Baby Curved-Bill Thrasher visits the feeder

The baby Curved-Billed Thrasher that lives in one of my small Chollas followed Mom (or maybe Dad) out of the nest yesterday and to the feeder.  The baby is really almost as big as the parent at this point but it was obvious it was the baby by the way it fluffed out its feathers, opened its mouth and begged for food until the parent would give in and feed it.  It was wonderful to watch. The pictures were taken through my office window so not the best.  In the first one the baby and parent are on the edge of the red post, with the baby behind with its mouth open and wings flapping.

And another birdy tantrum happening in the picture below.

Weeks half over- happy hump day! :)

Bird baths and a surprise visitor at the feeder

Quite some time ago I mentioned that I was going to review a garden product. Well has time ever gotten away from me, but I haven't forgotten so here goes. I was really excited to get a new bird bath for my bird area. When it arrived I found that although it was beautiful, it was not at all well designed, nor practical. The basin portion is nice, but very, very shallow. It dries up by noon in my desert area. The real problem was with the base, which consists of two identical pieces that slide together. I noticed that they had holes in the feet, to stake them into the ground, but they also had the same holes at the top, as though they were supposed to attach to the basin part. However they weren't-the pedestal was just designed so that the two pieces were interchangeable- but the holes at the top were not used for anything- and in fact the basin was supposed to just rest on top of the pedestal. I could see the monsoon winds, or even a cat tipping it right over. And to top it off as I slid the two parts together, one foot hit my tile floor and chipped right off.

The company was amazing about replacing the broken part- no questions asked, and a new pedestal soon arrived in the mail. I ended up using the basin part on top of one of my cement tubes, which is a much steadier base for it. As you can see from the pictures I have the pedestal holding a potted plant under the olive tree, but it is tippy and will probably not last in that function. Anyone have any ideas on what I can do with these pedestals?

I guess the moral of this story, is to be sure the company you are ordering from has good return policies-and I give them an A+ for this. My son bought me a concrete birdbath for Moms day so I use both the shallow basin in the cement tube and a bigger bath now. The birds love me!

Look who was dining this morning at the feeder. A little white and blue parakeet!

He flew up into the pine tree overlooking the feeder for awhile.

And then came flying back to the feeder...he is out there now chowing down. I wonder how long he has been on his own and where he came from. I hope he finds the wild life wonderful!

The many faces of the green envy zinnia

My experiments with Green Envy Zinnia seeds have been fun to say the least. I've had one perfect bloom and many weird blooms. There are still buds developing so there may be more that actually look like zinnias but so far the odd balls are winning about 20 to 1.

Here they are planted in one of the small beds I am using for seed experiments.

And I also planted them at the base of the bird feeder in a cement tube that my neighbor gave me. He gave me a bunch of these and I am still figuring out how to use them all.

Here is a current view of the bird feeder area.

Hope we all survive the hot temps coming this weekend here in Arizona. Happy weekend!