Wild About Wild Life

Please Join Harmony Hearth & Home

9:00am—5:00pm Friday, May 10
&
10:00am—4:00pm Sat May 11, 2013

For an
OPEN HOUSE
At our NEW location:
922 W. Lincolnway
(formerly the Cowboy Bar, look for the cowboy on the roof)

Enjoy a browse around our New Show Room! You’ll also have the opportunity for:

Scavenger Hunts ~ Promotions ~ Food ~ Drawings ~ Door Prizes ~ Specials ~ Fun!

                  

 

What a great way to kick off some Spring activities with you and your family!

The Paul Smith Children’s Village ~ Cheyenne Botanic Gardens is kicking off their “Let’s G.O. (Get Outside) Day! If you want to get the kids outside and do some really fun things, plan to attend this great event – Saturday, April 20th, 2013!

Planting, Tag, Photos, Story Times, Cork Boat and Pooh Stick Races, and you can even make your own Trash Robot, Bird Nest or Plant Necklace.

For More Information, Call Ashley Rooney, youth coordinator for Wyoming State Parks, Historic Sites and Trails @ 307-777-6560. See you there!!!

Interestingly enough, there are some very strange relationships in our world. These are the types of relationships that supersede what we may deem as “normal.” It is no different in the wild bird kingdom. Feeding birds has always been a fairly popular past time for many people. Bird food of all kinds is at an all time high with the hobby of birding being ranked at about #2 on the charts.

Some of the foods that may really surprise you are numerous. Ranging from the Anna’s Hummingbird sand, to the Rufous Hummingbirds soil, to brown lemming bones which are a treat to the Arctic Sandpipers, there are all types of bird food that you and I may deem peculiar. If you have been camping, or are planning to soon, you may find some unexpected visitors at the remains of your bonfire the night before. No, I’m not talking about some wanderer looking for a piece of hot dog that fell in the fire, but I’m talking about wild birds ranging from Hummingbirds, to Wild Turkey’s to even an occasional Chickadee.

Chickadees, Crossbills and Turkeys have been seen consuming ashes along with Hummingbirds, which usually can be found licking the powdery stuff from the surface of an old fire. This may sound VERY strange considering a Hummingbirds diet consists mainly of an overload of liquid. A typical Hummingbird will consume almost twice its own weight in nectar and urinates about 80 percent of its weight. That would be like you and I urinating about 20 gallons of liquid per day. WOW! That is a lot of liquid isn’t it?

A biologist from Alta Loma California, James des Lauriers, has noted that ashes are loaded with calcium and this is what is needed especially after a Hummingbird finishes laying her eggs, which are composed of calcium carbonate. So this depletion causes her to want more calcium. How to remedy this? Throw some egg shells out and watch the song birds and wild bird have at it. Ashes are loaded with calcium. Wood ashes produces a specific kind of lime rendering about 3/4 of calcium oxide. The ash also renders a good amount of sodium oxide as well. One observation showed that after a hummingbird laid her eggs, she went after the calcium found in the ashes.

As you may know, the mortar and brick on some of your houses also inhabit a certain amount of calcium that will attract other song birds such as the finches in your yard. All the bird seed in the world may not stop their activities of gnawing on your chimney’s, but egg shells may help to detour their activity.

I don’t want you to feel like you have to produce piles of ashes in your backyard network in order to help meet the need of these feathered calcium seekers. Egg shells will help to do the job after you sterilize them. Let the egg shells boil for about 10 minutes or you can put them on a baking sheet in your oven set at 250 degrees for about 15 minutes or so. Then crush the shells into small bits and scatter them about your observation points and patios. You can even mix them in with your wild bird seed in your backyard bird feeders.

I hope this will help you in your quest to make your backyard network the very BEST that it can be. For more information on how you can acquire tips and supplies for your backyard, simply visit: The Birdhouse Outlet or Edible Bird Feeders!

Happy Birding!!!

The Western Small-Footed Batis a fairly small bat approximately 1 ½ to 2 inches long with a wingspan around 8-10 inches weighing in at 4-6 grams. This bat is found in Western Canada and the Western US down into Mexico in the desert, semi-desert and desert mountain regions. These particular bats are a very hardy species, being the last to enter the hibernacula and the first to leave. It also survives in below freezing temperatures and does not appear to go into complete hibernation.

