{"id":637,"date":"2011-08-25T14:05:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-25T14:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/08\/florida-discoveries-16-follow-that-bird-help-me-identify-a-bird.html"},"modified":"2011-08-25T14:05:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-25T14:05:00","slug":"florida-discoveries-16-follow-that-bird-help-me-identify-a-bird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/08\/florida-discoveries-16-follow-that-bird-help-me-identify-a-bird.html","title":{"rendered":"Florida Discoveries 16: Follow That Bird! Help Me Identify a Bird…."},"content":{"rendered":"

That beautiful garden from last March-May?<\/a>  All but dead.  The insane heat, plus the lack of rain earlier this summer made it tough to maintain after our vacation.  Between the tomato hornworms, blossom end rot and other crap, I just said “forget it”.  It was too hot to even stand outside to prune.  No fun!<\/p>\n

My herbs are surviving, which can be expected since they typically survive on less water than fruit-producing plants.  I let my basil go to seed — I tried to keep the seed stems picked off, but couldn’t keep up — and lately it’s been a popular hangout for my backyard birds.  More popular than the two bird feeder areas I have on a different part of the yard.<\/p>\n

This has been fun because the garden containers are right outside our back door and the kids can watch the birds while they’re eating breakfast in the morning.  We’ve been seeing finches, sparrows and cardinals hanging out at my basil, and even the occasional bluebird who is after the bugs that hover around my herb flowers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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This photo was taken through my screen porch, there’s a house finch among the basil.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Latecomers hang out on my cucumber trellis to wait for their turn.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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Much less traffic at the bird feeders.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This morning I had my usual assortment, but then this HUGE bird was trying to get in on the action.  (“Huge” is relative — I have a blue jay that hangs out in the front yard, but this is the biggest bird I’d seen in the back).  I haven’t researched what kind of bird he is, but I’ll post the pictures here and see if you can help me out.<\/p>\n

My hypothesis: a northern mockingbird fledgling<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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That beautiful garden from last March-May?  All but dead.  The insane heat, plus the lack of rain earlier this summer made it tough to maintain after our vacation.  Between the tomato hornworms, blossom end rot and other crap, I just said “forget it”.  It was too hot to even stand outside to prune.  No fun! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[],"tags":[31,44,97,626,620],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-ah","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":619,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/07\/florida-discoveries-15-great-blue-heron-in-action.html","url_meta":{"origin":637,"position":0},"title":"Florida Discoveries 15: Great Blue Heron in Action!","date":"24 July 11","format":false,"excerpt":"First of all, I learned that it's \"heron\" and not \"huron\". \u00a0Oops. \u00a0I was wondering why my Google searches kept directing me to Michigan-related websites...Last night Dave and I went on a good old fashioned DATE! \u00a0The kids are visiting grandparents in the northeast through next weekend, and even though\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"bird watching\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-mcyQ5xOEAb8\/TiuZJ8eMNLI\/AAAAAAABYho\/kqhim4UZw7U\/s640\/IMG_5340.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":348,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/05\/spring-finally-eastern-nebraska-birding-101.html","url_meta":{"origin":637,"position":1},"title":"Nebraska Discoveries 8: Spring….FINALLY! Eastern Nebraska Birding 101","date":"03 May 09","format":false,"excerpt":"Today was a gloriously beautiful day! \u00a0I can't believe I was able to enjoy just about all day outside...I mowed the lawn for the first time this season, worked more on my garden, and planted a couple of containers with annual flowers purchased yesterday from\u00a0Timmy's child care center's fund raiser.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"bird watching\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":502,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/01\/florida-discoveries-2-backyard-birding.html","url_meta":{"origin":637,"position":2},"title":"Florida Discoveries 2: Backyard Birding","date":"07 January 11","format":false,"excerpt":"New state, new house, new batch of birds to look for! I've posted on and off about the birds that have come to visit our houses in both North Carolina and Nebraska (ironically, I got woodpecker pictures in both places). Now it's time to see what Northwest Florida brings to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"bird watching\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh6.ggpht.com\/_yz59FVsseJY\/TSIVQ1pAV9I\/AAAAAAABPME\/gnphhDMMK1o\/s640\/IMG_5607.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":63,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/01\/if-you-build-it-they-will-come.html","url_meta":{"origin":637,"position":3},"title":"If you build it, they will come…","date":"30 January 08","format":false,"excerpt":"About a week ago I rearranged my bird feeders. I also changed the type of bird feed I offered, from a general small seed mix to only black oil sunflower seeds. In addition, I took down my windowside hummingbird feeder and replaced it with a windowside standard feeder, filled with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"apex\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3205,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2014\/05\/colorado-discoveries-34-sky-sox.html","url_meta":{"origin":637,"position":4},"title":"Colorado Discoveries 34: Colorado Springs Sky Sox with Timmy’s Little League Team","date":"27 May 14","format":false,"excerpt":"The first weekend of May, Timmy's Little League baseball team did the Little League fan experience thing** with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, the AAA Minor League Baseball team that plays right up the street from us. They're the Colorado Rockies AAA affiliate team. **It took me a second to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"baseball\"","img":{"alt_text":"Timmy is #2.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC_10101-1024x678.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":528,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/03\/florida-discoveries-4-springtime-on-the-panhandle-part-ii.html","url_meta":{"origin":637,"position":5},"title":"Florida Discoveries 4: Springtime on the Panhandle…Part II","date":"11 March 11","format":false,"excerpt":"Part II = The fauna!Springtime in Florida also means the bugs and animals are all coming out of the woods, the ponds, the ground, etc. \u00a0I've already seen more than my share of millipedes in the yard and on my porch, plenty of mosquito hawks, and of course the birds\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"anole\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/_yz59FVsseJY\/TXmNgu5bLtI\/AAAAAAABRis\/2BzrByim4Gc\/s640\/IMG_6779.JPG?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}