Empty Nest

The last two fledgling House Finches flew off from the nest this morning.  One or two others had left a day or two ago, but we didn't think these two were quite ready to leave the nest yet.  Although the larger one appeared to have pretty good feathers and was stretching its wings, the smaller bird didn't really look quite ready.  http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2016/05/location-location-location.html

They both took off anyway when we stepped out onto the porch this morning to say goodbye to a friend who had been visiting.  The larger chick flew across the driveway into the neighbors' shrubbery, but the smaller one hadn't quite got that flying thing down yet and only flew as far as the driveway, where it sat looking a bit dazed for a few minutes.  Then it sort of hopped and flew under our rose bushes and then into the pomegranate container on our front porch.  Cindy later saw it fluttering off toward the neighbors on the other side.  Since the parent birds continue to protect and feed their chicks for a few days after they leave the nest, we're hoping that they will be able to reconnect with it and continue to feed it.

Last week one of the chicks fell out of the nest and landed in our driveway.  Since the chick at that point was still in the nestling stage, mostly covered with down and only a few true feathers, we followed the advice of the Audubon Society and the National Wildlife Federation, dragged the ladder out and returned the chick to the nest.  Because birds have a poor sense of smell, returning a nestling bird won't discourage the parents from continuing to feed it.

However, both organizations advise against returning a fledgling bird, with fully formed feathers, to the nest since they're just beginning to learn to fly at that stage and need to spend some time on the ground practicing their flying skills.

We're feeling bad that we accidentally scared the fledglings out of the nest today, but Project Wildlife says the parents will continue to search for their babies and even resume feeding them if they've been gone a day or two, so we'll continue to hope that all the chicks will be all right.

Now that they've gone, we'll be able sit on our front porch again.

Of Course...

Of course, we're not the only ones around here who love blueberries.  Most of our blueberry bushes are protected by Cindy's anti-varmint panels from attack from the ground and by bird netting from depredations by marauding California Towhees, who like a little fruit with their bird seed.

The three bushes in pots in front of the garage, on the other hand, have no protection.  I was looking out the window the other day and saw the leaves of one of those bushes being agitated as if by the wind, but there was no wind blowing.

And then I noticed that Big Mama, the matriarch of the California Ground Squirrel population, seems to have produced her annual brood serially this year instead of all at once as she usually does.

That means that she now has some adolescent juvenile delinquents as well as a couple of very cute baby squirrels just out of the den, and she's teaching all of them where the free bird seed buffet is located.

Big Mama and Brood

Unfortunately, it also means that the juveniles have started ranging a bit further out and have discovered....Blueberries!

Fortunately, we collected most of the blueberries from the the garage bushes before the squirrels finally stripped them, and we also had a very good yield from the bushes in the protected area, too.

"I Found My Thrill....On Blueberry Hill..."

It's Blueberry Season!

We now have our original four blueberry bushes and three more Cindy got from her friend Janet when she moved.  All of the bushes have been flowering and producing berries for months, and now the berries are ripening.

Some varieties of blueberry require more "chill hours" than our San Diego climate has, but there are several varieties that do very well here.

Good thing we love blueberries.

Location, Location, Location

Last week we noticed a pair of House Finches inspecting the beam over our front porch.  They flew on and off of it for several days, first at one end of the beam, then at the other.

We were rather hoping they wouldn't decide to build a nest there, but they ultimately did build one at the far end of the beam.

On The Nest

 We've had birds nest on that beam before, and to some extent it's a good choice for them; it's easily accessible, it's protected from the elements, it's concealed from the view of predators and the plastic spikes we've installed on top of the beam provide some real stability for the nest.  So for those reasons it's a good choice of location.

However, we put the spikes up there to discourage birds from nesting there several years ago after  Mourning Doves had nested there several times and proved themselves to be terrible bird parents.  They build flimsy nests  consisting of a few twigs thrown together on the beam and one time one of the parent doves turned around and swept its fledgling right off the beam onto the porch below.  We scooped that one up and made an emergency run to Project Wildlife, the wildlife rehabilitation center, because it looked to us like the chick had a broken leg.  So we put up the plastic spikes to discourage nesting.

