The accompanying text is organized in a fun and interesting way, where slowly but surely, you’re able to learn all about how birds “work,” mentally and physically. I learned something new on nearly every page, and I thought I knew quite a bit about birds! There are many fascinating diagrams of how birds fly, digest food, lay eggs, and so much more, too.
It’s fun to learn the difference between birds whose eggs hatch fully able to get around and do things (precocial), like chickens, and birds whose eggs hatch all naked and vulnerable (altricial), like purple martins (photo below is from a Master Naturalist blog post I just sent out, by my friend Donna).
These little dudes can’t do much other than open their mouths and ask for food.
A sample page, showing how pelicans catch fish. It’s not how you imagined, I’m guessing, unless you’re an ornithologist.
I spent a long time just looking at the illustrations, and plan to keep the book out on the coffee table, so I can leaf through it when I need some inspiration. I can see many other uses for the book. It would be fun to share with younger folks, who can look at the pictures while an adult tells them how birds sing or how a woodpecker keeps from getting concussions while pecking. If I had grandchildren, that’s what I’d do!
Now, this isn’t a comprehensive guide to the birds of North America. Sibley chose common birds seen throughout the region as exemplars of various bird traits, though he did do his best to show examples of each type of bird, from water birds to songbirds. If you want ALL the birds, buy one of his guides. But to learn how birds “tick” from an educated lay person’s point of view AND enjoy some amazing artwork, you cannot go wrong with What It’s Like to Be a Bird.
No, this is not a report about a book I read in high school that’s eerily reminiscent of today. I’m just updating on the ranch animals.
How’s Apache?
We continue to monitor the heck out of him. He’s walking fairly normally, so we will slowly start exercising him. Yesterday Sara and I walked him around for about ten minutes. And yes, he stuffed as much green grass in himself as he could.
Still eating hay.
He’s on a different feed, new supplements and the Buteless herbs. And he gets his coronal band painted most days. Pampered!
As for Fiona, she loathes sunscreen. Sigh.
Today we’re going to get a lot of straw that we can leave out for them to chomp during the day, since Apache and Fiona are in the dry lot a while longer.
The Other Horses
Today I tried a real ride on Lakota, the dreamy palomino. It was interesting to ride such a well trained horse. He sure backed up well, and he trotted over obstacles!
The ride was helpful for me, because I was able to convince him eating grass was not on the agenda. And my use of the reins got better, thanks to Sara’s help. Making strides!
Spice is getting fungus medication and it’s making her look worse, so far. But that may be appropriate. She and Lakota are now eating down the grass in the small paddock, so it will be bad enough for poor Apache, eventually. Ugh.
And Birds?
The guinea keats are growing like crazy and starting to lose hair on their necks, as you can see here.
We think we’re cute.
They’re still pretty ugly, but will be beautiful adults.
No more fairy eggs! The ones on the left are from yesterday.
Clarence the rooster has finally been accepted by Bertie and Ginger. He’s usually out with them now. I just hope he starts fertilizing them soon. Poor Fancy Pants keeps brooding.
At least we’re in the same general vicinity.
The others are developing personalities. Hedy seems to be the boss. I see her eating oyster shells, so I hope that means she’s a hen. Her tail is suspiciously attractive.
Pretty Hedy
And Bruce never ceases to amuse me. He’s bossing like a boss and fluffing his crazy feather variety all the time. And trying to crow (no luck yet from either rooster).
Really, I do understand why people are being cautious these days. The rate of coronavirus infections in Milam County has skyrocketed. I have been limiting where I go, and even wearing my mask to cross the street. I ordered a lot of new masks today, too, since I’m wearing them more and getting them dirty.
This question mark butterfly is stunningly beautiful, and was right outside my office door.
My family and the companies I am affiliated with are all being very careful. There have been two people die who work for my Austin employer, though I do not know what caused it. Sure makes you pause and want to hug your loved ones, though you can’t.
