Baldfaced Hornets

As leaves tumble off our trees each fall we usually spot one or two round or football shaped gray wads of paper clinging to branches. They’ve been there all summer but hidden by leaves.

This fall many people will discover similar baldfaced hornet nests and be alarmed that they’re sharing their yard with stinging insects.

A fertile bald faced hornet queen overwinters under a log or in the ground. As the weather warms she flies to a branch and makes a tiny nest of paper-like material. She’ll lay an egg or two that hatches into a worker. Workers forage for tasty insect food and expand the nest. As the nest grows the queen lays more eggs until the colony has many hornets. By summer’s end it’s full size just before leaves begin to fall.

Bald Faced hornets are normally content to go about their business building their nest and catching tender insect food. They have little interest in stinging people unless someone molests their nest. Get too close or bother the nest and you likely will get stung many times. Dozens of hornets will instantly attack and multiple stings are the norm.

There’s a simple way to avoid being stung. Leave the nest alone. That may be easier said than done. A few years ago a neighbor teenager spotted a nest in a backyard tree. He hurled rocks at it, and his aim was good. Angry hornets boiled out and attacked! The boy retreated in pain but with an education he won’t forget.

As the weather cools the colony creates more queens that mate and then find a snug place to overwinter in solitude. Worker hornets die and the nest soon becomes empty and disintegrates during winter wind and snow.

Hornet nest

A bald faced hornet nest by a front entry. Leave it be until freeze up.

If you find a hornet nest in early to mid-fall LEAVE IT ALONE. It may still be occupied. If it must be removed wait until cold weather sets in. By then it will be abandoned and can be removed safely. At Winding Pathways we leave our nests in place and gradually watch them disintegrate.

Antler Rubbing Time!

Deer Sheds

A pair of winter sheds all polished.

One year at Winding Pathways we planted a few trees and tended them all summer. They were doing great until one September night. A buck deer decided that our new trees were perfect for rubbing off the velvet that covered his newly formed antlers. Just a few minutes of determined rubbing killed our precious trees!

Deer antlers start growing in early spring and by late August are fully formed. Velvet on the outside of the growing antlers is rich with blood and minerals. By September its purpose is done. Bucks rub the velvet off to prepare their antlers for battle with rivals when the mating season starts in November.

Deer have the uncanny knack of rubbing the most valued trees in a yard, and often they remove all the bark, thus killing the tree.

Fortunately, damage is easy to prevent. Just drive fence posts into the ground a few feet out from the tree and attach wire mesh to them to physically keep deer away. Plastic tree guards that attach directly to the trunk also help prevent damage.

Do this now before the deer start to rub. Or you may lose all your new trees in just one night.

WE HAVE BLUEBIRDS

An old legend has it that seeing a bluebird guarantees a day of good luck. At Winding Pathways we’re enjoying daily good fortune because a pair of these delightful birds is raising youngsters in our yard.

In the days of diverse farms with hedgerows separating fields, closely cropped pastures, and wooden fence posts that often had nesting cavities, bluebirds were abundant.

The switch to metal fence posts didn’t help them, and then farms grew larger, hedgerows and posts were ripped out, and pastures and hayfields became oceans of corn and soybeans.    None of the changes helped bluebirds just as pesticides eliminated their insect meals.

Fortunately, bluebirds readily move into bird houses, and this spring we erected one in the corner of the only lawn we continue to mow. The box is mounted on a steel post with a predator guard below the house to keep marauding raccoons away from the birds.

We didn’t expect bluebirds to move in. There aren’t many around and they are notoriously fussy about nest sites. Good news came when a pair moved in and raised what’s likely their second brood of the summer.

Bluebirds are fun to watch. Ours perch on the flagpole and a post that holds a big bell at the entrance of our labyrinth. We delight watching them beeline to the lawn and emerge with a tasty bug to feed their youngsters.

Bluebirds nest in suburbia. Anyone with large lawn has fair odds of attracting them. If you erect a box in early spring, remove any “squatting” sparrows, avoid pesticides, and add a predator guard to keep raccoons at bay, you just might attract bluebirds and be assured of good luck.

DID YOU KNOW THAT SOMETIMES BLUEBIRDS CAN BE SPOTTED IN THE DEAD OF WINTER, EVEN IN THE FRIGID NORTH?  When cold weather arrives bluebirds shift their diet from insects to frozen and dried fruit. They often moved from grassy to brushy places. Look for them in thickets even in the dead of winter.   So be sure to plant fruit bearing shrubs like High Bush Cranberries along with other native species.

For more information about bluebirds or nearly any other species go to Cornell Lab of Ornithology  and click on the photo of bluebirds or the species you would like to learn more about.