Back-yard surprise

 

We've never seen this guy before, but all the birds in the neighbourhood knew he was bad news. Photo by John Denniston.

We’re used to a certain set of characters in our back yard – Steller’s jays, Northern Flickers, robins, crows, hummingbirds and LBJs (little brown jobs) – all congregating and quarrelling around the bird feeders and bird baths.

A couple of days ago, we were surprised by something altogether new – a big, substantial bird with a hooked bill, a glittering eye and a patient, brooding air. Barely moving, it sat for more than an hour on a mossy branch of the apple tree, focused on our bird feeders, waiting, waiting.

For what? Clearly not a turn at the dangling suet, the seed cylinder, or even the bird bath, which were all deserted and his for the taking. It took us awhile to figure out our visitor was not looking for bird food, but birds as food. It was a raptor, which the neighbourhood birds knew before we did. And fled.

When our regular birds timidly began showing up again, we didn’t know what to do. Who had priority? We didn’t want a backyard massacre, but maybe the newcomer was really hungry. Could we sacrifice a sparrow or two? As it turned out, we didn’t have to worry. John’s camera scared it off, and nobody died.

We learned later it was a Cooper’s Hawk, also known as a chicken hawk because it likes meaty, medium-sized birds like chickens and pigeons. Also bats and squirrels. Our hummers and LBJs were likely safe.

Cooper’s Hawks are fairly common in urban areas, according to the bird websites, and known for their “ability to hunt large and evasive prey using extremely well-developed agility.”  They squeeze their prey to death with powerful talons, or hold them underwater until they die. 

If you want to attract them to your yard, here’s what to do: Set up a bird feeder.

https://birdfeederhub.com/facts-about-coopers-hawks/

No!

 

A barrage of discouragement stands between dogs and their need to answer the call of nature in the great outdoors.

Poor dogs! Anyone who has ever watched the apology on a dog’s face as it does its business in full public view has got to feel some sympathy. Dogs are trained to go outside, but when they do, they’re treated like they’re performing an anti-social act. Owners avert their gaze, pretending not to know them, passersby scoot past, sniffing, and then there’s all those signs:

“No Poop & Pee. Be respectful.”

“Please keep dogs out of garden.”

“Woof! Please clean up after your pet.”

Physical barriers are popular, too – wire fences strategically placed to keep dogs away from plants, or even, in one yard near me, an odd assortment of closely placed sticks tight along the sidewalk.

My own hedge is apparently something of a local stopping-off point. Not being a dog-owner myself, it took me awhile to connect the seemingly lengthy lingerings of dog-walkers in front of my house and the dead brown spots– just at prime leg-lifting height – on the front hedge that lines the sidewalk.

I’d sooner have a pristine hedge, of course, but in the great balancing act that is urban life, a few brown spots aren’t the end of the world. Between the rules and the signs and the barriers, the dogs who brighten the lives of my neighbours don’t have many chances to go off-piste. I hope they enjoy peeing on my hedge.

The brown spots on my hedge were a puzzlement until I figured out that dogs were likely lifting their legs there. 

Here's a neighbour's answer to the dilemma: create a barrier out of old sticks.

Somebody else chose a more elegant solution, with a low wire fence just far enough away from the boxwood hedge.

Eye-catching and specific -- no euphemisms here!

And plentiful. There were at least six signs along the front of this property.

A little more polite, appealing to the best sides of both dog and owner.

Even institutions get into the act. Brock House in Point Grey would hate to see its neatly planted garden bed despoiled.  

Notice the official Vancouver Park Board insignia at the bottom right, and the hint at the lower left that a misbehaving dog might merit a 3-1-1 call.

,

This well-worn sign makes an attempt at humour....

Under the drawing of the dog with a cocktail glass are the words, "Please do not be...." What? A party pooper, perhaps?

I call this the ghost sign. In contrast to the well-articulated figure that began this post, it's a simple white cutout, minus any words. But I think the message is clear.

