Angry Birds: Part 1 - Getting to Know Your Feathered Friends

Why are they angry? I don’t know, I don’t speak bird...yet. With the help of some great applications and online resources I may soon.  Okay, I won’t speak bird, but I will be able to identify their calls.  "Why would I care about birds?" you might ask. When we moved into our house, the people who lived here before us left a number of bird feeders.  So we filled them, and within hours our yard was full of activity (if you hang new feeders just know that it can take several months before you get regular visitors; don’t be discouraged).  Though we fail to keep our bird feeders consistently filled with seed, we get a number of different species visiting our backyard - each brings their own calls, colors, and behaviors.  Some birds are constant visitors throughout the year, and others only visit for short periods as they pass during their migration - changing with the seasons.  What I did notice was how different the birds were than those that I grew up around in Los Angeles (yes there are birds in LA; no, not just pigeons).  I wanted to learn more.

In my attempt to identify the our visitors, I found “All about Birds” by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  It has a great (and free) bird guide that allows for searching for birds by shape, name, and taxonomy. The shape search was most useful for me as I didn’t know much about bird taxonomy and was visiting the website to try and find the name.  The website has pictures of species as well as the calls/sounds they make.  One of my favorite features of this site is the inclusion of a “Similar Species” feature on the right side of the page.  It can really help for smaller birds that are more difficult to differentiate.

So now you have identified a bird. You get to feel special next time you are with friends and can identify a tufted titmouse by only its call. What more can you do with your new found knowledge?  For starters you can contribute, as a citizen scientist of sorts, your bird sightings (even birds visiting feeders on the balcony of your apartment) to eBird.  eBird is a project created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Audubon Society  that attempts to better spatially and temporally characterize bird populations. There are many ways to participate, each with varying degrees of input needed (the simplest of which require no regular commitment).  Due to my busy schedule I find that I mostly submit "incidental" sightings. An incidental sighting could be something as simple as looking outside at the feeder and noting the visiting birds on eBird.

Another great way to contribute is by sharing photos that you take of birds on the web.  For example, my good friend Dustin Dovala is an excellent photographer of birds, among other things. He has been kind enough to allow us to post some of his pictures on our blog.  Despite the fact that these pictures were taken in California, all of these species can be found in Indiana.

Top Left - "A vole's worst nightmare" - Norther Harrier (Circus cyaneus)
Top Right - White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys)
Bottom Left - Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) Arastradero
Bottom Right - "Kestrel Takeoff", American Kestrel (Falco sparverius)

Some general issues with bird identification in general:

One thing that is difficult with all of the guides is trying to identify juvenile birds.  Often times, the juveniles have incomplete coloration and physical characteristics (lacking ornamental feathering) and are not shown in the bird guides.  It can make them difficult to ID. For example, can you pick out the juvenile male cardinal out of the pictures below? (Bird IDs at the end of this post)

I have found that watching the birds with whom they keep company can often help make the ID. The birds play an important role contributing to the changing nature of our garden throughout the seasons.  If you are having trouble identifying a bird and can snap a picture, feel free to post a link to it in the comment section below (try a publicly shared album in picasa if you don’t know how to share the image). Follow our blog for our next bird related posts: 1) how to attract certain bird species to your backyard or balcony, 2) a review of the android app ”Audubon Birds - a Field Guide” which is also available for Apple IOS.


Answer and sources of photos:
A. Adult Female Northern Cardinal (source)
B. Juvenile Male Northern  Cardinal (source)
C.Pyrrhuloxia (source)
D. Adult Male Northern Cardinal (source)

Gardening 101 - Annuals vs. Perennials

This Gardening 101 series will be threefold. I  intended to make this one post, but upon thinking about what I should cover I realized it would be too much to throw at you all at once! The series will highlight three basics everyone interested in growing a plant should know. These are: annuals vs. perennials, USDA hardiness zones, and planting your seeds/bulbs/plants. Today we will cover:

Annuals vs. Perennials

To buy an annual or a perennial? That, my friends, is today’s question. One of the first things I always look for when I consider buying a plant/bulb/seeds is whether the plant is an annual or a perennial. Simply put, an annual is a plant that will only last one year, whereas a (properly taken care of) perennial will come back year after year. 

Annuals

Many people really enjoy annuals (some examples are: pansies, snapdragons, cyclamen…). My mother will plant them in big beautiful pots on the porch by the front door of her house. Annuals give you the flexibility of changing the look of your container gardens, and keeping the pot/yard looking bright and happy – once the plants start looking sad (wilting, loosing color), you can just pull them out and replace them with something else bright and cheerful. The downside to annuals is that they tend to be a bit pricey for something that doesn’t last for more than a year. Still, I sometimes cannot resist the temptation to have something bright and colorful when most of my perennials are either winding up or winding down for the season.

Above are some examples of popular annuals: pansies (top left), snapdragons (right), and cyclamen (lower left) (you’ll see a lot of pansies and snapdragons in the spring and early summer, and the cyclamen will start to appear in nurseries once the weather starts getting cold in the fall).  A Google image search for "pansies", "snapdragons", or  "cyclamen", will provide a taste of the colorful variations these plants produce. Click here for an encyclopedia of annuals.
 

Perennials

           
          Of the two kinds of flowering plants, perennials are the backbone of your garden. In the right conditions, they will come back year after year. That said, all plants have a specific life span and won’t last forever, but you can count on perennials for a number of years. Perennials, just like all other plants, have certain times throughout the year that they are looking their best. In choosing perennials, do your research ahead of time to find out when plants will show their best colors – this ensures color in your garden for most, if not all year long. Keep in mind that if you place a shade loving perennial in full sun… it will probably not last very long! Make sure you read the information that comes with the plant in choosing a planting site or an appropriate plant for the area you wish to fill. Some popular perennials are garden phlox, purple coneflower, and coral bells (pictures of these are in order from left to right below).

      

Be Sure to...

          Read the information on the plant/seed packet before buying it! Just because you heard that rudbeckias (aka Black-eyed Susan) are perennials, does not mean all varieties of rudbeckias are indeed perennials. In the next post of this Gardening 101 series we will look into finding out which USDA hardiness zone you live in, which will tell you which plants will be happiest in your area. Just because the tag on a plant says it is a perennial does NOT mean it will last past a year in your garden or pot. If you are eager to find out your area’s hardiness zone before the next post, check out the USDA’s website and type in your zip code. This number will alert you to which plants will and will not be happy long term in your garden. If you go to a nursery and don’t know if a plant you like will last in your garden, never fear. The staff should be able to help you out – this goes for all,if not most, independently owned nurseries.  Unfortunately, this is a little bit more hit or miss for big stores like Lowes or Walmart, where the employees are sometimes less knowledgeable about their plants. In the age of technology, I err on cruising a few internet sites to tell me what I need (notice I check a FEW sites, and not just one, in order to increase the likelihood that my information is correct) when the staff don’t have answers to my questions. If you have any questions or comments about annuals and perennials, please feel free to share them in the box below or email us at thegiddygardeners@gmail.com! *All pictures were taken from the Better Homes and Gardens website – which I highly recommend you all check out!*

For more reading:
Easy Annuals
Top 20 Perennials