That effort has been moderately successful; the Mourning Doves have stayed away, but we have had House Finches nest there occasionally since we put up the spikes.  They are much better bird parents and build substantial nests, carefully weaving the nesting materials around the plastic spikes to give it stability.  The problem is that they tend to be shy of humans and Mama bird will fly off the nest whenever we go in or out the front door.  They will also stay away from the nest if we decide to sit on our front porch in the evening.  Since we don't want to be responsible for the eggs not hatching, we tend to avoid using the front door or sitting on the porch.  They have an incubation period of 13 to 14 days and then about another week of feeding the chicks when they hatch.

It's fun to watch the chicks develop into fledglings and begin to try their wings, but it's a pain in the tush to avoid the front door for that long.  We'll do it, because we don't want to be bad neighbors, but we really hope they'll find a different location in the future.

Loquats

We were looking at a tree in the neighbors' back yard the other day and wondering what the fruit hanging all over it was.

Loquats

Turned out it's a Loquat tree.  And Loquats are producing fruit right now--lots of fruit.  A friend who  has more Loquats than she can use gave Cindy some, so she needed to find a way to use them.

Here's the recipe Cindy came up with for Loquat Fried Rice:

Loquat Fried Rice
4 servings

Ingredients:
3 Tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce or low-sodium tamarin
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
1/4 to 1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/4 tsp. white pepper
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 clove minced garlic
 ------

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup frozen peas
-------
3 cups cold, pre-cooked brown or white rice
2 cups diced loquats
3/4 cup roasted, unsalted cashews
2 green onions, sliced

Directions:

1.  In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger powder, white pepper, olive oil and garlic.  Set aside or refrigerate until ready to use.
2.  Heat 1 Tbsp. olive oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium high heat.  Add onion to the skillet and cook, stirring often, until onions have become translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes.  Stir in corn and peas.  Stirring constantly, cook until vegetables are tender, about 3 minutes.  Stir in rice, loquats, cashews, green onions and soy sauce mixture.  Cook, stirring constantly, until heated through.  Serve immediately.

Tomato Report

This year's effort at tomato grafting was not as successful as we had wanted it to be; Cindy was hoping for a 30% success rate, but only one out of the 10 grafted plants survived for more than a few days.  See:  Not Quite as Successful As We Hoped.

However, 10% is better than 0%, so we'll take it.

Better yet, the surviving tomato plant, a Rose de Berne on Estamino root stock, is thriving.  In fact, it's doing so well that it's almost twice as tall as the ungrafted Rose de Berne plant next to it.

Grafted Tomato on Left, Ungrafted on Right

Not only is the plant taller, but the blossoms and the leaves are much larger on the grafted plant as well.

Grafted

Ungrafted

The leaves in the top photo are from the grafted Rose de Berne, the ungrafted Rose de Berne leaves are in the bottom photo.  The plants are side-by-side in the bed and I took the photos from the same spot.

Grafted Plant's Blossoms

The blossoms on the grafted plant are also much larger.  They're very pretty and they've also been attracting a bumblebee performing "buzz pollination".  I had never heard of this, but Cindy had recently read an article about bees and realized that the bumblebee she saw on the tomato blossom was loosening the pollen by buzzing over the flower's anther.  The bee rapidly contracts her flight muscles to create the buzz, then collects the loose pollen and transmits some of it to the next flower she visits.  BumblebeeConservation.org has a video of bumblebees doing this.

Tomatoes and blueberries both can benefit from buzz pollination, although because tomatoes have both male and female parts in the flower, they can also be pollinated by shaking the tomato cage, which will mix the pollen.  

We're happy to have the bumblebees, though, and looking forward to tomatoes later.

Pea Pickin' Peas

Although they've been outdone by the green beans, the Sugar Snap and Oregon Giant peas have also produced a pretty good crop this year.

Peas

They were succulent and tender, but now they're done for the year.