WHEN CROWS ATTACK

Given the incident with the hawk and crows the other day, I thought it appropriate to post some photos of the crows going after one of the adult bald eagles last month.

The eagle was just sitting in the tree, minding its own business, looking around for a morsel or two to eat when the crows started attack it.





Although this is only a partial shot (below) of the bald eagle being chased by a crow, it seemed they were flying together in formation, not at odds with each other.

Me and Mini-Me?

Here’s a picture of the juvenile after it had flown. S/he walked up and down the log, venturing to lean over for a few sips of water.

And lastly, talk about eagle eyes.

Signing off from the Gardener's Roost, until next time...
~Aerie-el

GARDEN STROLLS

The final stop on our Alaska cruise was at Butchart Gardens in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It was a fantastic day, and of course there were gazillions of people who came out to enjoy the gardens in bloom.

It isn’t unusual to see Orcas (killer whales) on the boat ride to Victoria. This is a shot of an adult with a calf.


Butchart Gardens is a boat or plane ride away from Seattle, costs a few sheckles, but worth a visit.

http://www.butchartgardens.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Another fantastic garden to visit, and touted as the best Japanese-style garden in the Seattle area, is the Kubota Gardens in Renton. There is no fee, but donations are welcome, for this oasis away from the city.

http://www.kubota.org/



How about a bonsai garden visit? Also free (donation welcome) is the Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection in Federal Way on the Weyerhaeuser Company campus. The Rhododendron Species Foundation and Botanical Garden is also there, entry for a small fee. When the rhodies are in bloom, there is no better place to be.

http://www.weyerhaeuser.com/Company/Bonsai
http://www.rhodygarden.org/

If you’re into roses, you absolutely must see the Rose Gardens in Portland, Oregon. Both Washington Park’s International Rose Test Garden and the Peninsula Park Rose Garden.

International Rose Test Garden:

http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/finder/index.cfm?action=ViewPark&PropertyID=1113

Peninsula Park Rose Garden:

http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/finder/index.cfm?action=ViewPark&PropertyID=507

And now, my gardens are calling to me to do a little late-summer, early-autumn cleanup and weeding, because for some reason weeds tend to grow best here!

~Aerie-el

FRIEND OR FOE

Jet-lag Greetings to you!

I’ve just returned from another trip back east. While it was wonderful to see relatives, some I haven’t seen for almost 20 years, the occasion for it was very sad as we said good-bye to my uncle who was laid to rest. Another day, I visited my aunt and she shared many old photos of them growing up while telling both touching and humorous tales of their youth. Here’s one of the pictures she had of me living the good (and spoiled) life in Florida:


It’s good to be back home to the Gardener’s Roost again. While I was unpacking the other day I heard quite a clamor outside. From the deck I could just barely see that crows were assaulting some creature on the beach nearby. Since I had seen the juvenile and adult eagles roost in the trees there, I thought I’d check further into the ruckus.

As I approached the noise, the scene that unfolded reminded me of the movie ‘Birds’. I could see the crows repeatedly diving at and hitting something on the ground while others swarmed over it. The objects on the ground were a single mass, writhing and rolling like lava bubbling to the surface, black and red, over and over. As I drew near, I slowed, trying not to disturb the natural order of events. However, the crows began to scatter to the branches above, continuing to holler at the mass on the ground. Then I looked and saw brown feathers, wings spread on the ground, moving awkwardly. I thought it was the juvenile and continued to approach, aware that I could be interfering with nature’s course.

Once I was within 10 feet of the creatures, they separated, hopped, hobbled, and finally struggled to ascend to some low limbs above. Having separated, I saw the ‘mass’ was a hawk and a crow that had tangled and danced for so long. The hawk had pinned and spread its wings to cover the prey, a crow that looked to be as big as the hawk itself. It seems quite amazing and gutsy for that hawk, but also an error in judgment based on the savage attacks by the swarm of crows that came to the rescue of their brethren.

I guess I came to the rescue too, but for which animal?

~Aerie-el

THE JUVENILE HAS FLOWN and Alaska Cruise

First, the big news on our juvenile eagle—s/he has flown! Since arriving home from the trip to Alaska, I have seen him/her on the nest, and fly over the house to land in a cedar tree near the lake. I continue to listen for its call, and train my eyes to the location of the crows anytime they gather and squawk, since they seem to do that whenever any raptor approaches their nest/s. By tracing the crows’ noisy racket, I have found eagles, hawks, and osprey on different occasions.

