Thursday, August 23, 2007

We Have Visitors


About 2 weeks ago we bought a bird feeder. Since we are studying birds we thought it would be a good idea to get a close up look at some. We filled it with bird seed and waited. Within a week the feeder was empty but we hadn't seen any birds. They were clever and ate when they knew we weren't looking. Well this week we have been visited many times by birds and they actually stay long enough for us to come and look at them. We still can't open the blinds all the way. The feeder is close to our front window. They must be able to see us or at least movement within and then fly away. At one point we actually saw three birds at once perched on the feeder. Getting a picture of the birds on our feeder has been difficult by the time I go get the camera they are gone.


The birds that are visiting aren't the most colorful birds so we are having trouble identifying them. They are just small little finches I think. We have looked in our field guides and that is about the best we have come to naming them. There are some that come that are shaped a bit differently and have more speckled colors but we have yet to find it in our books. But we are enjoying the visits of these little guys.


We are also being visited by some unwelcome pests. All summer we have been battling ants. The little black "grease ants" as my husband calls them. We have done everything we can to get rid of them and just when we think we got them they just come in from a different way. Usually through outlets or little cracks in the mouldings. The best method, we have found so far to get rid of these guys, is some liquid ant bait. We put it down near where we see them and they swarm around it for a day. Then next day they don't come out of that hole. That trail seems to have closed down. But they do come back full force from somewhere else.



This morning I went out to the kitchen and they were all over the kitchen counter where there were a few bread crumbs that hadn't been cleaned up last night. The kids and I had fun watching the little guys go for the ant bait when I dripped a bit on the counter where they were swarming. We also got to see first hand how one ant can carry a huge crumb. There was an especially big crumb carried all the way across the counter by a team of ants too. That was interesting to watch.

See we don't need an ant farm we live in one.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We have a few too many inside visitors too. I keep telling the boys, that's why we sweep! They haven't quite caught on to that yet. A bird feeder would be fun to hang up though.

To get to know you better, I just tagged you. See my post if you would like to participate.
http://cellista.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/4-things-about-me/

Kristiana