The feeding habits of these bats are not well known but are known to eat small insects such as lepidopterans (butterflies,moths), coleopterans (beetles), dipterans (midges, flies, mosquitoes), neuropterans (lacewings), hymenopterans (wasps,ants,bees, sawflies), and hemipterans (true bugs) . These bats hunt over rocks rather than water as other bats do.

Most bats winter hibernation areas are away from their summer roosts, however the Western Small-footed bats hibernacula is in the same area as their summer roosts. Nursing colonies have been found in rock cliffs and clay banks. Their life span seems to have a maximum of 12 years with the average around 5-7 years. There is extremely little known about the habitat requirements for these bats. The altitude ranges for these bats appear to be between 2120-8670 feet. This is based on unpublished information from Heritage Data management System.

All in all an interesting species of bat that there appears to be only a limited amount of information available compared to other bats.

 Ken “Batman Ken” Rudman is resident of Wyoming. He is also a writer, businessman and a promoter of bird and bat preservation, natural insect control, and a “how-to” guy to help people build up their backyard network in attracting song birds, feeders, artificial houses, facts and more.Send your questions, ideas, article requests and inquiries to Ken – The Backyard Ombudsman-  at his email address: wildlifehouses@yahoo.com.   He is also featured on his weekly radio program The Backyard Network Radio Show on AM 1480 KRAE Radio.

The Cheyenne High Plains Chapter of the National Audubon Society in Cheyenne Wyoming, will be sponsoring a beginners birding class again this year. No previous experience or skill level is required; even people who may have watched birds for years will ge a lot of valuable information from the class.

Dennis Saville, a wildlife biologist with BLM (Bureau of Land Management) will teach the class with the help from experienced chapter members.

Class times are from 6:30 – 8:30 pm on two consecutive Thursday evenings, April 25th and May 2nd 2013, with field trips on Saturday mornings, April 27th and May 4th 2013. As you may be well aware, Spring is a great time to be learning how to identify wild birds and song birds. Cheyenne attracts many bird migrants during that time of year as they travel from their winter homes in the southern U.S., Mexico, Central and South America to their summer breeding grounds, some in Wyoming and on north to the arctic tundra.

This outstanding birding class will have a lot of great information that will help you in your bird watching experience. Topic will include:

• Seasons in which different birds can be found
• Which habitats different birds prefer
• Bird Watching Etiquette
• Placement of Bird Feeders and Artificial Nest Boxes
• How to keep track of birds with a bird list
• Good, Local Places to Observe Birds
• Bird Field Guides
• And, of course, Identification of Bird Species found in Cheyenne, Wyoming

Be sure to bring a pair of binoculars and your favorite field guides to the first class so that we can help you understand how to best use what you have. The group may be able to lend their limited number of binoculars during the class and field trip times. If you would like more specific information about the class and other Audubon Events and Field Trips in the area, call Dennis Saville at 307.775.6106 (work) or 307.632.1602 (home).

We hope to see you there! Happy Birding!

It is that time of year again for birder’s across America and all over the world to flock to the 43rd Annual Nebraska Crane Festival! Audubon Nebraska puts on this celebration of migration, featuring the largest concentration of Sandhill Cranes in the world.  Over 500,000 cranes plus millions of snow geese and other waterfowl stop over in central Nebraska each spring.

This event is one of the nation’s longest-running wildlife festivals. The RWC began in 1971 in Grand Island as the “Spring River Conference” to raise awareness for the Platte River and its importance to the spring bird migration. It was geared for advocacy at the time and resulted in the formation of the Big Bend Audubon Society. The festival moved to Kearney when Rowe Sanctuary was purchased in 1974. Current festivals focus on wildlife and environment education in general, with family-friendly activities and famous field trips to crane blinds along the Platte River and bird migration stopovers in central and southern Nebraska. Roger Tory Peterson, Julie Zickefoose, Bruce Babbitt, and Jane Goodall are some of the well-known attendees from past celebrations.

For more information about this event, or if you would like to register or contact them on line, simply go to:  http://go.unl.edu/cranecelebration and sign up.

For general festival information, call Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, (402) 797-2301, or e-mail Audubon Nebraska. Happy “Crane-ing!”