In the meantime, a slight digression to post some info and pictures from my recent trip, and then I’ll get back to garden and bird news in future posts.

It was a lovely time on the cruise up the Inland Passage to Alaska, although I am happy to be back on terra firma. The trip would have been perfect if we could skip over the first full day’s cruising.

Here’s how the trip went…

We left the port of Seattle Sunday afternoon, headed to sea to the droning of the engines, full of anticipation, unaware of what the next 24 hours held.

Seattle skyline

Smooth sailing

The next day found us approaching , and in, the Hecate Strait.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=hecate+strait&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.50801,113.90625&ie=UTF8&ll=52.742755,-129.81827&spn=9.346924,28.476563&t=h&z=6

As we progressed northward, the waters became angry, the wind screamed across the deck, and the visibility was nil. Sitting at the dinner table, we started to notice the boat leaning to the side more and more. A huge gust of wind seemed to lift us and carry the listing ship across the water for at least 10 minutes. During that time, glasses crashed, dishes fell, and people flew about. As I made my way to the room, friends likened me to a starfish clinging to the walls - very funny now that we’re safe and sound.

View from the dinner table, just before giving my impression of a starfish on the walls

The TV in the room had a station where you could monitor the progress of the boat and all the information about the weather, seas, winds, etc. After seeing the winds progress to what is called ‘Wind Force 10/Storm’, I was curious what this meant exactly. It is a measurement on the ‘Beaufort scale’,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale

and 'Wind Force 10' is a Whole gale/Storm, with seas to about 30 feet, winds to 63 miles per hour, and extremely limited visibility. Here’s the description: Very high waves. The sea surface is white and there is considerable tumbling. Visibility is reduced.

That was an understatement.

The pictures below just don’t do the experience justice.

From the back of the boat toward the bridge

After that, the rest of the cruise was lovely. There were the most incredible views of glaciers and icebergs, and fun times at the cities where we stopped.

Tracy Arm

Glacial ice in Tracy Arm

Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau

Tourists taking over Skagway, AK

Serene Seattle

Overall, I guess you could say the Inland Passage Rocked. ~Aerie-el

NEW WEED CONTROL DEVICE

Well, well, well, who knew that a bunny could be a gardener's favorite weed control device? It's true! This little one just arrived in the yard recently and is the champion of weed controllers, eating every broadleaf weed in sight. I should never say 'out you pesky wabbit' again.

Observe the last of the leaf in it's tiny mouth...

Eagle update...the juvenile has been flying up to higher branches, then down to lower ones recently. My guess was that it would fly sometime within the coming week. I hope to get pictures when it happens if I'm not away. In the meantime, here's a picture of the juvenile sitting on one of the first branches s/he 'flew' to and from. Nice perch.

~Aerie-el

PLANT PICKS

With all the eagle activity lately I have been remiss in addressing gardening interests, so today is the day I hope to at least partially make up for that.

Recently I assisted a friend with choosing plants for a local shopping center’s green areas. That was both fun and interesting, knowing that whichever plants we selected needed to be tough in order to survive shoppers sometimes even stepping on the poor, defenseless plants. In addition to tough, they needed to be attractive. Fortunately, there are plenty of plants to choose from that will do well west of the Cascades, in our temperate USDA Zone 7-9/Sunset Zone 4-5.

(USDA Zone map:
http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html
Sunset Garden Climate Zones :
http://www.sunset.com/sunset/garden/article/1,20633,845218,00.html)

When selecting plants, it can’t be said enough…choose the right plant for the right place. There is even an excellent book published with that name (Right Plant, Right Place, by Nicola Ferguson:
http://www.amazon.com/Right-Plant-Place-Indispensable-Successful/dp/0671523961.)

So what are some of the factors you should consider before you ever even BUY that plant?

Climate Zone. Know the climate zone in which you live and buy plants on ‘worst case’ scenarios. Get plants that are at least hardy enough for the coldest and warmest your plants will grow in.

Direction, i.e., sun or shade. Where will the new addition to your yard live? North side of a building will be cooler, not as much sun throughout the year; south side can bake so be sure the plants can take the heat. East side gets that morning sun, which is cooler than the west side’s hot afternoon sun.

