End of 2019 update


Happy Holidays!

We have made it to the end of the year. I hope that you have have a wonderful Christmas and seen and photographed lots of beautiful birds and interesting gardens and wildlife. We had a rainy few days (Rocket went up)  so I didn't take a whole lot of pictures.


I have been delighted to see that on the warmer days, say one yesterday Dec 26th,  even in this late stage of Dec, a hummingbird is still frequenting or firecracker bush. Of course they appear when I don't have camera in hand.Lol

I have trimmed down the firebush since it was growing cold and was still quite large and the squirrels and a possum were using it to climb on to get to the feeders. Trimming it back meant a lot of the blossoms that the hummingbirds were using disappeared. I thought they would be gone in October but this is Florida and one day is 40 degrees and the next 80 degrees...so I guess a few stayed around. I pulled the hummingbird feeders because yellow jackets were taking over the bush and trying to get into the feeders. A few are still hanging around the butterfly bush.

I am still learning the settings on my camera to get the best pictures of the sometimes, very fast moving, birds in the backyard.

I finally managed to get pictures of the two hawks in their nesting tree some ways away in the retirement community across the fence  that weren't just shadowy figures. One of the hawks had been on the fence



and the other called to it and it flew away to answer the call. They hung out together briefly in the high tree branches.






Then while looking through my lens, I noticed dust on the sensor lens, freaked out and rushed my camera over to Kiwi Services in Winter Park. It was windy rainy and debri was flying around when I changed my lens recently to photograph a wedding and then back to capture birds and spied these two unexpected guys at Leu Gardens on Christmas Eve. I have done a fair share of weddings at Leu Gardens but have never seen raccoons there.


All of the leaves have been eaten off of the milkweed but I cannot find any caterpillars. yesterday I say a squirrel carrying off something that looked strange, turn out he (or she) had chewed off the bulb of a dying sunflower plant and was having a bit of a time carrying it off to who knows where. I have changed out the feeders to be mostly tube and suet feeders, I have had to cut back drastically on the food and am putting out mostly shelled nuts, nyjer seed and suet. I invested in two more "squirrelproof" feeders. The blackbirds are returning but that is on me because I put out a small amount of mixed seeds. I try to cover the mixed seeds in nyjer but I think we have a possum that is eating the nyjer seeds and leaving his"evidence" on the stones. 

With the rain this past week I am putting less food out on the stones. I read somewhere that wet seed can make birds sick. I am still figuring out where to place the feeders to decrease squirrel domination. We have about 4 squirrels who have become a part of the backyard critter habitat. Looks like one took a hit.






We now have two woodpeckers that visit the backyard. They announce loudly when they are back there.



Remember if you want to watch the birds live just tune into our live bird cam feed on Youtube

If you would like to donate towards bird seeds, feeders or the garden, there will be a page up soon for that. 
In addition, I am also getting together a 2020 calendar and also prints for sale.
which should be available by the end of December. I will keep you posted!


Thank you for visiting thebitboproject blog. 
Don't forget to join me on Twitter, FB and IG @thebitboproject
Live feed and videos are at cbsobirdcams.com



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