The Family that Bathes Together...

On mornings when it's getting hot fast, I always give the WarblerFall a quick scrub. I change out the rocks to clean ones (all I have to do is leave them in the sun between cleanings, and its heat does my work for me!), scrub the basin with a Magic Eraser, and rinse and refill with clean water. It only takes a few minutes to make the bath fresh, clean and sparkling again. Thank you, Sun!

I knew there would be serious action today, August 21, with a humid high of 88.

Sure enough, along came a baby cardinal, a female. 

She still has the blackish bill she was born with. She's likely still being fed by her parents.

She had such fun in the cool bath it wasn't long before her parents came to join her!

I was thrilled to get the whole family in one shot. That doesn't happen often.

The 'rents look considerably less fresh-faced than she does. Well, they've probably been feeding her for 50 days. I know. I've done it. Baby cardinals beg for forever, and then add a few weeks. 

Mom Cardinal was down to the last two feathers in her crest. Maybe she pulled them out in frustration...

Anyway, I'm projecting. The little family was having a nice bath together, and it was Baby's idea.

Then someone new showed up, startling everyone!

It was a male scarlet tanager! Mom didn't mind. She was just happy to be able to take a bath without anyone clamoring at her for something.

Dad Cardinal made a classic dad move, rudely crowding the tanager, who protested with a little squeal.

The tanager, a juvenile male, held his own.

At length, the Cardinal family left, and the tanager was finally able to take a long soaker.

At one point a female American goldfinch joined him, looking like a mini-me!

Finally even the goldfinch left. Every time I looked out the window for the next ten minutes, the tanager was there, soaking. It was sweet to see him enjoy the bath so very much. 

The WarblerFall got a nice shoutout last week on the Martha Stewart website!

They called to interview me and I had to tell them about the WarblerFall.

https://www.marthastewart.com/best-bird-baths-for-garden-7568841

I sent them photos, but they didn't use them. The WarblerFall beats all the bird baths featured in the article by a country mile. I'm not bragging here. It just does. It's the best bird bath you can get. I've had 28 species in mine just this summer. My friend Briana at The Hungry Little Birdie in Michigan hit 42 species for the summer today with a young Blackburnian warbler! I'm waiting for my friend and neighbor Laura to tally up her species. I think she'll blow us both out of the shallow pool. ***see end of post for an update!

                                              photo courtesy The Hungry Little Birdie

I got a SWEET pair of juvenile Kentucky warblers recently, though! The female arrived first and poked around the shade garden amid the ferns and pink Angelonia (a new favorite flower!)

And then she came to the WarblerFall!

soon to be joined by her splendid brother, here perched on a tomato cage. Oh man, I love this warbler. This pair were probably hatched and fledged just a few hundred yards away, in my orchard, where their handsome daddy scolded me every morning as I walked by their nest. I saw at least two fledglings being fed, and then along come these jewels on 27 July. My cup runneth over--KEWA was species #25 in the WarblerFall this summer. 

 The best part about the WarblerFall, after the ridiculous bird diversity it attracts, is that you make it yourself, and customize it to your liking. 

But please take close note of the type of rock and shallow depth of the water in our creations.

I'd recommend getting your WarblerFall built as soon as you can, because fall migration is coming into full swing. Just ask that young tanager! Migrating is thirsty work, and warblers, tanagers, vireos and finches are delighted to find cool running water to bathe in on these hot, hot August days. 

September is even better, and October holds such surprises! Kinglets, anyone?

See what the fuss is about at https://warblerfall.com

Here's an update from my neighbor Laura, whose trail cameras capture the most outrageous things.

She's got two baths, one with a recirculating pump and one without. The classic WarblerFall with a pump has 43 species for this season, so she has edged me out by a long shot, and she has only one more than Briana in Michigan. 

We'll start you off easy. Here is a photo from August 8, 2023.

An older female Baltimore oriole and a two-year-old rose-breasted grosbeak bathe together.

