Fox Snake and the Bluebirds

[Merc]

There is supposed to be a balance in nature. It is there to keep everything in check. Birds and bats compete with each other to keep the earth from being over-run by insects. That is a good thing. Even bug eating bugs like dragon flies are helping out. Mosquitoes are high on their menu. Unfortunately, purple martins love eating dragon flies.

Most of us prefer to watch the beautiful bug-eating birds. The bats aren’t pretty but that is ok. They do their work at night when nobody can see them and most eat their weight in bugs in one night. That is probably more than a bird will eat in a week.

Have you ever fished from a boat at night in early summer? I did a few times - never again. Spray all you want with insect repellent, nothing works. 99% of the bugs in PA are most active at night when the birds are all sleeping. The bats are out there finding them at night with their echo location senses and gobbling them up. Flying rat is not a fair characterization of the most unique and specialized animal on earth.

Mosquitoes? They have caused the spread of many diseases. Google heartworm disease. It is a disease in pets from a parasitic worm that comes from the bite of a mosquito. Look up yellow fever, malaria, West Nile virus, Zika and dengue fever. Yep. All transmitted by mosquitoes. You should be grateful that there is an animal out there that is willing to put a very large dent in their population.

[lyman]

+1 on the night fishing

friend and I were out in the middle of a local reservoir, no issues out in the middle, just enough light to see what you were doing (full moon0
we decided to plug in a floating headlamp, and see what we could catch,
big mistake, in 10 minutes we were damn near eaten alive, deep woods off was not working,



re the bats, they come out at dusk around here,

I have a large lawn (drain field and reserve) beside the house, neat to sit out on the deck and watch the bat's acrobatics I don't think they are capable of flying in a straight line,,, ,

[Allen]

Dragon fly larvae eat young fish and shrimp.

Most of us don't fish at night.

Bats spread diseases too and I never said mosquitos were a good thing. I'd just rather have a yard full of them even with my mosquito magnet type "B" than have a yard full of bats.

As far as the balance of nature goes where do you draw the line? Some would argue that mosquitoes are part of that balance and shouldn't be eaten.

Other than bats we pretty much see things eye to eye and we're not going to change each others mind.

[lyman]

my first time at Camp Perry, and was sharing a hut with the Va State Team

I was shooting the Vintage Springfield Match, had an early slot,

I had been there a few days, and knew the skeeters were rough,

slathered Skeeter repellent all over every bit of skin exposed and walked from the huts to the check in,

standing in line, barely daybreak, and I could hear them buzzing by my ears,

I apparently missed a few sections on my hands and arms, one spot, maybe as big as a pencil eraser, had 4 skeeters drilling for oil on it,


as soon as the sun got up a bit they all left,

[Merc]

+1 on the night fishing

friend and I were out in the middle of a local reservoir, no issues out in the middle, just enough light to see what you were doing (full moon0
we decided to plug in a floating headlamp, and see what we could catch,
big mistake, in 10 minutes we were damn near eaten alive, deep woods off was not working,



re the bats, they come out at dusk around here,

I have a large lawn (drain field and reserve) beside the house, neat to sit out on the deck and watch the bat's acrobatics I don't think they are capable of flying in a straight line,,, ,

Bats are expert flyers and can actually use their wings to guide insects into their mouths.

Speaking of swarming insects, we have enormous hatches of Mayflies on Lake Erie in early May. They actually show up on weather radar as clouds. They live long enough to spawn and fly around in huge swarms for a day and then they die. They only live in clean well oxygenated water and that description would fit Lake Erie today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb6U3Hyui8E

We used to rent a cottage on the beach at Lake Erie near the NY border back in the 1970s. There was a street light on the road in front of the cottage that attracted a swarm of millions of midges every night. We would watch them gather on the light and sit on each other. Once the swarm got too heavy, they would fall to the ground as one and then they would fly back up to the light and the process would start all over again. The bats feasting on them every night should have eventually become too big to fly.

[Art]

Back to the bluebird situation. When I was a child I used to see them, not every day but regularly. Now I hardly ever see a bluebird. The main culprit is invasive species birds, especially starlings and English sparrows that destroy their nests. Illegal alien wildlife annoys me, they're almost never beneficial. Now I have a general policy of never interfering with the processes of nature and predation is one of those. But blue birds are in enough trouble I might have to make an exception, even though snakes are not the major influence in their decline. While I have nothing against serpents, if Mr. Fox Snake wouldn't stay away from the blue bird nest on his own I believe action detrimental to the snake would be justified.

