Backyard cleanup

I’ve been working outside in my backyard, trying to improve the look of it and gave me a chance to see in what conditions the birdhouses were. This is what I got:

All except one of the birdhouses that I had set in my backyard two years ago and repaired last year were ready to be disposed of .Inclemency of the weather on the past seasons, two much rain, wind and now heat have been the cause of the damage. Most houses were in precarious condition and were not worth a second -time repair.

I have to admit that the houses I bought were bought cheap hence made cheaply. In fact I didn’t expected them to last, which was the reason I had to practically rebuild them last year.

I’m not setting any up any new houses yet. I bought one already, made of real cedar wood, style made for bluebirds.

Changing to other things, let me tell you what happened while I was doing cleanup in the backyard.

One of the broken houses I retrieved had a wasp hive in it and I was chased for awhile by angry wasps but fortunately not stung once. After that incident I went to my garage and got my wasp killer spry that squirt from afar and got a good bunch of them down the rest just took off, that was the only way I was able to grab that house. In another house I found a Chickadee nest abandoned with a dead chickadee in it. I wonder what killed it?

I have another story : A couple of weeks ago I was using the weed-whacker, trimming weeds around the support of a bird house and I stepped on an ant hill without noticing. They crawled on my legs and gave me their best shots. I still have the marks from the stings.

I guess it’s the price you pay for tending your backyard and keep the birds happy!

I keep my feeders with seeds and many birds come and go as always.

I don’t spend a lot of time out nowadays because of the heat and drought that it gets too hot to be outdoors for too long. I like what I do and enjoy every moment. Do you think I’m nuts? 🙂

All photographs are © H.J. Ruiz – Avian101