually each year I try to add a few more perennials and fill in the gaps – as well as my containers – with annuals for immediate colour. I came to the conclusion that it would be best to buy some seeds and start them indoors, which would not only give me something to do while stuck at home, but would also make the yard more enjoyable in the summer if the nurseries should be closed and this lockdown should last so long.

Today I was delighted to find some seeds at the Independent Grocery Store at Hazeldean Mall while trying to pick up some groceries (which was horrible – I couldn’t get a cart or basket, and was only able to buy what I could carry) and selected a few that I thought would add some colour. Normally I try to buy flowers that will attract hummingbirds and butterflies, but beggars can’t be choosers, and it is getting a little late to order online or wait until my next essential grocery run to see what another store may have. Still, I managed to get some flowers that should benefit the wildlife in my backyard.

Bachelor’s Buttons – I’d had luck growing these in the past, though I’d purchased them so that the birds could feed on the seeds long before I became interested in butterflies and other pollinators. It turns out that their flowers are attractive to pollinators, too!

Cosmos – this is another flower I’d tried in the past, again to provide seed for birds in the fall. If I recall correctly, I did find goldfinches feeding on them and the Bachelor’s Buttons! Apparently their open flowers provide easy access to nectar and pollen for pollinators as well.

Nasturtium – I might have tried this in the garden before, but if so I don’t remember how it performed or whether it attracted any beneficial insects. I chose this mainly for the bright orange flowers, as all my other choices were blue, pink and purple, however, it does appear that they will attract long-tongued bumblebees, butterflies, hummingbirds…and aphids. Well, maybe now the aphids will leave my viburnum alone.

Sweet Pea – this is a new flower for the garden and one that can climb. It sounds as though it is beneficial to pollinators, but does not seem to be on anyone’s top ten list.

Wild Flax – the only perennial on my list, I chose it for its pretty blue flowers with yellow centers. It too sounds as though it is beneficial to pollinators, though not as strongly recommended as other flowers.

Flower	Time for seedlings to emerge	Earliest Date
Bachelor’s Buttons	12-21 days	April 23, 2020
Cosmos	7-10 days	April 18, 2020
Nasturtium	10-14 days	April 21, 2020
Sweet Pea	10-14 days	April 21, 2020
Wild Flax	10-21 days	April 21, 2020

I’ve had mixed results growing plants from seeds in the past, with slightly more successes than failures. Hopefully these seeds will be successful and provide plenty of flowers for the flower flies, bees, beetles and butterflies to enjoy this summer – stay tuned for updates!

Chipper says Hello!

I have four chipmunks now visiting my yard looking for food dropped from the bird feeder. At first I was only aware of three, one of which has a shorter tail than the others, and only two of which will run up to the back door when I open it and call them over (they know I keep the good stuff inside). Then a few weeks ago I noticed three chipmunks with long tails, although they don’t all come at the same time.

One day I noticed this chipmunk in my back garden, standing on its hind legs while munching on my pansy flowers. The pansies are situated just in front of the bird bath and do much better out back than they do in my front garden – they have been blooming profusely since May. (The ones in my front garden died only a few weeks after planting – remind me to never plant them out front again.) I tried to take some photos of the chipmunk standing up and eating the flowers, but they didn’t turn out so well.

However, I did manage to snap the shutter in time to get this photo:

Eastern Chipmunk

I went out and put some pile of bird seed on the small retaining wall, and the chipmunk disappeared until I was gone. Then it came back out to feed.

Eastern Chipmunk

It has a much shorter tail than my short-tailed Chippy, and it looks much more ragged – as though it was freshly broken off, and none too cleanly. I am not sure whether my short-tailed chipmunk had its tail further shortened, or whether this is one of my regular long-tailed ones. I’ll have to keep an eye out on the weekends and see.

The Annual January Thaw

Great Horned Owl

For the past three days I’ve been listening to the sound of the steady drip of water from the snow melting on my roof. Almost every year we get a warm spell where the temperature climbs a few degrees above zero for a couple of days. While it is usually called the “January thaw”, sometimes it occurs in February, usually right in the middle of Winterlude. It is a welcome break from the bitterly cold days that remain well within the negative double digits. Not only does this weather make birding more pleasant – despite the heavy gray skies that usually accompany these warm spells – but birds and animals become more active, moving around instead of hunkering down against the cold.

I was hoping that this would happen on Saturday, and started my morning at the Trail Road landfill where I hoped to find at least a couple of different species of gull. Once again I found only Herring Gulls, and the only other birds present were two Red-tailed Hawks, crows and starlings. Even these seemed down in numbers.

