Lawn Repair, Daffodils & More Birds

A lawn is part of American life, and is the easiest way to deal with certain parts of the yard.  But I have to say I do not like lawn work, so this year we hired a landscaping crew to come in and repair a bad area on our front lawn.

We had three low bare spots in front of the house, so on Monday we replaced that area with sod and flagstones for our mailman to walk on.  And, yes, it needs a lot of water to get the sod established and we will need a weed whip to cut the grass around the stones….  As you can see in the bottom left corner of the picture our old lawn currently has violets blooming in it, so I imagine it will infiltrate the new lawn at some point.  We could use weed killer, but so far we have avoided herbicides and pesticides on our lawn.  I don’t like lawns in general, but I think this new sod looks nice!

Then Friday I got a hair brained idea to fix a patch of the lawn in the back yard on the north side of the house.  I pulled up all the sod, because it was mixed with some weird kind of grass that was not attractive.  It was a big mass of thatch.  I put down some EZ straw that is mixed with seeds, I guess.  So now I am watering on the front AND back side of the house twice a day or more.  As you can see part of the straw/seeds is in the sun most of the day, so that will need more water than the part in the shade.  I will give you a report in a few weeks on whether it germinated.  The sparrow are interested in the seeds and the robins in the worms in this area.

Speaking of lawns, I have to throw in a picture of a beautiful dandelion.  I am digging them up and out wherever I see them, but they are pretty!  I noticed a small bee on a dandelion this afternoon.

My favorite daffodils are the large yellow trumpet ones.  I think a bought these and a few other varieties from Breck’s a while ago.  We have about 10 bunches of daffodils in the back yard.

Under the crabapple tree, and next to the daffodils, the irises are getting ready to bloom in about a month or so.  The hicksii yew shrubs are in the center back, and I think a pair of northern cardinals have a nest in there.

New red leaves on ‘Profusion’ crabapple tree.

The white daffodil is usually the first to bloom, though it was delayed with the snow this year.

I like this white trumpet daffodil with a yellow center.

Double white daffodil.  They look best when the bloom first opens.

I am not sure if these double yellow daffodils have a name.  They are a little heavy for their stems.

Also currently blooming is the spicebush – Lindera benzoin.  I have not figured out how to get my camera to take a good close up of a small flower yet.  This shrub is now maybe 10 -12 feet tall.  I think if there were another spicebush in the neighborhood I might get berries.

It snowed within the last two weeks and I still had dark-eyed juncos feeding on the last of the coneflower seeds.

I spotted a little brown creeper on the oak tree one cold day.

I thought this might be a fox sparrow, but I really don’t know my sparrows…

I managed to get a shot of a ruby-crowned kinglet where you can see the little red spot on the head.

I think this is a yellow-rumped warbler.

Yesterday Dan and I visited Orland grasslands – south and did some birding.

Greater yellowlegs shorebird at Orland grasslands – south.  Dan was shooting pictures of this shorebird when we saw a birder with binoculars come up and tell us he was looking for the yellowlegs that was seen in the area.  We told him we had just seen it, so we chatted a bit.  Always fun to talk to an expert birder.

We noticed a killdeer along the path.

It was a little chilly and the killdeer was resting in the grass.  I think there are a lot of different birds in these grasslands that I have never seen before, so hope to get back here sometime.

Lettuce update:  In my last post I planted lettuce and spinach seeds, covered with straw, and then it snowed.  I am glad to report that my seeds germinated and I have spinach and leaf lettuce getting going!  I can’t wait for the garden salad!

April Variety Show

The week started with snow, then temperatures in the mid-60s, then a weekend of cold rain.  Meanwhile the migrant and returning birds are visiting, and the garden is greening up.

A beautiful crocus livens up a little corner of the garden.

I took the day off on Friday and did a little weeding in a few areas of the garden.  I cleared the creeping Charlie out of the goldenrod before it grows tall.  The mini-daffodils are holding up well in the cool weather.

I planted a some lettuce and spinach seeds in the beds and some grass seed under the plum tree.  I know it is early!!  But we had some warm days this week and the soil seemed warm on Friday.  I put some straw from last year’s ornamental grasses on top of the seeds.  The idea was to protect it from birds and maybe from frost.  If the seed don’t germinate in 10 -14 days I can always plant another batch.  I love having early  leaf lettuce in the garden.

We had snow this past week, though it only lasted a few hours before completely melting.

Robins have been back in the yard for a while now.  This one is looking puffed up on a snowy day.

A male goldfinch also posed on our crabapple tree.

I think this is a yellow-rumped warbler checking out our neck of the woods.

I spent a while trying to get a decent picture of what I believe is a ruby-crowned kinglet, a migrant passing through.  I deleted a blurry picture that showed the red on the top of the head.  I have a few straw piles around the garden and a few birds appear to be using them for nest building material.

Taken earlier in the week, this little bird appears to be a golden-crowned kinglet, with a yellow patch on top of the head.  Both kinglets are very small and are always on the move, so hard to photograph and identify well.

 

Leaving my garden, below are pictures I have taken in the past two weeks of birds in the Palos area.

American white pelicans at Maple Lake

We heard there were American white pelicans and common loons at Maple Lake, so we went over for a look.  There were about 50 pelicans keeping their distance from photographers.

There were a half dozen common loons swimming around and diving for fish in the lake.

We were not the only ones taking pictures.  We saw nice cameras, binoculars and scopes, as people enjoyed the migrating birds.

A hooded grebe between dives at Maple Lake.

An eastern phoebe was chasing bugs along the lake at Long John Slough two weeks ago.

At Joe’s Pond I watched male and female Redhead ducks.

Ring-necked duck at Joe’s pond.

Once the weather gets a little warmer there will probably be plenty to do in the garden, but on raining days like today playing around with my pictures keeps me entertained!