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The Pleasures of a Messy Backyard

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The Pleasures of a Messy Backyard



messy garden winterThe one fall clean-up I do in my backyard includes bringing in backyard furnishings, hoses, and plant helps for the winter. I desire to go away plant seed heads as meals and spent plant stems and leaves as habitat. Admittedly, all this plant particles can look fairly messy, particularly to the eyes of those that desire a neat backyard. However messiness brings its personal pleasures.

Dark-eyed junco-ccAfter weeks of weirdly heat and moist climate, it lastly turned seasonably chilly and snowy within the second half of January. One morning, I regarded out my large bed room window to see a couple of dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) feeding within the entrance backyard. Juncos are small sparrow-like birds. They dwell year-round in Maine, however I’m most definitely to see them in fall and winter, and I consider them as winter birds. On this present day, their feathers had been fluffed out for insulation in opposition to the chilly, and so they regarded like so many little balls.

monarda punctata seedheadsThe subsequent morning introduced a bigger group of juncos to the entrance backyard, the place they went to work gleaning as a lot meals as potential from the seed heads of noticed beebalm (Monarda punctata). I stood and watched them for fairly a while. Though they’re generally known as floor feeders, these juncos had been principally perched on the plant stems, swaying within the breeze and busily pecking on the seeds. Once in a while, one or two would hop right down to the bottom to feed on seeds and monarda punctata groundchaff dislodged from the seed heads and now littered on the floor of the snow.

I might not have had the pleasure of watching these juncos feeding proper outdoors my window if it weren’t for my messy winter backyard.