FINGERS CROSSED FOR A SAFE FLEDGING

Cardinals have had little success in raising a family in the close environs of our garden. From making a nest in an umbrella which took off during a storm to the theft of babies from at least 3 nests.  Last year the cardinal made a nest in the little espaliered yaupon by the greenhouse.

It certainly looked like a good place to make a nest but after the eggs hatched less than a week went by and all activity ceased. The nest was empty. A snake? a hawk? or a scrub jay. All would steal from a nest and we have seen it happen before our eyes.
I removed the nest and used it for a little garden decoration.

So what happened this year was a cardinal started to build a nest again, in the same place in the same tree. Could this be the same bird? For a week it was busy building and then one morning I went out to find downy feathers on the ground beneath the yaupon and blowing around in the potting shed(the door had been open overnight). It looked as though there had been an event. This time I thought hawk. I felt sure it was the end of that nest because there was no further activity.  But no, more than a week later I saw the female fly in and when I took a look there were 2 eggs in there and eventually 3. When the female started to sit she would leave the eggs early in the morning. I always knew when she came back because she would sit on the rose and tweet. My signal to leave whatever gardening I was doing. A successful sitting and eventually the eggs hatched and both parent were busy flying back and forward.

 I have worried over their survival for over a week now as there has been a hawk flying over daily. Plus the birds are getting noisy. You can hear them from afar. I spy on them from a crack in the potting shed doors and if mother is gone I can take a peak just to make sure all is well. Plus the cardinals are so obvious. That flash of red as they swoop into the nest. Other birds seem to be far more secretive.

She feeds, they nap and so the day goes on. This time I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a safe fledging. It can't be long now. Then the real dangers of the outside world begin.

IT'S A CRUEL WORLD OUT THERE

It has happened again. The nest is empty and it is not because the baby cardinals have fledged. This morning while we were eating breakfast we heard the angry sounds of a cardinal. I went outside to look. The bird was in the tree at the front and eventually flew off. This afternoon I went to take a photo and found the nest empty. Who stole the 3 little chicks-a snake, a scrub jay? Surely a snake couldn't eat all three. It must be the jays. I am so sad for the mother and father bird. This is not a good place for birds to raise a family.

NEW HAPPENINGS IN THE GARDEN

It happens in the blink of an eye. On Monday morning I checked on the lace cactus growing in the front garden. The flower bud was ripe to open. "Good" I thought, it will bloom tomorrow, just as our out of town visitors are arriving. It was not to be. By the time the sun reached the spot around lunch time it had unfurled its delicate paper petals, shouting out "come and see me now, tomorrow I will be gone" Sure enough, the flower had shriveled and closed 24hours later.

Another cactus is flowering and these have a longer bloom time. A pretty little coronet of flowers encircles the top, with the promise of more flowers to come. This cactus is in the bowl I bought in Phoenix in December and which I completely repotted on returning home. The bowl had been overwatered by the store and in the soggy soil I was afraid for their health.

I finally managed to get this yellow flowered succulent identified at the recent Cactus show. It is Glottiphylum davisii, and every few weeks it puts out a single yellow bloom.

The cardinal chicks have hatched. As I have mentioned before, the nest is built in the cross vine growing on the gate in the English garden. We are really excited because previous nests built in our garden by cardinals and doves have been marauded by the scrub jay. We are keeping our fingers crossed for these little hatchlings.

The yellow Confederate jasmine perfumes the whole garden. Incredibly, it survived our extremely cold winter without the loss of a single leaf. Unlike the sister, white flowered jasmine in the back garden. That one lost every leaf and we had to cut it down to bare wood.

It was in serious need of a good pruning so we have mother nature to thank for her perfect timing.

BEEP, BEEP

Early mornings out in the garden are full of bird sounds. Occasionally the mating call of the road runner, Geococcyx californianus, is heard and yesterday he came close by as I was out with my camera. He is a frequent visitor in our neighborhood and one time when I was bending down planting something in the garden he came just a few feet away from me. I kept perfectly still as he came closer and closer. He was too busy looking for insects and spiders to see me. He is welcome to the grasshoppers, crickets and snails but I don't like it when he comes foraging for my lizards and anoles. Somewhere around he makes a nest in a shrubby bush but I have never yet seen one.

His call wasn't the only call I heard.

At first I thought it was turkeys, as they have been around the last few days, but the sound came from high up in the sky. It was the sandhill cranes, Grus canadensis, on their way back from the South Texas brush country to their breeding grounds in the Canadian tundra, Alaska and the northern marshes and grasslands. They fly in a ragged group high up in the sky but their trumpeting cry causes you to look up and is wonderful to hear. It is a signal that spring is on the way.

Inspired by owl boxes we saw in several gardens on the Master Gardeners' Tour last fall and by a recent posting by Pam, at Digging, I asked David if he would make a screech owl box. He found plans for building a box on uTube and today he mounted it high in the Spanish oak tree. It is unlikely that an owl will use the box this year because the human scent on the wood will take time to wear off. He plans to make a smaller box with a round hole with plans taken from the Audubon website. I know there are screech owls around here as I frequently hear them in the night and one time we had one fly in through the skylight on the greenhouse. We hope, next year, they will nest in one of our boxes.