The Travelling Burn Pile

 

When you can haul your garden debris uphill or downhill for burning, which would you choose? All photos by John Denniston. 

It's a big dilemma with a property as steep as ours. Here's a view from the very top corner.

A lot of weeds can grow in half an untended acre of Saltspring. Broom, English ivy, blackberries, holly, curious trees that seem innocuous until you realize they’re six feet tall and their thorns are glove-penetrating. Plus the non-weeds – periwinkle, rosa rugosa, St. John’s Wort – that you may have even planted yourself, but have begun gobbling the garden.

My first solution for all the inevitable plant material that would have to be cut down, dug up and disposed of, was to toss it all into a kind of dip in the lowest part of our very hilly yard. A wild corner, I liked to think, a refuge where rabbits, snakes, and mice could hide, snack, and burrow, happy companions to the decomposing garden litter.

After a few years, the dip in that part of the yard began to fill up. John did not think this was good. It should be used for compost, he thought, and what wasn’t compost should be burned. At first this was fine. He built a burn pile close to the dip, and we had some fine fires. Composting didn’t go so well, as we don’t have much soil and a hot dry climate doesn’t lend itself to compost.

Then the trouble began. For reasons I’m still not clear on, John decided that composting would go better if the litter was piled beside the garage, which was located three-quarters of the way up the steep hill that is our property. Later, when he tore the garage down, he decided that its level, bare-earth floor was the perfect spot for a new burn pile.

These decisions meant that instead of hauling litter down the hill, we would always, always, be hauling it up. Gravity would no longer be my friend.

The predictable conversations ensued, but John, whose West Vancouver background prepared him for a lifetime of hill-climbing, prevailed. He didn’t mind hauling stuff up the hill, he said, so mostly I left him to it.

Years passed, and the annual burning of the summer’s litter on the old garage site became routine. Until one day – the Day of the Terrifying Inferno – it wasn’t.

 This time, the burn pile was unusually high and the flames quickly began looking dangerously exuberant.  As we watched them leap upwards, we realized that nearby trees had grown a lot since the pile was established, and their branches were now frighteningly close to the flames. The potential of setting 30-foot cedars ablaze was real.

Okay, no panic. The required hose was right there. But when John turned it on, the smallest little dribble we’d ever seen came out. The water pressure, as sometimes happens on Saltspring, was virtually nil.

So then we panicked. Frantic raking and smothering and shouting ensued, and we finally got the fire out.

There were more fires after that – not so big and never again without a good check of the water pressure. But this February, as we hauled more dead branches and debris up the hill to add to a stupendous pile, John began reconsidering.

Maybe, he thought, there is a better place for the burn pile. Maybe down the hill, with no high trees overhead. Maybe, in fact, at the old location. Near the dip in the lowest part of the yard.

So he spent an afternoon hauling all the debris he’d trundled up the hill back down again. It made a fine blaze; the hose worked and no trees were in danger. But I couldn’t help thinking it was awfully close to where I’d started out. How long, I wonder, until I start rebuilding my wild corner refuge? The rabbits and snakes are waiting….

Way down at the bottom of the property is this little corner where I began tossing my branches, leaves and brambles many years ago. No uphill work required!

Here's the opposite -- the location of the old garage nearly at the top of the property. The debris piles have begun!

So neat and tidy, unlike my toss-'em-and-leave-'em handiwork. In the background, there I am, on a downward trek.

A well-behaved fire at the top of the hill burns out. Unfortunately, we have no photos of the Terrifying Inferno. We were otherwise occupied.

Me again. Up the hill!

On our latest trip to Saltspring, we moved the debris pile back to the lower part of the property. This view from the balcony shows the burn pile in its original location, with my old "wildlife refuge" in the background.

The debris pile back in the old burning location.

John keeps a close watch, hose in hand. Hopefully, there is some water pressure if needed.

Here I am, piling on more debris for the next big burn pile. There's always more to come.