For the past three nights, Carlton has been lying on top of me until I get to sleep. Dogs are so loving.
What I can do is tell you some fun/mildly interesting stories about animals and share some pictures! Okay!
Mama Finch says she likes it on THIS side.
First, all the birds around our Cameron offices have been continuing their festival of babies. The mockingbirds finally left their parents this week. I miss them, but Lee says now we have a carport squirrel. The swallows are down to two babies who are about ready to fledge. And the every-valiant house finches re-built their nest on the OTHER side of the garage and are sitting on eggs.
I love that nature just keeps plugging along. Some things just don’t change.
One thing that doesn’t change is Alfred and his abundance of hair. We had him pretty well cleaned out, but yesterday we noticed Harvey was getting lots of hair out of him. So, Kathleen sat and patiently removed hair for about ten minutes, before Alfred ran out of patience.
I’m not sure I like this…
The rest of the night, if Kathleen even LOOKED like she was heading toward him, he ran away. Not much makes him run. We laughed a lot, and laughing is good. I hope some day we can work on his other side!
Just chillin in the pasture.
I got a new animal sighting today, too! I saw my first jackrabbit in Milam County, right on the ranch. Someone had said they saw a really big bunny, so I think this was the one. Those are some big ears, but I felt a lot better with my ID when a couple of local friends confirmed my sighting. I am happy to see them and hope their population grows.
In horse news, Apache is walking close to normally, for which we are all very grateful. He, Fiona, and Big Red the chicken are all getting tired of living in the tiny pen not sure why Big Red is always there, but maybe she thinks shes part of the herd.
Good morning. We would like to eat now.
I did not ask for a husband.
And in bird news, the guinea fowl are growing like crazy, and the new chickens are, too. The ladies are growing in their combs. Clarence, the newest rooster, has not won over Ginger and Bertie Lee yet, but its getting better every day. Thank goodness!
We think Bruce is about to get his crow going, which will be fun. At the moment he makes some funny sounds we cannot really identify.
So, that is the non-COVID news from around here. Office update soon!
Any book with an armadillo on it is a book I like!
This isn’t one of those huge compendiums of every single living organism in the state; instead, it highlights plants and animals that an average person with an interest in the nature in Texas might run into. The descriptions are brief and in lay terms, and the illustrations are really lovely (good job, Raymond Leung).
It’s a bit too basic of a book for me to carry around, but I could easily imagine giving it to a teenager or older child who’s going camping and wants to know what they might find out there, or someone who just moved to Texas and wants a nice overview. It would be fun to put on the bedside table for your out-of-state visitors, or on the coffee table of your rental property.
An example of the text and illustrations.
The back of the book has two handy features. One is a brief list of interesting places to go to see the natural wonders of Texas, with clear maps. The other is a series of checklists you can use to mark off wildlife and native plants that you see in your travels. That would be a fun family project (though I’d have to add a bunch of things, like more owls).
I do recommend The Nature of Texas, just for the beautiful illustrations alone. And the introductory essay, “But a Watch in the Night,” written by James Rettie in 1948 is a real treasure, too. It’s a great reminder of how little time humans have actually been present and messing around with our planet.
I was a little worried that we are pampering the chickens and guineas. For example, I wandered out into the woods today to make more perches and shade for the chickens.
Hedy and Hedley are on the new perch.
And Chris made a new shelf and perch for the guineas. They have really grown since we got them!
The perch in front and the shelf in back. They still haven’t figured them out.
I feel much better now, though. I got two books of chicken projects at Tractor Supply, and they had some of the most indulgent yet cute projects imaginable. One has 40 projects; one has 50. I guess their editors had the same idea.
Keeping Chickens
Chicken Keeping
Very similar titles, both full of helpful ideas. Not the greatest or the worst.
One of the authors, Lisa Steele, who is apparently a big chicken blogger,* puts curtains on all her hens’ nest boxes, because some are shy. Lordy. And she makes them salves and feeds them herbs. And builds many adorable hen swings.
