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cimoreneThe trees in our backyard - three apple trees, a couple of yews, a hedge of maple trees, a young (25-30 year?) oak - were all last pruned like... maybe three to five years ago, when the last owner of our house moved out. She saw to the house's upkeep in that period but she didn't continue pruning. When they're in leaf they just look shaggy, but in their wintry skeletal forms, there's a very obvious boundary between the original form and the explosion of long, thin, straight branches that are in many cases too weak even to support a blue tit.
Spring is pruning season, so we retrieved a long pruning shears (and a Ryobi hedge trimmer that looks like a very small chainsaw) the last time we were at the cottage and made a start on them. We only trimmed bits that we could reach without a ladder so far, and we forgot to bring a rake, so right now everything looks arguably even funnier than it did all winter; but I've already seen to my delight that the magpies, which previously were only on the gazebo and shed roofs, have been perching in the apple tree that my window looks out on, on the lower branches that Wax pruned the other day! The long skinny branches were too dense for larger birds to even reach branches that would support their weight without a lot of work, but they've already been in the yard a bit more often the last few days; maybe they're just more active in spring of course, but maybe there will be more larger birds visiting the yard, or at least sitting temporarily in it, once we get the other apples and maples trimmed. (I'm going to leave the oak.)
I've also seen a couple of hooded crows foraging on the ground in the last week, although they aren't interested in the seeds and the feeder. There's a murder or two that hang out frequently high in the pines and birches nearby, behind our property or across the street, but they don't usually come down to the level of the littler trees in our yard. I'm a big corvid fan, so I'm very excited about this. Sadly, apparently there isn't much more I can do to try to attract corvids, apart from maybe putting out raw whole peanuts in the shell, which they like to collect and take away to hide somewhere - but I only seem to find crushed peanuts for sale around here. The magpies will take the unhulled sunflower seeds at least. Apparently it's an urban legend that corvids are attracted to shiny objects, which was a great disappointment to me. They will accept little objects when they know they are given as gifts, but don't necessarily prefer reflective ones, and they aren't particularly attracted to ones that are just lying around.
Spring is pruning season, so we retrieved a long pruning shears (and a Ryobi hedge trimmer that looks like a very small chainsaw) the last time we were at the cottage and made a start on them. We only trimmed bits that we could reach without a ladder so far, and we forgot to bring a rake, so right now everything looks arguably even funnier than it did all winter; but I've already seen to my delight that the magpies, which previously were only on the gazebo and shed roofs, have been perching in the apple tree that my window looks out on, on the lower branches that Wax pruned the other day! The long skinny branches were too dense for larger birds to even reach branches that would support their weight without a lot of work, but they've already been in the yard a bit more often the last few days; maybe they're just more active in spring of course, but maybe there will be more larger birds visiting the yard, or at least sitting temporarily in it, once we get the other apples and maples trimmed. (I'm going to leave the oak.)
I've also seen a couple of hooded crows foraging on the ground in the last week, although they aren't interested in the seeds and the feeder. There's a murder or two that hang out frequently high in the pines and birches nearby, behind our property or across the street, but they don't usually come down to the level of the littler trees in our yard. I'm a big corvid fan, so I'm very excited about this. Sadly, apparently there isn't much more I can do to try to attract corvids, apart from maybe putting out raw whole peanuts in the shell, which they like to collect and take away to hide somewhere - but I only seem to find crushed peanuts for sale around here. The magpies will take the unhulled sunflower seeds at least. Apparently it's an urban legend that corvids are attracted to shiny objects, which was a great disappointment to me. They will accept little objects when they know they are given as gifts, but don't necessarily prefer reflective ones, and they aren't particularly attracted to ones that are just lying around.
