WindStar Wildlife Garden Weekly
Connecting People
To Nature Through
Education May 28, 2007
Official
Publication of WindStar Wildlife
Institute
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Help Kids Regain Link
With Nature
IN THIS
AGE of computers and games, kids are losing their
connection with nature. Anna Victoria Reich of Albuquerque, NM
has an easy and fun way to involve youngsters--cook up a new
treat for the birds. And even the youngest kitchen
helpers can do these steps with some adult
supervision:
1. Heat peanut
butter on the stove or in a microwave until it's
melted.
2. Then dip and roll pinecones (one at a
time) in the peanut butter until they're completely
coated.
3. Let the excess peanut butter drip off
before placing the pinecone in a plastic bag with birdseed.
Then shake. (Kids love this part!)
4. Cool the
pinecones in a freezer for 15 minutes until the peanut
butter hardens.
5. Then tie a loop of yarn to each
one so they can be hung from a
tree.
Now that they have a
personal connection to feeding birds, the kids will be excited
when the birds flock to the feeders for the new food
item.
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Beautiful
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Wildlife Prints by Tim Flanigan
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Flaniganst F | |
Baltimore Orioles Are Strikingly
Handsome Birds!
Baltimore Oriole samples hummingbird nectar in
photo by Bird Watchers
Digest.
By Michael Burke
IT WAS
ABOUT 10 minutes before 6 a.m., and I stood
looking out the kitchen window into the pre-dawn gloom.
Today was off to a gray and drizzling start. The somber
anniversary was reflected in the weather as well as the
newspaper headlines.
A business
meeting on Capitol Hill ended about 3 p.m., so I decided
to go home and work from there for the remainder of the
afternoon. By 4:30, I was back in the kitchen again,
this time brewing a cup of afternoon tea. The weather
was dramatically cooler than the previous weekend, but
the rain had finally stopped and the sun was breaking
through. I opened the door and was startled to see that
the backyard was teeming with
birds.
Two dozen Goldfinches were
swarming over the seed heads of the prairie cone
flowers. They were joined in the yard by a host of
regulars: wrens, Blue Jays, cardinals, finches,
hummingbirds and so on. Two different kinds of
woodpeckers, an unidentified warbler, a somewhat
confused Common Yellowthroat, and three Baltimore
Orioles completed the crowd in our inner-beltway
backyard... More
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Refugee Raccoons Fill Wildlife
Center
Baby Raccoons are sometimes separated
from their mothers
By Kristen
Scatton
SCHUYLKILL HAVEN,
PA-You could hear them outside, through
walls.
Inside the Helping Hands Wildlife Center
near here, 16 baby Raccoons screamed for their supper
with an unrelenting series of shrill
cries.
"Raccoons need a lot of attention," Lynn
Dierwechter, owner and operator of the nonprofit
wildlife rehabilitation facility, said while
bottle-feeding one of the babies, nicknamed Smokey, as
the others climbed the sides of their cages and
screeched impatiently.
Each spring, baby Raccoons are separated
from their mothers because of injury, death, or
interference by well-meaning humans. Many of them end up
at Helping Hands, one of nine rehabilitation centers in
Pennsylvania licensed to care for rabies vector
species-Raccoons, bats, foxes, coyotes, groundhogs and
skunks.
"A
lot of people just pick them up," Dierwechter said.
"People see them in the woods and automatically
think... More
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Mad Bluebird Garden Flags
Large
Flag is 27" x 37"(h)... $19.95
Garden Flag is 12" x 17"(h)...$9.95
He appears like he is looking directly
at you, but he's not happy about it. Usually he is the
"Bluebird of Happiness" but here he appears ruffled and
disgusted with the onset of colder weather in this
reproduction of the photograph by Michael L. Smith.
These flags are true works of art and will bring the
world of nature alive whereever they are
displayed.
OUR GUARANTEE is unconditional
and 100% money back, if, for any reason, you are not
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Find more nature products in
the Nature Shop
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Wildlife Photo of the Week
Spotted Salamanders are on the move
this month in Massachusetts as captured in this
delightful photograph
by Barry J Merluzzo, MCA,
Wildlife Habitat Naturalist
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Joseph Gentile checks one of his
32 bird feeders
By Trish
Rudder
BERKELEY SPRINGS, WV--Joseph
Gentile has always been interested in nature. While
growing up in Michigan, his mother taught him to take care
of wildlife.
"One of my earliest chores was
filling the bird feeders," he
said.
Since
moving to Morgan County in 1990, he has provided a refuge
for wildlife on his property, but did not meet all the
certified wildlife criteria until this year. (WindStar
requires food, water, cover and space to raise a family to
qualify)
His two-acre property
attracts a large variety of birds, butterflies, and other
wildlife including deer, opossum, raccoons, squirrels and
a couple of varieties of nonpoisonous
snakes.
"It's not just bird feeders
and bird houses," he said.
He had to cut out
chemicals for weeding and feeding, and he does more
composting for fertilizer. He also added a log pile to
shelter larger mammals and brush piles to night shelter
wild birds.
Gentile provides 32 bird
feeders as well as... More
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Fishers Weaseling Way
Back
By Scott Shalaway
WE ALL HAVE "once in a
lifetime" moments. Lucky, keen-eyed naturalists have
many over the years -- a brief glimpse of a rare bird or
a Bobcat crossing the road at night.
 One of mine occurred a few years ago
while walking an abandoned gas road near my home. A dark
four-legged mammal crossed the path about 15 yards ahead
of me.
Fisher is a rare sight in
photo by Lori Richardson/PGC
It stopped for a moment,
checked me out, then disappeared into the brush. We
stared at each other for no more than two
seconds.
My heart raced because I
knew I had never seen this animal before. It was about the size of a
fox, but it was dark with a long bushy tail. It was too
big to be a Groundhog or cat. It lacked a fox's distinct
shape, and it was too small to be a
Coyote.
After
a few minutes, I concluded I must have seen a...
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NOW
AVAILABLE
NEW!
WindStar
National
Master Naturalist
Course
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Info
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PLUS...
WindStar Wildlife
Habitat Naturalist
Course More
Info
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 That's it for this
week!
Be sure and sign up
for the American Wildlife
Blog for the latest
commentary and please feel free to add comments of your
own. Have An EXCELLENT Day in your WILDLIFE
HABITAT!
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10072 Vista
Ct.
Myersville, MD
21773
301-293-3351
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