[lyman]

plenty of Bluebirds around here, got one that wants to nest under my mailbox, and some neighbors, every year,
infact, they were early this year,

[Merc]

I see plenty of blue bird nesting boxes but I have only seen one nesting pair near their box on a golf course. Lots of other birds around, especially at our summer home near the Pymatuning Reservoir that’s about 40 miles south of Lake Erie on the Ohio border. Dozens of bald eagles, osprey, blue herons inhabit the islands and wooded shores of the 17,000 acre lake.

[Liam]

My wife and I volunteer for the blue bird count effort at a local level. We visit a local winery that was good enough to allow 21 nesting boxes amongst the vines. An electric fence intended to keep the raccoons off the vines does double duty protecting the boxes. We stroll around for about an hour checking each box, cleaning out if necessary and writing down results so their numbers can be maintained. It's relaxing and gets us out of the house early on weekends. If non-native birds (primarily house finches) have a nest started we remove it. If barn swallows have started a nest, we leave them be as they are native to our area. Where the data goes, and how it affects the birds is unknown to me. bbrd.jpg

[lyman]

My wife and I volunteer for the blue bird count effort at a local level. We visit a local winery that was good enough to allow 21 nesting boxes amongst the vines. An electric fence intended to keep the raccoons off the vines does double duty protecting the boxes. We stroll around for about an hour checking each box, cleaning out if necessary and writing down results so their numbers can be maintained. It's relaxing and gets us out of the house early on weekends. If non-native birds (primarily house finches) have a nest started we remove it. If barn swallows have started a nest, we leave them be as they are native to our area. Where the data goes, and how it affects the birds is unknown to me. [ATTACH=CONFIG]49514[/ATTACH]

Liam,

what group?

IIRC you are in the Valley or NOVA area?

I'm in Central VA, just south of RVA, and would be interested in that group

[Liam]

I am in Loudoun County, VA. My wife signed us up. I believe it is the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy (https://loudounwildlife.org). We get to roam the winery alone before opening. I also make the occasional replacement house. Sometimes there are a couple of nice bottles of wine at our car when we go to leave.

[lyman]

thanks, I'll see if they do something similar in this county

[fguffey]

The wife and I have raised wild birds like blue Jays, mocking birds, cardinals and coo coo birds. And then there were the doves got 27 years. We also had labs,

My son wanted to train his labs to hunt quail and retrieve ducks; he had it all figured out, he ordered baby ducks with the intention of raising the ducks with our menagerie. There was no use talking to my son so I told my wife she did not want to be home when the ducks arrived. I explained to her the ducks would come out of the box looking for the biggest, fluffiest thing in site and that would become their mother. The ducks came out of the box and then straight to the lab, he became mother.

I do not know how but the lab taught them to fly, it seemed he was very annoyed at the ducks, in an effort to loose them he took to running circles around the yard' in the beginning the ducks ran and then started flying, and then one day they got higher and then went into a skid and escaped the bounds of the yard' they managed to get higher than the fence.

The lab was trained to ring a bell when it wanted out, it was trained and or learned how to hit the glass sliding patio door when it wanted in. The girds we raised were released, most of them stayed and became friends with the lab. When the lab hit the glass door to come in the birds landed on his back and came in with him. Once in the birds got off his back and went to their gages. This went on for 5 years with one of the blue jays and for 27 years with one of the dove.

It came to 'show and tell' at the elementary school our children attended; they took the birds. The teacher called my wife to come and get then' she responded with "there are two children and two birds; which of 'them' am I to pick up. Wrong answer, my explained to the teacher it was 'show and tell'.

The teacher explained to my wife there was no room in the class to sit down, the class was wall to wall children. She said no one knew that birds could talk, play games and when it came to eating and were gull they hid the good and could remember where they hit the good. The blue jay would stuff excess food in a students hand and return for it later.

My wife asked the teacher if she could get a telephone into the class room, if so have someone call you. As soon as the phone rang the blue jay went in to its old hen routine. She said one day I was not at home when the phone rang. It was then she realized how much fun we were having.

If the blue jay was outside it would land on the wife's shoulder when she walked to her car. She said it made quite whispering sounds near her ear.

I went to rattle snake roundups, I had to give it up; when I say "don't move", don't move, never ask "WHY"? It always takes to much time to answer the question.

F. Guffey

[fguffey]

Snakes: My family and my wife's family do the 'hoe down' on snakes. My wife's dad hollered "SNAKE!", I walked over to determine 'what kind', it was a king snake, I wasted my time but I informed him it was a good snake. And then he did the 'hoe down' on the snakes head and then declared: "Now it is a good snake".

F. Guffey