The Tangled Nest

My husband Tom, who manages the technical side of this blog, has been watching the search terms that bring traffic to the site. While the random one-off searches can make for interesting reading (today someone found the Tangled Nest by searching for “the world is our tool for love”–I guess that’s good!), certain terms come [...]

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I am much too lazy to have a hummingbird feeder.  I never manage to keep enough food made, or to clean the feeder often enough, so instead of bringing me joy, hummingbird feeding has always filled me with guilt.  Plus our deck, where we want the birds to visit, is in full sun, and the [...]

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The other day Tom pulled down a House Sparrow nest lodged in an outdoor electrical box, assuming the birds were done with it.  But many resident birds, those that don’t migrate, will attempt a second brood of chicks later in the summer.  These birds first nested in a corner of our gutter, but their nest [...]

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This morning while I was sipping my morning coffee in the backyard, a Western Tanager dropped from the sky into a corner of our little pond.  No matter how many tanagers I see in my life, I will never cease to be startled by their glowing presence.  Western Tanagers are bright yellow with black wings, [...]

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This week I received two e-mails from friends who want to know what they can do about their “nemesis”–the woodpecker that is maniacally drumming their house at all hours. This is a frequent spring complaint about Northern Flickers, the most common urban-suburban woodpecker.  They are beautiful fawn-colored birds with black spots, long-ish bills, and pretty, [...]

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