Here is Laura's trailcam photo from early July 2023. Not one, but FIVE blue-winged warblers consider a bath. This has to be a pair with their three fledglings. Can you stand it? 

And the piece de resistance: SEVEN species at the bath at one time, 13 September 2022. From left, Laura identified them as common yellowthroat (male); scarlet tanager imm (big bird in front with pale bill); a bay-breasted warbler in the water behind the tanager; an imm. Tennessee warbler on the rim in back; an imm. chestnut-sided warbler in the water to the right; a tufted titmouse on the rock; and a song sparrow at the far right. I just squealed when I saw this. Thank you, Laura, for this insane clown posse of birds in your WarblerFall!

The WarblerFall

 What was your Pandemic Project? Did you clean closets? Learn how to make sourdough? Pick up an instrument? 

Mine was inventing the perfect bird bath, something so irresistible that it would draw birds from the woods into the yard: birds I don't usually get to see.  I've been thinking about this problem ever since I learned the Magnificent Bird Spa was no longer in production, which was sometime around 2011. Oh, have I had fun with this wonderful creation. There was nothing like it on a hot summer day! But now it's old and the resin-based material it's made of is getting more brittle every year.  I felt a need to find an alternative, for the inevitable time when it breaks. 

Every time I went to a garden center or a wild bird supply store, I looked for something like the Spa. I looked online, again and again, for years. I never found it. Somehow the manufacturers of bird baths have never gotten the memo from wild birds about what they like. I knew it was up to me to come up with it.

I wanted to invent a bubbling bird fountain that would be affordable and easy to clean. Much as I loved the Magnificent Bird Spa, it was expensive ($350 in 2007), and it was a pretty big production to take apart and clean the basin and its 8 gallon reservoir. There had to be an easier way to get water to my birds.

 I also wanted to build something that would appeal to small forest birds like warblers, vireos and tanagers: something smaller, shallower, and noisier. The sound of trickling water is how birds find a bathing spot. A light went off in my head when I found a large, shallow basin at White's Mill, my favorite garden store in Athens, Ohio. I bought two, brought them home, and commenced thinking about how to create a fountain around them. By midsummer 2021 I had it figured out, but I kept tinkering with the components until I got it just right. I set it in the shady bed below my studio window and was thunderstruck by the action it got that late summer and fall. Warblers, vireos, tanagers, gnatcatchers, kinglets--they were coming right up to the studio window, enticed by the trickling water music below.

Black and white warbler (imm. female)

A fall-plumaged scarlet tanager bathes.

An immature white-crowned sparrow takes a sip.

Those of you who read this blog or follow my social media feeds know that I share things that make me happy. Uncharacteristically, I kept this close to my chest, posted not a single photo of my perfect bird fountain anywhere. I knew I had something very special here, but I wasn't sure how to make it available. I had an idea that it would be worth paying a little something to access my plans. It took my awesome friend Kristi Dranginis (originator of For the Love of Birds Festival) to show me what I needed to do to make it accessible to everyone. I'd never even heard of a one-page website, but I have now!

And so I developed a pitch for my idea and condensed into an elevator speech. Then I wrote a script for the video and put together the plans for constructing the fountain, with detailed instructions and photos. And in September 2021, my friend Shila and I spent a wild afternoon making an instructional video featuring me demonstrating exactly how to make this bird bath. It was really fun, and I learned so much about how to develop, package and pitch an idea.  The whole experience was a crash course in online marketing, and it's really rewarding to see how it's being received.

I call it The WarblerFall. Because of the work and money I've put into developing the idea and its website, there is a modest fee to access the instructional video and detailed guide. I think you'll enjoy the step-by-step instructional video, which brings you right into my garden, and I guarantee you'll have fun making your own bubbling bird bath, at a very reasonable cost. The whole thing can be constructed without tools for under $60, but oh, the bathing bird beauty bang for the buck! Check it out at warblerfall.com

 I took a bunch of photos in the last couple of days to show birds enjoying it.