Backyard Bug Inventory

Maple-Basswood Leafroller

I haven’t done as much photography in my own yard this year as I would have liked; I’ve seen no butterflies other than the ubiquitous Cabbage Whites, no flashy moths visiting my flowers or perching on my house during the daylight, and no odes other than a couple of darners flying too high up to identify. Still, I knew there had to be some colourful insects around, and once I made the effort to go looking for them, I ended up finding some colourful old friends as well as quite a few new species for my yard.

Pine Siskins in the Backyard

Pine Siskin numbers have really increased lately. The bonanza started on March 26th when I found at least 30 of them along March Valley Road. Since then I’ve observed them on almost all of my birding outings, including at Mud Lake and Sarsparilla Trail last weekend, and all three Stony Swamp trails I visited yesterday. I was hoping they would show up at my feeder during their migration north, and yesterday they finally did.

Cooper’s Hawk

I don’t often see accipiters in my suburban neighbourhood. It’s too open, as the few mature trees dotted here and there are too far apart to provide the type of canopy they prefer; however, every now and then one shows up to check out my feeder. The last one I positively identified was a juvenile sitting on the back fence with a dead female or juvenile House Sparrow in its bill, while a male House Sparrow scolded it from a safe distance. That was back in July 2014.

This morning I was working at my computer, which is in a spare room overlooking the street, while keeping an eye on a large flock of starlings in the trees across the road. I wasn’t the only one watching the starlings, as a larger bird flew in and landed in the same tree. It was partially obscured by the branches of the two trees on my front lawn, but something about it didn’t look right for American Crow, which is the most common large bird in our subdivision. I grabbed my binoculars, focused on the bird through the branches, and was stunned when I realized it was a hawk. I grabbed my camera and headed outside. Fortunately it didn’t see me skulking at the end of my driveway as I took a few shots.

Cooper’s Hawk

It was an adult, as evidenced by the brownish-orange chest and slate-coloured back. The large size and dark capped appearance identified it as a Cooper’s Hawk, the most commonly seen accipiter in my neighbourhood (or at least the one I’ve most often successfully identified). The starlings all flew out of the tree in a panic, and about ten minutes later the Cooper’s Hawk flew off as well. It was a bright moment in an otherwise dull day, and I only hope that the Cooper’s Hawk doesn’t wait another 17 months before its next appearance.

An October Butterfly

Eastern Comma

I have been home these past three days, recovering from having my gallbladder removed on Monday, October 19th. Although I wasn’t able to move around much on the first two days, I have been recovering slowly, using the time to watch the birds and bugs in my yard. Yesterday I recorded eight bird species in a couple of hours, including a pair of female House Finches at the feeder and five Dark-eyed Juncos scrounging for seeds in both my yard and my neighbour’s. A pair of chickadees, a pair of Blue Jays, and at least ten House Sparrows also came to sample the food at the feeder, and I was happy to see the sparrows bathing in my birdbath. Canada Geese have been flying over the yard these past two days, many more today than yesterday.

Little Miss Broken Paw

Little Miss Broken Paw

One particular Eastern Gray Squirrel has been visiting my yard for about two years now – perhaps more. I recognize her by the way her damaged front left paw is curled up against her wrist, immobile, and because of this I call her (with great affection) Little Miss Broken Paw. It looks as though her wrist got broken at some point and healed permanently in this position. While such an injury would be devastating to a human, it has not affected her in any way that I can see; I have long admired how she is able to climb the fence and scamper along the top of it without so much as a limp.

Wildlife Around the Yard

Chipping Sparrow (Juvenile)

I live in a townhouse in suburbia, so my backyard is quite small. The front yard is even smaller since our driveway takes up half of the property, but I do have a large shrubby tree right outside my front window that attracts some interesting birds every once in a while (I have not gotten around to identifying said tree, though I’m sure many of my naturalist friends would know what it was if I sent them some photos and asked; it’s sort of fun leaving it as a mystery). The most recent addition to my “front tree” list – which includes Wilson’s, Yellow, and Yellow-rumped Warblers and a female Purple Finch – was a Red-eyed Vireo singing in the foliage last May. Lately, a pair of cardinals have taken to roosting in the tree at night. I’ve seen evidence of this in the form of bird droppings on the car every morning, and know it’s the cardinals because I hear their metallic chip notes outside my computer room window just after sunset and before sunrise most days.

Quiet Descends

Red-breasted Merganser

The weather forecast last weekend didn’t look too promising. Some snow, some sun, some cold mornings; I wasn’t sure I wanted to go out, but the lure of the outdoors overcame any initial reluctance. Owls are moving through Ottawa on their way to their wintering grounds, so I thought I would spend Saturday morning in the woods looking for the elusive Long-eared, diminutive Saw-whet, and majestic Great Horned Owls, all of which I needed for my year list. After that I planned to go up to the river in the hopes of seeing some scoters, loons, grebes, etc. The snow was supposed to start around 1:00 so that would give me plenty of time to find some good birds.