Just whose yard is it anyway????

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 3:56 pm

Usually I can block out the traffic noise only a block away and the noise of the airplanes coming in for a landing a few miles south of us. I listen for the train horns in the distance (I love the sound of train horns). Sometimes I can hear the kids on the playground at the elementary school Amanda attended many years ago, that's about 5 blocks away. And early mornings from August thru October, I can hear the high school band practicing their routines for that weeks football game. Both Lisa and Amanda attended that school (20 years apart), Lisa was in the band and Amanda was in orchestra.

Mainly I listen to the birds. A few of our neighbors have parakeets and on pretty days they hang their cages outside during the day and I hear them singing.
Many years ago a neighbor across the alley raised doves, he either died and his kids didn't want them or he moved and couldn't take them with him....so they were set free and have since 'been fruitful and multiplied'....but I enjoy their cooing sound.

Then there are the bosses of the yard....funny, I always figured it was my garden so I was in charge....silly me. There is one big black Grackle who will sit on a lower branch than the others saying the same thing over and over again......"The feeder is empty, the feeder is empty, the feeder is empty" As soon as I realize what he is saying and fill the feeder he gets quiet. When the feeder is filled and I am too close to it there is another, grouchier Grackle who squacks at me until I either move further away or turn my back on it, at which point he too gets quiet.

So as long as I remember my first priority is feeding them, then I must stay a respectful distance from them or at the very least turn my back on them, I am allowed to enjoy my backyard. Does anyone have a good recipe for Grackle??

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glendann wrote on Wed Feb 14, 2007 4:44 pm:

Lol,toni sound like mostly the grackles yard.You do jump at their every whim.Seems like Blackbird pie recipe wood work.Just need 4 and 20 Grackles.

Desert Rat wrote on Wed Feb 14, 2007 4:45 pm:

"Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie"

Desert Rat wrote on Wed Feb 14, 2007 4:46 pm:

Glenda, great minds think alike.

eileen wrote on Wed Feb 14, 2007 4:47 pm:

I haven't a clue what a grackle is Toni but they sound a lot like the magpies we have here!! What a racket they make until I fill the seed tray each morning for them. Mind you they are good at being lookouts for the other birds when a cat comes along as they all gang up on it and buzz it until it leaves!! LOL

Desert Rat wrote on Wed Feb 14, 2007 4:49 pm:

I beleive a grackle is a starling.

Gardenstew wrote on Wed Feb 14, 2007 4:52 pm:

Hehe Toni, what appreciation they show :) I'll just say that whoever names the garden owns the garden. Grackles can't pronounce FRED.

dooley wrote on Wed Feb 14, 2007 5:02 pm:

Those pesky birds just migrate through here. They tried to use our large mulberry tree as a roosting spot. Much too noisy. I started tossing fist size rocks up into the tree. Never hit a bird but they did move to another tree. They don't roost in my tree anymore. I guess they have long memories. Dooley

toni wrote on Wed Feb 14, 2007 5:11 pm:

We have the Great-tailed Grackles, Quiscalus mexicanus and we have the Common Grackle, Quiscalus quiscula.
Starlings are a totally different bird.

The bossier one is a large, solid black Great-tailed with yellow eyes.

dooley wrote on Wed Feb 14, 2007 5:37 pm:

Our book calls the ones we have Boattail Grackles. They are from Mexico. The starlings we have are Eastern Starlings. Both are equally obnoxious. Dooley