We're moving into late summer migration time, and I am going to get absolutely nothing done because this water feature is right outside my studio window and there is literally always something going on out there.

It's prime WarblerFall time! 

The 2021 iteration of my WarblerFall was on the ground. And that is really best, if there are no marauding mammals around. But the chipmunks in my yard developed the intensely annoying behavior of trying to jump the birds while they bathed, so the new setup looks like this. 

I put a LOT of flat rocks in the basin to give pools of varying depths. I absolutely LOVE playing with the rocks to create the prettiest water music I can!

Take yesterday, July 28, for example. Phoebe and I were watching two cardinals bathing together, and not one but THREE Kentucky warblers showed up! 

They peered down at the fountain, chased each other through the birches, and suddenly a worm-eating warbler appeared, also attracted by the trickling water!

To see these glorious denizens of the deep woods drawn into my yard, only inches away from my studio window, was such an affirmation, such a thrill! This is why I had to share my invention. 

But it took a newly fledged brown-headed cowbird to demonstrate all the delights of the WarblerFall. 

First, it stood in a shallow pool, squatted, and bathed there. 

Then it tried another shallower pool

Escalating, it stuck its chest right into the flow. 

I have never seen a bird stick its head right into the outflow

but this little cowbird was living large. 

I can't wait to see what late summer and fall migration brings to my WarblerFall. On October 13, 2021, I had my first-ever ruby-crowned kinglet come to bathe! Her bath was too quick for me to capture, but I got the tiny customer right before she took a dip.

If you'd like to see what all the fuss is about, and watch me going all Bobby Flay on you with a rapid-fire two-minute pitch, check it out at  

warblerfall.com

I've also made a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/WarblerFall

where some fun stuff happens.

Brass tacks. If you decide to take the plunge and purchase the WarblerFall plans, and you don't get a welcome email right back, CHECK YOUR SPAM FILE. Many email programs see the links in my welcome email and toss it into spam/junk. 

If you still can't find it, email me at juliezickefooseATgmailDOTcom

and I'll be happy to set you up.

Late Summer Riches

 

Psst. Anybody know what this bird might be? It's a great quiz, a real booger. Puzzle on that one for awhile, make your guesses, write 'em down. It was spotted in my orchard, having been raised in a nest nearby. Its parents scolded me for weeks, and kept scolding even after it (and its siblings, I'm going to presume) were flying and hopping around and scolding me themselves, like this little chap is doing. I'll tell you at the bottom of the post, so as not to spoil the game.

This one's a lot easier to ID. See the rose flush coming in on the breast? What a little beauty--a newly fledged male rose-breasted grosbeak, so young his bill is still blackish--just like a young cardinal's. I'm not sure where he came from, because I didn't hear rosebreasts singing anywhere nearby this spring--not even down Dean's Fork, where I've had as many as five singing males in past years. Once they're flying, juveniles can disperse for many miles.

Younguns are everywhere. Here's a stripling rabbit, bug eyed and slender, perfect of fur and form.

 

And a stripling youth, watering the thirsty golden raspberries: rhubarb at his feet, tuberoses and mint in the foreground. Oh, how the Heritage Bed has grown! Every year I chop a fresh border out of the lawn, growing it out into the mown space. Much more fun to make food and flowers than grass.

We carved us up a whole lot of wisteria this summer. Wisteria has its place on the porches of Victorian homes, if you're willing to cut it back ferociously, and stop those shoots from coming up everywhere. It has no place here, but it's taken over a hill. We battled some of it back this summer. I shudder to think what this place will look like if the next inhabitants aren't feisty scrappers like we are.

I'm so enjoying the last week or two of his residence at home. It's been quite a ride. We've gotten to know each other so much better, and that has been a blessing. 

 

 

 But we were talking about birds, weren't we? Here's a newly fledged indigo bunting, calling for its parents in a sumac in the meadow. Spit! Spit! Spit! You should click on this one to see its grumpy face.

