Landscaping for wildlife at the shed

I put this one up on FLickr so I could add notes as to what's what--although of course the gooseberries, mulberry, honeysuckly, and red twig dogwood are all out in front of the shed!  Anyway, here's  the link to the version with notes.

 I USED to have raised bed vegetable gardens there, but the trees have really grown up...

One of our many squirrels.  Where's Waldo??

Viburnum on the way to being berries!

This is the smaller viburnum...

Red twig dogwood flowers

...and the smaller of the red twigs.  This one is round and busy, the other is tall and lanky...

Wild/volunteer mulberries--the birds and I share...

We planted two hollies...for fun and for red berries!

The wild gooseberry by the back alley...

Feeders!  Four of them, now, out the French doors.  A peanut feeder on the left, finch feeder, hummingbird feeder, and the oriole feeder that gets soundly ignored!

New crabapple...these are supposed to turn orange in the fall!

The old comfrey...

The butterfly bush will have red flowers...

NOT a blue muffin viburnum.  It's Autumn Jazz, would have been nice to notice that before we planted it, but oh well...

Birdwatching at the shed

 

I posted another version of this on our Sketching in Nature blog, an international group of nature artists you may enjoy, but wanted to include it here as well, with tweaks!

Joseph spotted these White-crowned Sparrows at the shed, out in the alley, and I was delighted that they came back later and let me sketch them!  I keep a variety of bird books for ID, and our binoculars are always handy, so I was able to see them quite well...

Here are no end of images of the white crowned sparrow from Google...

I'm used to chipping sparrows and house sparrows so it's been fun seeing these different ones, like the White Throated Sparrow on Easter I sketched here.

You can see a photo comparison of these two on Marie Winn's blog, here.

I keep getting tiny, unfinished sketches of our hummingbirds, though!  They move FAST.  The female is a much more frequent visitor, and since it's shady I don't see the male's gorgeous red throat patch, but I keep trying...


I am REALLY enjoying the big French doors at the shed!  And so is Joseph, it's been a great place for him to recuperate from surgery...

More Tiny Houses...

...you might know the Mother Earth News would find some wonderful examples!  Check this link: http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural-home-living/8-great-micro-houses.aspx#ixzz1NB4hTG3p for more inspiration...

Outside work...

 The shed's getting its casual landscaping! Wasn't it nice of Keith to wear that gorgeous red t-shirt that looks so good on my page? Last week we planted viburnum, butterfly bush, and a couple of hollies. Today we found the red twig dogwood we wanted, and a crabapple tree.  Other than a few perennials, that's about it...the birds will be DELIGHTED with all the berries and fruits this winter, and the hummingbirds and butterflies will love it right now...

Meanwhile, the bold little rock Pablo of Round Rock Journal sent me is trying to outshine everyone else in the rock garden...look at that glow!