Nearly every day for the past week, I will suddenly hear raucous alarm calls coming from the flock of sparrows that hang out in the backyard.
It appears that we have attracted a regular visitor who showed up on two separate occasions today. An adorable, killing machine – a Cooper’s hawk.
He (or she) will make a dive toward the lilac bush where the sparrows hang out. This is followed by some activity on the ground that I can’t quite see — I’m not sure if he’s devouring sparrow snacks, or if there are small rodents that burrow around there taking advantage of all the food that the sparrows drop. Following this, he perches on the fence for a few moments.
And then spends about 10 minutes in the tree. Waiting for another snack, perhaps?
Either way, I’m happy to have the backyard excitement.
And a Wormville Update
It’s been nearly a year since I posted about making a vermicomposting (that is worm composting) system for your house. Check out the old post for detailed instructions, but basically it is a two-tiered system. When one compartment is full, it is brought to the bottom and a new round of compost begins on top. The one on the bottom is then left to turn itself into black gold, and indeed it does! Apart from the egg shells (which provide good calcium and slug deterrence anyway), our food scraps have turned into soil.
Pretty amazing! (Note: we certainly could have removed this before now — it didn’t take a full year to become compost, but we were waiting to use it or put it outside. It had mostly finished by ~6 months.) And even visitors have confirmed – it doesn’t smell at all. There are also thousands of worms inside. Anybody looking for some extras??
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Oooooh, I may take you up on extra worms! I have a little bin going too!
Awesome! Maybe I’ll bring some to the next time bank meeting!
You could do a composting workshop. I’d go!
Oooo – now there’s an idea! I’ll run it by Christina!
Awesome. I am sure I still have a TON of things to learn.
Thanks, Christine! This post inspired me to finally add a second tower to my own vermicomposting bin today. I had made a simple one out of 2 5 gallon buckets that I had and had always gone through the process taking everything out, making little piles and shining the bright light so that the wormies would go in the middle of the pile and then I would take the castings from around the outside of the piles, etc. I don’t know why I didn’t add the second bin sooner – let nature do the work! I’ll be so happy I did this come May when I will be transplanting my tomatoes in the ground and I have a zillion other farm things going on. 🙂
What a cute hawk! I love them as long as they stay away from my chickens! I’m glad your worm composting bin worked – looks like it worked wonderfully!
I love the idea of worm composting! So glad to hear yours worked…will have to check out your post on it too and pin it. Thanks for sharing about it…and hope your Cooper’s hawk doesn’t get too greedy with the birds!
Nice pics of the Coopers Hawk! Thanks for sharing this on The HomeAcre Hop!!! Can’t wait to see what you share this coming Thursday 🙂 Here’s the super easy link to the next hop!
http://www.theselfsufficienthomeacre.com/2013/02/the-homeacre-hop-8.html
If you haven’t checked out Wildcrafing Wednesday yet, please do! 🙂 It’s a hop I co-host for herbal remedies, natural living, real food recipes, and self sufficient living. Here’s the link for tomorrow’s hop:
http://www.theselfsufficienthomeacre.com/2013/02/wildcrafting-wednesday-10.html