 

 

A young rubythroat, sticking out her rice-noodle tongue.

 

 

A young blue-winged warbler, contemplating my new bird fountain. Oh, what a thrill it was to see one of the two pairs of blue-wings that bred in the meadow flip out and flutter before me the day their babies fledged! And I loved to hear the males trading songs and insults all through the spring and early summer. Riches!! Gold coins!

 

 

 

There's such a parade of birds by the window, even though I'm not feeding them much at all any more. Water is the attractant, water and native plants and bright flowers everywhere, and all the insects they attract.  This old male cardinal has a bum right wing, likely from a poorly healed broken coracoid, but he's making it through his second summer with us pretty well. Nice to be able to take a cool dip on a hot day.

 
 

I've  greatly enjoyed watching two fledgling robins foraging on cutworms that they pull out of the clover and crabgrass in the lawn.  

 

 

 

Such an ornate and extravagant plumage. I wish they kept that spotty breast, like Europe's mistle thrush does. 

 

 

Not a single earthworm to be seen in this drought, but they make do nicely on cutworms, crickets and grasshoppers. I'm astounded how many they pull out of the "lawn." You won't see that happening on a Chemlawn! Nor will there be many moths at your porch light.

 

 

 

Another cutworm fan: a baby brown thrasher. No, they don't look their absolute best yet, but I love the young ones so. I love watching them learn to be birds.

 

 

 

 A messy, molty blue jay at the bath, one of a pair of hardworking parents who raised a couple nice babies on the place this summer. I didn't know either of them from before. So it goes. You get everybody nicely identified and wait breathlessly, and then all the ones you know leave, and new ones come in that you can't tell from anyone else. At least that's what happens in southeast Ohio. I miss Frost, who stayed two winters and  bred here once, but he's gone. I miss them all. It's been a lean summer for jays. One small but significant reason to look forward to November! That's when the jays come back to me.

 

A brood of Carolina wrens has been popping all about my new bird fountain. (I have yet to tell you about that, but I will). They love to investigate the rocks I leave lying about, crawling under and around them. If there's a little hole or cave, a Carolina wren is going to go in it.

Here's a baby American redstart preparing to bathe. Oh, they love water!

And they love my golden Chamaecyparis trees, that set off the red siding so nicely. 

 

 

 

All right. Are you ready with your possible ID's of the mystery baby in the first photo? That all-over olive creature with no identifying marks whatsoever? Because here it is (lower right) with its beautiful daddy. 

 

 

It's a lousy photo, but come on. Getting two Kentucky warblers in any shot is a lagniappe.

Having them breed in your old orchard somewhere in southeast Ohio is, too.

 

 

 

It's been a heck of a summer for breeding birds (and me) here. I've been here to document and confirm breeding of Kentucky, hooded, black and white, prairie, blue-winged, American redstart, and common yellowthroat, among the warblers. Pine warblers, Louisiana waterthrushes, ovenbirds and worm-eating warblers nested, but I never was able to see fledglings. Doesn't mean they didn't fledge! There were others, of course, but those are just the ones I could confirm. Other species confirmed breeding this summer were indigo bunting, blue-gray gnatcatcher, eastern wood-pewee, eastern phoebe, orchard oriole (only the second nest in 29 years!), chipping sparrow,  northern cardinal, Carolina chickadee, eastern bluebird (duh!), blue jay, tufted titmouse, eastern towhee, yellow-billed cuckoo, Carolina wren, American robin, downy and hairy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, broad-winged hawks, red-tailed hawks, barred owl, and eastern screech-owl. That's a whole lotta creeping around in the woods, and I feel blessed to have been here to do it. From the way it's looking, I'll be here to document lots of other things, too, for the foreseeable future. A bit sad not to be traveling--I miss my family! but fine with the confinement, because there's always so much to learn, see, and marvel at.