The Divines vs The Crows and The Wisconsin Report.

(The Divines vs the Crows coming soon so check back in.)

The White-crown Sparrow starts with a drink and then proceeds to full ablutions. It's just all too tempting.

By the way, do you have some neighbors like mine? They don't fill their bird baths but rather wait until it rains and let them catch rainwater. Unfortunately that's the time when water isn't scarce. It's the other days in which the birds really need it full. Particularly with the heat of summer coming up before we know it.

So have you gone out, and checked to see how your bath is doing?

I wasn't fast enough. These are the Grackles in the tree just seconds after the Crow left.

Suddenly I hear tremendous bird racket outside. A half dozen grackles are after a crow, mobbing him mercilessly. He first tries to perch on the branches of a small tree. But his weight and the size of his feet, don't do well in gripping the spindly branchlet. The Grackles follow. Then after cawing at them and beating his wings threateningly to no avail, he's off and dives into a Spruce in the next yard.

The Crow then comes flying out of the Spruce he'd dived into, like a shot with a Mockingbird hard on his heels, with what looks like a stick of cheese in his beak. Yes, cheese. He may have gone in with it but I was too far away to see it. The color is that yellow orange of sharp cheddar...And it's stiff. It just juts right out of his beak straight on. And the resident Mockingbird is not amused. I begin to wonder if instead of haunting possible nestlings to nab. Mr. Crow was just looking for a quiet place to eat his cheese stick.

And the Robins have begun their hatch.

Why do songbirds remove the shells from their nests after a chick hatches? Well beyond keeping the neighbors from talking about what slobs they are behind their backs. It's to keep odor from attracting predators to the nest. There is some question as to whether baby birds have a scent. If not then they join the young of bunnies and White-tail deer in the scentless category. Think about it. Rabbits leave their young unattended except for a couple of in and out nightly feedings. That way, because the scent of the babies is zip , the sparse short feedings keep the doe from drawing predators to the nest by her scent.

Why do White-tail deer leave fawns nestled in the grass seemingly all alone? I thought the fawn's legs just got tired before mom's did and as they do blend so marvelously, mom could still brows while baby had a rest but thinking isn't always fact. The answer is the same as the one above. The fawns have no scent but the adult deer do. Strange but tree. They're seemingly better off alone. Though they aren't really alone. A cousin told me a story of coming upon a fawn in the grass and then looking at it a bit too lone for the doe's comfort. She came out of the woods running and ready to fight. My cousin found running was the better part of valor himself, only in the other direction.

AND, I've finally found the ultimate Crow attractor bait for the goodies stump. Peanut Butter Cookies. Forget your tasty meats and morsels/ It's peanut butter cookies that tempt the Crows to run the gauntlet of Grackles, Mocking Birds, and Blue Jays in the yard to quench the craving that cannot be denied.

Donegal Browne