 

 

New materials for the 2013 Great Backyard Bird Count are now available. That includes downloadable posters and web
buttons (Posters & Web Buttons), as well as a PowerPoint presentation (Power Points) with accompanying script.
Please help spread the word about the GBBC by sharing these materials with members, schools, community groups, libraries,
birding clubs, and anyone else who may be interested. Send them a link to the web buttons or poster (or post it on your
website), print a few copies of the poster to place around your community, or show the PowerPoint presentation to your membership
or other interested audiences.
If you arrange a GBBC event, make sure to let us know ahead of time so we (GBBC organizers) can put it on the GBBC
Local Events page (Local Events Page). Please send event information to Zach Slavin, zslavin@audubon.org, and be sure to
include city, state, date, time, a brief description, the cost if any, and any relevant contact information.
The GBBC is great because of all the work you do to let others know about it, so thank you from all of us at Audubon, the
Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Bird Studies Canada!

I recently participated in a mini backyard bird count which had been going on and found some cool looking Dark-eyed Junco’s amongst the mix of Collard Doves, House Sparrows and Female Downy Woodpeckers. The Dark-eyed Junco is a fabulous watch for bird watchers of all ages.

They typically like to rush your bird feeders in flocks of 10 – 12 birds, especially during their spring and fall migration. The male Juncos, with their dark gray colors and white bellies and the black lores with pinkish flanks, really will give you quite the view during your birdwatching endeavor.

You can find these Dark-eyed Juncos in Northern Idaho and Western Montana throughout most of the year. However, their migratory patterns take them a bit farther north and east in Montana to include north west Wyoming and Western Colorado. You should begin seeing them around March and April during their Spring arrivals, but we saw them in our backyard network as early as late January in 2013. Their migratory patterns are short distance compared to other wild birds which fly to parts of South America and, in some cases, beyond. In the fall, Juncos like to move to lower elevations in our Rocky Mountain region and over winter. However, some have been seen migrating as far south as the Gulf of Mexico.

These little wild birds are wonderful to have around. Recently, we had a Christmas Tree that we took out of the house and laid outside on the porch. The Dark-eyed Juncos began to inhabit the tree as this provided some good protection against the high plains winds we have here in the state of Wyoming. When it gets really windy, and they have to fly against it, Juncos tend to fly closer to the ground. However, when they are flying with the wind, they tend to fly higher. They try to take advantage of those “tail winds.” You can imagine that if you look well enough, you can find Juncos inhabiting mixed woodlands consisting of bushes and thickets. They also like it when we put out our winter bird feeders as well.

If you want to catch a glimpse of these Dark-eyed Juncos, you can find them hoping around on the ground or on your back deck.  These very light birds are avid hunters of insects, grasshoppers, and weed seeds, especially in the Spring. They love to feast on the small, spiders, aphids and beetles. They also like to ingest ants as well. Juncos hunt for these insects at all levels of nature. If you want to attract Juncos, throw out some millet on the ground and watch them come!  They’re good for ground feeding too.

Much more could be shared about the Dark-eyed Junco, but your observation and bird watching will be a far greater experience than just reading about them. Also, pay attention to their “hack” sound when the males and females are trying to defend themselves. Let us know about your experiences with this wonderful bird of nature. I’d love to hear about it.

 

 

The Birdhouse Guy is a bird enthusiast, who hails from the great state of Wyoming and offers tips, facts and ideas for your yard both on this site and on his weekly radio program The Backyard Network with The Birdhouse Guy and Batman Ken. If you would like to contact The Birdhouse Guy with questions or comments, feel free to email him here: wildlifehouses@yahoo.com. If you’re interested in edible birdhouses or other birding supplies, you can visit the stores at Incredible Edibles  or The Birdhouse Outlet  for a variety of feeders, bird watching supplies and houses for your song birds. Happy Birding!

 

It doesn’t matter who you are, as long as your eyes are working properly, anyone can see a bird. All of us are familiar with wild birds and song birds in one form or another. Now you may not know all the names of the birds you see, as this requires practice in bird identification. However, bird watchers have developed some really cool ways to identify those feathered friends that inhabit your backyard networks, parks, lakes, open fields and the like. Every time you go on a bird watching outing, either by yourself or with a group of people, you want to make that trip successful every time! And there is no reason why it shouldn’t be if we keep in mind some simple tips that I would like to share with you today that will help you with your quest for spotting birds!

