Los Primos ... is the name of a local restaurant that we enjoy. They also call themselves the El Salvador, which is sometimes confusing. We always thought that the name meant (in Spanish) “The Best”, or something along those lines, because “primos” sounds to us like “prime” or something closely akin. As they serve the best Mexican food in town, this seemed completely appropriate.
But recently we discovered that “los primos” actually means “the cousins”. It seems that three cousins started both the restaurant and the related grocery. Nothing wrong with “the cousins” as a name, but it doesn't have quite the same cachet for us as “the best”! :)
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Bird feeding...
Bird feeding... This post is in response to a reader's inquiry.
We have eleven winter feeders all together: five sunflower seed feeders, two Nyjer thistle seed feeders, one platform feeder, one suet feeder, and two feeders dedicated to “no mess” seed. Except for three of the sunflower seed feeders, my feeders are all Droll Yankee products – I've found them to be more durable than any others I've tried; most last for at least five years and some we've had for over ten years.
In the summer we add several hummingbird feeders to our array of feeders. None of our hummer species winter over, so they come down for the winter.
We go through quite a bit of seed in the winter time, and drastically less in other seasons, though it never goes to zero. Right at the moment monthly seed consumption is about 120 pounds of black oil sunflower seed, 80 pounds of cracked corn (on the platform feeder and scattered on the driveway), 60 pounds of Nyjer thistle seed, 25 pounds of “no mess” seed, and 2 pounds of suet mix.
Except for the no-mess seed, my local source is Tractor Supply Company – they have the best prices locally, and the seed is all good quality. The “no mess” seed I have no local source for, so once or twice a year we head down to Wild Birds Unlimited in Salt Lake City and stock up. We don't get the “no mess” seed because it doesn't make a mess, though that's true. We get it because I'd read that in extreme cold temperatures the wild birds can more easily get the calories they need. I can't independently verify that, but I can tell you that the consumption of it is almost zero except when the temperature drops below about 20°F – and then the colder it gets, the more gets eaten. A working hypothesis is that the birds actually prefer the seeds au naturel, but when it gets too bitterly cold and they need more calories, they'll go for the avian fast food. We see all sorts of small songbirds on those “no mess” feeders; so far as I can tell there's no species that prefer it over the sunflower seeds.
The Nyjer thistle seed feeders are dominated by goldfinches (both Lesser's and American), though they are occasionally visited by chickadees and house finches. Woodpeckers, magpies, and flickers are the most common visitors to the suet feeder; the occasional chickadee can be found there as well. The scattered cracked corn brings hordes of juncos, a few pigeons and doves, and deer. Magpies and doves seem to prefer cracked corn on the platform feeder, along with a lot of chickadees. The sunflower seed brings many different species, but more house finches than anything else.
My mom would have loved to have seen our birds feeders, but she never got the chance...
We have eleven winter feeders all together: five sunflower seed feeders, two Nyjer thistle seed feeders, one platform feeder, one suet feeder, and two feeders dedicated to “no mess” seed. Except for three of the sunflower seed feeders, my feeders are all Droll Yankee products – I've found them to be more durable than any others I've tried; most last for at least five years and some we've had for over ten years.
In the summer we add several hummingbird feeders to our array of feeders. None of our hummer species winter over, so they come down for the winter.
We go through quite a bit of seed in the winter time, and drastically less in other seasons, though it never goes to zero. Right at the moment monthly seed consumption is about 120 pounds of black oil sunflower seed, 80 pounds of cracked corn (on the platform feeder and scattered on the driveway), 60 pounds of Nyjer thistle seed, 25 pounds of “no mess” seed, and 2 pounds of suet mix.
Except for the no-mess seed, my local source is Tractor Supply Company – they have the best prices locally, and the seed is all good quality. The “no mess” seed I have no local source for, so once or twice a year we head down to Wild Birds Unlimited in Salt Lake City and stock up. We don't get the “no mess” seed because it doesn't make a mess, though that's true. We get it because I'd read that in extreme cold temperatures the wild birds can more easily get the calories they need. I can't independently verify that, but I can tell you that the consumption of it is almost zero except when the temperature drops below about 20°F – and then the colder it gets, the more gets eaten. A working hypothesis is that the birds actually prefer the seeds au naturel, but when it gets too bitterly cold and they need more calories, they'll go for the avian fast food. We see all sorts of small songbirds on those “no mess” feeders; so far as I can tell there's no species that prefer it over the sunflower seeds.
The Nyjer thistle seed feeders are dominated by goldfinches (both Lesser's and American), though they are occasionally visited by chickadees and house finches. Woodpeckers, magpies, and flickers are the most common visitors to the suet feeder; the occasional chickadee can be found there as well. The scattered cracked corn brings hordes of juncos, a few pigeons and doves, and deer. Magpies and doves seem to prefer cracked corn on the platform feeder, along with a lot of chickadees. The sunflower seed brings many different species, but more house finches than anything else.
My mom would have loved to have seen our birds feeders, but she never got the chance...
Northern shrike sighting!
Northern shrike sighting! We drove up Blacksmith Fork Canyon this morning, looking for wildlife. We spotted about a bazillion deer, mainly up the snow-free slopes high above us. Behind the Hardware Ranch visitor center we also spotted six elk about 200' from us – the only elk we saw on the entire trip. The herd at Hardware Ranch, we read, has left to follow the snow line up higher. Presumably if it does get cold again, they'll be back (for the free hay dispensed at Hardware Ranch). We also read that the moose prefer to stay above the snow line, which may explain why we've only had one sighting so far this winter.
The highlight of the trip, for me at least, was spotting a northern shrike strutting on a fence post roughly a mile east of Hardware Ranch, right along the road. That's not my photo at right, but the bird we sighted looked very much like this one. It's a migratory species, and this one was here for our warm winter! :) It probably came down from either Alaska or the Hudson Bay area. They're not a common bird at all, so I cherish the sighting of it. He popped up on a fence post as we were looking at some deer high on a hill a half mile or so behind him – it was just plain luck that we saw him at all...
Best scallops evah!
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