We only got to have our shelf because Chris added chicken wire to the top of our cage so we can’t get out.
I did enjoy the projects in both books (Janet Garman is a little more serious but also obviously LOVES chickens) and got some good ideas, like making a low perch for the Jersey Giants. Right now Hedy loves it the most, followed by Henley and Bruce. The young hens do love all the new things. They still like to play.
We love our new perch, say Hedy and Henley.
Oh! I forgot to share that last night I let Ginger and Bertie run around and chase grasshoppers for a while. Lee and I were mighty entertained. Those gals are good! Even Clarence came out and caught some. I got them all back in pretty easily once they had their fill.
You go this way. I’ll go that way.
Going after the same bug
I got a moth.
Free ranging
I hope we can let them out more often. As long as the big dogs are inside, they’re fine. Vlassic and Gracie just watch like we do!
Nope. Our chickens aren’t pampered. Just fun.
*Like I can talk. I’m a not-big sort of ranching sort of venting blogger.
Our friends the Lands had a crowded chicken pen and one too many roosters. So, this evening I headed over to their amazing Victorian house, which they are renovating one room at a time.
Clarence! The Big Man
I was sort of unprepared, because I thought our chicken transportation box was in the garage, but it had been taken to the dumpster. Sara suggested I take one of the feed buckets and cover it (by the way, Apache seemed a little better today).
Once I got there I realized the bucket was not going to work. Luckily, Kris had a moving box, so he set about to catching the rooster. There were a lot of chickens in the same size coop as our white one and they all hid in the back. So I stomped around and scared them to the front. In the box the Rhode Island Red went, and I drove him home.
Rooster box
We wanted to separate the rooster (Clarence) but our piece of fence had been used in the new pen. So, we tried putting him in with the young chickens.
Dude, who are you?
That did not work well. Bruce was not happy. The pullets kept getting jumped on. Not good.
Come over here, says Bertie Lee.
So Chris just picked Clarence up and put him in with the older chickens. That went way better. He ate some and said hi to the hens. Soon Ginger let him know that she is Boss Chicken.
I’m in charge here, bud.
All the big chickens then proceeded to chase Gracie. They did teamwork! A bonding moment.
See Clarence, we chase this.
By the time we left, Clarence had discovered he can fly, and was happily on the roost branch.
Let’s just have a little nature story, shall we? Why not?
The past month or so we’ve had a family of mockingbirds working on raising a family. Every time we went in or out of the Hermit Haus office, an angry bird or two would fly by and make that mockingbird screech of warning. I never found the nest, but I know it was really nearby and that they spent a LOT of time in the lantana bed.
I can fly! Just not very far, so please bring me a bug.
I also got to watch one of the adult birds using the pipe where the air conditioning condensation comes out as a water dispenser. I wish I’d gotten a picture! I should put a bird bath under there or something.
Last week the little ones fledged, and they certainly are not afraid of us humans who they’ve grown up with. I had the best time last week watching one of them on its first day out, still with a little topknot of baby feathers.
I love these flowers.
Today I came in to work for the first time in a few days, and heard all sorts of peeping, even from inside the building. A while later I had to take a phone call in the driveway. When I went out, there, peeping continued. I watched an adolescent bird flail away and make it on top of one of the air conditioner units. Then it gathered ALL its courage and jumped to the OTHER one! It seemed proud.
I can see farther thanks to these convenient steps.
After a little flapping it calmed down and opened its mouth. In flew one of the parents, who stuffed some kind of bug down its little gullet. When I looked over by the lantana bed, I saw the rest of the family had gathered. There were both parents and three babies, who are just about the same size as the parents, but still have little streaks on their chests.
The parents are on the left, and the babies are on the right.
I sure enjoyed their antics as they munched on berries and flopped around. I’m hoping that the house finches who have built another nest in the carport area manage to get babies this time. Between these guys and the swallows at the Pope house, I have had a great baby bird year.