Noise Reduction: When you are spotting birds, you must remember to be quiet. Small song birds especially as well as other wild birds are easily startled by sudden movements and noise. This is something that you and your company need to keep in mind when embarking on your birding adventure. Because of a birds keen sense of hearing and seeing, it is next to impossible to “sneak up” behind a bird. Local park birds are typically a bit more friendly as they are used to being around people who are engaged with wild bird feeding, but you still need to be careful of any sudden noises when watching these song birds too. Another temptation that “new birders” do, is when they encounter a really cool looking bird, they tend to want to yell out to the others, “HEY, LOOK WHAT I FOUND – COOL!” That is a sure way to scare off the “cool bird” that you wanted everyone to look at. Birders eventually learn that they can whisper these same words to the rest of the party to reduce any and all noise reduction on the bird watching trip.

Movement Reduction: Making sudden movements when you are bird watching is a sure way to get those song birds moving. Just as a cat “stalks” its prey, you must learn how to “stalk” wild birds when you see them. Sudden, jerky, staccato-type movement startles birds, makes them nervous and will cause them to fly off. Even when you are pulling your bird field guide, like the Peterson field guides, out of your pocket or pulling your binoculars to your eyes can cause discomfort to the birds you are viewing and off they will fly. Just remember, the closer you get to the song bird, the slower and quieter you must be.

Avoid Bright Colored Clothes: Most of your wild birds don’t have the best vision when it comes to color; however, bright colored clothing, like fluorescent pinks and oranges, that contrast with the natural terrain of the environment you are in, will cause you to be more visible to the birds. I would encourage you to wear more browns, greys, greens, etc that are of a more earth tone color as to blend in more to the environment. Just be careful to watch out for any hunters in the area.

 

Try Spishing: What in the world is “spishing” or ask? Good question! This is something that bird watchers may do if all they have tried to do has failed. In other words, you have been quiet, patient, watchful, but the birds still don’t seem to be getting in a place to where you can get a good glance at them. Spishing is something that is done by kissing the back of your hand or blowing air through your front teeth to make a low whistled “spish” sound, of sorts. Smaller song birds and other small wild birds are interested in these sounds and by you “spishing” it should get there attention enough to where you can pull them out of the trees and bushes by whetting their curiosity. The way to do this is to either kiss the back of your hand, or clench your teeth, open your lips and whisper the word spish.

Whenever you go bird watching, it’s always good to bring along a group. The more eyes, the better. You may be looking at a Red Breasted Nuthatch and someone else may see a Solitaire that you didn’t notice. At any rate, bird watching is fun! The more you do it, the better you get. And for you beginners – don’t forget to bring along a mentor. They are worth their weight in gold! Happy Birding to you all!

For more information on how you can be ready for your next bird watching outing, simply visit the guys at The Birdhouse Outlet!

 

Our Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society Mini Christmas Bird Count had a good, but unexpected turnout–8 adults, no kids. We had a great time in the cold weather counting birds and having a great time. Barb and Mark Gorges were a real blessing and we viewed quite a few wild birds to say the least.
It was a nice warm-up for the Cheyenne CBC next Saturday. The highlights were a flyover by an adult Bald Eagle and, behind the Children’s Village, in the trees next to the sidewalk, all at the same time, both nuthatches, Brown Creeper and Mountain Chickadees.

Lions Park is located in Cheyenne Wyoming. We viewed many Mallard ducks as well as Northern Shovlers around Sloans Lake as well. The Cheyenne – High Palins Audubon Society is quite involved in the Cheyenne area and I would invite you to visit their site should you want more information about taking part in the Cheyenne CBC, or other up and coming events. The CHPAS newsletter posted here: News Letter/

Lions Park, Laramie, US-WY
Dec 15, 2012 10:10 AM – 11:20 AM
Protocol: Traveling
0.5 mile(s)
Comments:     Cheyenne Audubon Mini-Christmas Bird Count Participants: “Batman” Ken Rudman, Gary “The Birdhouse Guy” Freeman, Donna Kassel, Jim Hecker, Carol Sutherland, Dennis Saville, Barb & Mark Gorges
12 species

Canada Goose  158
Mallard  402
Northern Shoveler  30
Bald Eagle  1
American Crow  42
Mountain Chickadee  5
Red-breasted Nuthatch  2
White-breasted Nuthatch  4
Brown Creeper  1
Townsend’s Solitaire  2
Dark-eyed Junco  6
House Sparrow  6

If you took place in a Christmas Bird Count in your neck of the woods, we would sure like to hear how it went. At any rate, we hope you had great birding success in 2012!