Monday, April 4, 2011

For the Birds

Yesterday afternoon while I was walking around the yard picking up the dead branches that had fallen over  the winter. I found my hanging bluebird house on the ground. The old apple tree branch that the house had been on didn't make it thru the winter. I will need to find another branch that I can easily reach.
  In the mean time I have the birdhouse house  sitting on my planting table on the back deck.  Can you see the bottom of the house has a notch? A moveable nail  fits in that slot to keep the front  panel of the house closed. When the nail is moved the front swings up so it can be cleaned easily.
bluebird house
Unfortunately, I have never had a bluebird nest in the box. But tufted titmice, chickadees and house wrens have used this nest box every year.  The apple tree that the nest box hung from is near the edge of our property that has open space with woods close by.  I cleaned out all of my bird houses last fall, but since the house was down, I opened it up to see if it was still clean.

Photo of feather...enlarged. The feather is approximately 1 1/2 inches long.
black and white small feather
When I opened the house, I did find a little debris inside the nest box, and in the back right corner, standing up  there was a small feather, black with white spots. I'm not sure what bird lost this feather, but I guess another bird liked it enough to bring it into the nest box.
Do you think the feather  is from a downy woodpecker? Anyone have a guess? I love the little feather that I found.
This morning it is raining, and I had no   plans other than doing some laundry and starting a pot of pea soup. While the soup is simmering and the clothes are in the washer and dryer, I decided to make a bird tag. I used my Big Kick, the Tim Holtz tag die, Sizzex bird die, and along with other embellishments I used the little feather that I found yesterday.
bluebird tag
When I finished the bird tag, I also put together this photography themed tag that has a picture of my brother fishing in a canoe...Hoping to catch a very big fish.
  photography tag with canoe elaine signature3

2 comments:

Susan said...

I don't know anything about birds so can't help you with that, but I had to laugh when I saw it on your tag. The picture makes it look so big until you see it in proportion to the tag! Nice tags!
Susan

Barbara said...

Downy woodpecker sounds like a good guess. Very nice tags! Hope your weather is improving.