Getting ready to chow down on lantana.
Tell you what, watching birds raise their young is a wonderful way to remember that you are part of a much larger world of nature that doesn’t give a darn about what country they are in or what diseases are afflicting humans.
Ranch life. It’s always something. We get the chicken situation under control, and the horse situation goes bad, or worse. Here’s how the week with Apache went.
He was out in the pasture with the other horses Sunday and Monday. Tuesday I thought I’d try riding him. It was to be a big day! Nope. He just stood there. Crap. He’d had too much rich grass and was starting to founder. Panic time.
Pretty sparrow egg. Just something to distract you.
I got him moved over to the “dry” pasture where he spends most of his time. Next day, he was worse. Mandi came over and we decided to give him bute, the powerful horse painkiller. We gave a small dose, and he seemed more comfortable.
Since then, he got one more dose, but that’s it. Last night Chris suggested I move him to the cattle pen, where there isn’t much grass at all, and the ground is soft.
We’re fine now.
So this morning, after determining the keats’ water dispenser sucks and had soaked their shavings, I headed over to move him.
As always, Fiona was right by his side. He had trouble walking at first, but eventually made it to the pen. He was very sweet about it, and I let him take his time.
I also like this hay dispenser.
Once he got in, he found his hay dispenser and noshed a bit. I’d emptied out Fiona’s water tub, because it had mosquito larvae in it. He checked that nice clean water out and enjoyed the cool dirt.
Then he came over and loved on me. That’s when I called Sara to see if I was doing the right things. She remembered we have some natural anti-inflammatory stuff in the tack room, Bute-less. Aha!
This is good water. And thanks for the shade.
Apache likes that stuff just fine and ate it up. Let’s hope that helps and isn’t dangerous like the big drugs. It takes a village!
The vet comes Thursday but if he’s worse, I may have to call sooner.
It’s a rooster, of course. Since we are down 3 hens (we lost our injured Jewel last week) I wanted more. Bird and Bee Farm keeps running out of chickens, so I despaired of getting more any time soon. But yesterday we got a call from Cindy Rek, who said our turn had come, because they finally have baby guinea fowl (called keats), which Kathleen has been wanting.
Precious guinea Keats
We hadn’t expected them so soon, so we’ve been scrambling to get stuff set up for them ever since. With a plan in our minds, Chris and I set out for the farm so we could arrive by 8 am. That is dedication. But that way we were the first to get there.
Bird and Bee Farm Wildscape
The Wildscape my Master Naturalist friend, Catherine Johnson, works so hard on is really coming into its own. So many flowers and creative touches. She’s started a southwestern garden and a moon garden with all white flowers.
More Wildscape with cosmos in back
After petting the Rek’s new collie puppy, Dixie, we went in for chickens and guineas. Very quickly, Chris came over with a box of ten little darlings. Five are lavender and five some other fancy color. They’re just a few weeks old and like to Peep. So I want to name them all Peep, so we can later chill with our Peeps.
There are ten keats in here, actually in half the box.
I had more trouble, since I wanted older pullets. Well, they are selling them so fast that the oldest they had were 3.5 months old. I realized we’d have to separate the current hens from the new ones. Time for Plan B!
Hedy, Hedley, and Spring or Steen
I ended up with two very black Jersey Giants (supposed to be very nice) that I had to name Spring and Steen. Jersey girls. We also got a gorgeous Silver Wyandotte. Her feathers are gorgeous, black with white tips. Her name is Patti. Mrs Springsteen.
Pretty Patti
They begged me to take a rooster, so I picked a flashy Easter Egger, in the hopes that maybe Fancy Pants can raise us some babies with olive eggs. Guess what I named him? Bruce. He has some hilarious whiskers around his face. We are probably getting another rooster from a friend. I guess he will be either Clarence or Little Steven.
Bruce. He should be quite flashy as he matures.