Drainage. Clay and hardpan are the norm around here. Though you may have these conditions, you can improve them by adding compost. You don’t need to turn it into the soil, just apply a nice thick layer on top of the garden beds each year if you can. How thick? At the minimum add 1 inch, 3 inches is better, and 6 inches is even better if you have clay or hardpan.

Extent, i.e., how much will the plant grow? What will its mature height and width be? Just like people, the DNA in plants directs them to grow to a certain size in suitable cultural conditions. If you have a spot where the mature plant needs to be less than 6 feet tall, then you will lose the battle with a plant that is ‘coded’ to be 8 feet. Go smaller rather than bigger in these cases, as many times I’ve found that the plants surpass the ‘maximum’ height/width listed on the plant tag.

Go native. Choose plants that are indigenous to the local area since they are well-suited for the climate conditions. More and more nurseries are carrying native plants in their inventory now. If you live in the ‘south end’ of King County, one of the places you can find a good selection of native plants is the Lake Wilderness Arboretum nursery in Maple Valley. Their knowledgeable folks can answer all of your questions every Saturday thru the summer, and help you make the best plant choices.
http://lakewildernessarboretum.com/index.asp

And now, the current (so hard to narrow it down, plus it changes) list…here are some of my favorite plants for this area. (Disclaimer: pictures are from my yard so some of the plants have recently been planted and don't represent full-sized plants!)

SHRUBS:

Ceanothus (various) (above)

Mahonia (various)
Pieris japonica
Potentilla fruticosa
Sarcococca (various)

GROUND COVERS:
Ajuga ‘chocolate chip’ (slow-growing and well-behaved)
Gaultheria ovatifolia
Rubus calycinoides (now pentalobus)

TREES:

Deciduous:
Acer griseum

Ginkho biloba (above)
Hamamelis
Stewartia pseudocamellia (below)

TREES
Evergreen:
Chamaecyparis (various, but really like C. obtuse ‘Lemon Twist’ and ‘Nana Gracilus’)
Viburnum rhytidophyllum (leather-leaf viburnum; catagorized as shrub as well) (below)

I have lots of other favorites…perennials, annuals, etc, so that will be another posting at another time!

If you’re looking for what to choose for plants, check out the information on plants rigorously, meticulously, carefully, selected by horticultural and design experts in at:
http://www.greatplantpicks.org/

Now it's 'share time'...what are your favorite plants?

~Aerie-el

EAGLES AND FIREWORKS

Those two items are not normally seen in the same sentence or even in the same vicinity; however July 4th brought the two unlikely companions together. It is interesting to note that because bald eagles are no longer listed on the endangered and threatened species list, many of the protections that had been in place, no longer are. So knowing this, as much as I love fireworks for the 4th of July, I actually dreaded what would surely be another explosive performance on our little lake in our unincorporated county because of what might happen, all legally, with our resident eagle family.

Although (legal/safe and sane) fireworks are okay to use for a certain number of hours (someone said it was 3…or maybe it was from 3 in the afternoon until 3 in the morning for a couple days?) in our part of the county, you know there are surely many fireworks that are not ‘legal’ that are expended in celebration for the 4th of July holiday. Legal or not, the fireworks exploded and there was a haze over the lake by sunset. From our vantage point, many of the fireworks looked like they could be landing on top of the eagle’s nest, but that could have been due to the angle we saw them. Our concern grew as did the fireworks displays, and we hoped that the ‘family’ hunkered down for the duration.

The haze lifted the next morning, and we were quite ecstatic to see one adult and the juvenile bald eagle. We felt as though they had gone thru a battle and survived triumphant…how paradoxical that was what the holiday signified and people had celebrated.

I’ll get off my soapbox now, and leave you to view some photos and a wee bit more info. Enjoy!

I love this picture that I took as the eagle headed directly at me, or maybe it caught sight of my indoor-only cat sitting just inside the screen door of the deck?



With the nest, the tree, and what the zoom lens captures, there is no real sense of size in some of these pictures. So below are 2 which might give you a better comparison of the sizes of the adult and juvenile eagle on the nest… (from what I’ve found in my research, eagle wingspan is in the range of 7-9 feet across, eagle height is approx 36 inches for females and 30+ for males…males are smaller than females.)


















Below is a series of shots of the juvenile testing out its flight ability. Yet another test run before actually leaving the nest.

Fish dinner, anyone?

And I’ll leave you with a shot of a lightning bolt that I caught when we had plenty of thunderstorms…

‘Til next time…

~Aerie-el