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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Bees at seed feeders

I made a quick trip to CMO from Alpine to work on a problem of bees at the seed feeder. They emptied my tube feeders in less than 2 hours the other day so I decided to just put sunflower seeds in them and see what happens. I ordered a larger tube feeder that should arrive in Alpine today. The bees started shoveling out the sunflower seeds but seemed to be tapering off by the time I left. As for the feeding tray, I took the reservoir off the tray and suspended it where cowbirds can't feed on it, just the buntings, sparrows, etc. Now I googled and it seems bees might shovel out the sunflower seeds too, looking for pollen on them. Oh, well, maybe I'll eliminate cowbirds anyway. Times are tough. I got stung twice while servicing and moving the feeders. That is very unusual.

I saw a bat clinging to the courtyard wall. Here's a photo of it. I don't know what species it is. I'm told I probably have a dozen or more species at CMO.


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