There is another pair. They are Ancona, a pretty breed that apparently has red eyes. They are mostly black but have random white tips. Ours have a few white feathers, too. I read that they get more white with each moult. I ran out of E Street Band enthusiasm and named them Hedy and Hedley.
All six blackish chickens in a confused clump.
Now that we had chickens, we had to get another dog pen to put the teen chickens in, and a place for the guinea fowl to grow in. And feeders and waterers. Each group eats different food, of course. It only took two different Tractor Supply stores, thanks to the nice clerk in Rockdale who found us one in College Station. That was a nice store. It did get tiresome wearing my mask, but I looked like a cowgirl.
The gay pride frame helps.
Our other errand was to pick up some stuff from the John Deere store. Only it wasn’t outside the store like they said it would be. It’s okay, we enjoyed driving around looking at farms.
Back at the Hermits’ Rest we went into bird housing overdrive. Chris got the guinea chicks in the big dog pen we got for them, only to watch them squeezing out. Oops. Luckily we’d bought chicken wire in case we needed it. While Lee and I chased the last escapee, the wire went up. Whew.
Before the chicken wire. They could escape!
They loved their water and food dishes and soon were falling all over each other eating and drinking. After that, the babies napped a lot.
No escape now. They are napping anyway.
Meanwhile, much to the annoyance of Ginger, Bertie Lee, and Fancy Pants, Chris temporarily confined them the a small part of their coop. Then he let the black chickens out. Everyone had food and water, but the Springsteen family hid in their box for a long time.
Even Fancy Pants made an appearance to voice her dislike of the cramped quarters.
Lee and Chris quickly built the new addition, which is bigger than the original because of how he arranged the dog pen panels.
Excuse us, interlopers, but you are in our space! Bertie Lee and Ginger are not amused.
Next, we took some of the tin left over from the Pope house project and made some shade panels for the original section, in the west, and a bit of rain cover for the new addition. They needed more shade.
Penney inspects the pointy end of the new chicken run area.
After putting in some roosting branches/boards the new group was released there and the old ones got their house back. No doubt they are jealous of the grass the new chickens have. Don’t worry, I gave them some.
Tin roof (needs work) in the new section, and more tin in the old part, making it lots shadier.
The black chickens had never seen grass or treats before, but they figured it out fast. By the time I went inside, they were happily eating, drinking and pecking.
This is the life!
We found some wood to make a couple more nest boxes and a second little coop for when the new guys start laying. They will be okay with their cardboard box temporarily.
Their beloved transport box and a roosting perch are at right. They also have a branch to roost on, outside the photo.
I can’t believe Chris got as much done today as he did! Instant chicken quarters! I’m very grateful for his creativity and willingness to do this, since it was NOT on the original weekend plan.
It’s more like this: you have to convince them the water is there.
The hens have had their new water trough a few days now, but no one had seen them use it. I’d let their old water dispenser in the coop, so they could transition, but they kept going up and banging on it.
We have tiny chicken brains.
Jewel, who somehow managed to injure her leg, liked the drip area. I guess it’s her hydrotherapy spa.
Anyway, today I decided to do some water education. I turned the tap on and let the water run. Everyone was intrigued, judging from the clucks and tilted heads. Even Fancy Pants was there, taking her evening brooding break.
The gang’s all here.
I let the water run until it overflowed, hoping they’d see that the pipe produced water. It worked! They all ran over and poked at the runoff. Jewel immediately set herself in the biggest wet area. Still, no one had used the trough.
We can drink from here!
I ran the water a little more, and Bertie stuck her beak in and drank. After another minute, Ginger did it. And even Fancy Pants got a big drink before retiring to her throne.
Advice: if you want eggs, get normal, hardy, layers like these gals. Fancy chickens are hard.
I left to get them some dandelions, and on my way back I saw voluntary drinking. And Jewel has positioned herself right next to a water outlet, so she can rest and heal. Awwww.
This is very convenient! I’m a satisfied customer!
We hope she feels better by the time we get her new boyfriend next week!
The Hermits' Rest 