All About Pocket Knives

treefarmer wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:24 pm Garry, in the Florida Panhandle, a Butcher Bird can use a Fire Thorn bush (Pyracantha) to hang his prey if there is no barbed wire close by. Probably there are several more wild plants with large thorns for them to have used prior to fences being built.
Treefarmer

Mumbleypeg wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:03 pm Great picture bigH! The bluebirds seem to enjoy a birdbath as much or more than any birds.

A few weeks ago there was a discussion here about shrikes, aka Butcher Birds. I mentioned about their peculiar behavior of impaling insects on barbed wire. Here’s a picture I took yesterday of a grasshopper stuck on a barbed wire fence in my south pasture.

Ken

bighomer wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 3:53 pm Dining on some fine tree rat. 20201002_150456.jpg

Airing our wings out after a fine meal.

Mumbleypeg wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 6:42 pm I think most of my hummers have already gone south. Salvia and skullcap which they like are still blooming and sugar water available in the feeders, but the number of hummers has dwindled to just a few.

Ken

bighomer wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 4:01 pm This little gal is fueling up for the trip south, doesn't seem to care for the competition from the red wasp.

TPK wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 7:59 pm

Mumbleypeg wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 6:42 pm I think most of my hummers have already gone south. Salvia and skullcap which they like are still blooming and sugar water available in the feeders, but the number of hummers has dwindled to just a few.

Ken

I thought Texas would be warm enough for them. Do you guys get much snow? How far south do ya think they go? Mexico or even further than that? Just curious.

Mumbleypeg wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:04 pm

TPK wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 7:59 pm

Mumbleypeg wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 6:42 pm I think most of my hummers have already gone south. Salvia and skullcap which they like are still blooming and sugar water available in the feeders, but the number of hummers has dwindled to just a few.

Ken

I thought Texas would be warm enough for them. Do you guys get much snow? How far south do ya think they go? Mexico or even further than that? Just curious.

All I know is they don’t hang around here in winter. I think a few just go as far as south Texas but most winter in Mexico and farther south.

Here it doesn’t snow often but winter temperatures are well below freezing many nights, can get as low as 10-15 degrees F. Average daytime high temperatures here in January are 55 degrees F. But that’s average. In winter we get a few days that never get above freezing and other days it’s upper 70s. Most years we get no snow, or at most a light dusting which melts the next morning. About once in 8 or 10 years we’ll get a winter storm event with 4 to 6 inches of snow.

Ken