Ruby-throated Hummingbird | the Intown Hawk

Carolina Chickadee with moss for nesting material just before entering a bird house

Nesting is in Full Swing

There’s a lot of nesting going on already. We count at least 4 active nests in our yard, including Carolina Chickadee, Brown Thrasher, Brown-headed Nuthatch, Carolina Wren and perhaps a Song Sparrow. Cardinals are eyeing nesting locations and there will probably be more soon.

Watch for Hummingbirds

A friend, who has much better eyesight than either of us, swears he saw a hummingbird in our yard yesterday. He probably did. The Native Honeysuckle is starting to bloom and that’s always been our indication that hummers are here, or will be shortly.

Native Honeysuckle

Most likely it will be a Ruby-throated Hummingbird that you see. While they are the only hummingbird that nests in Georgia, 10 other species are seen in this state. Time to plant hummingbird-friendly flowers and hang your feeders.

Trees Atlanta Native Wildflower and Vine Sale

Trees Atlanta is having their 5th annual Native Wildflower and Plant Sale on Saturday, April 1st at the Freedom Farmer’s Market at the Carter Center. They will be selling native perennials and vines that are tree-friendly (it is a Trees Atlanta sale after all).

This is a chance to support Trees Atlanta and get great plants that are grown by reputable growers. Their plant list for the sale has many of the plants that we have on our list of Perennials for Your Yard. All good things for trees and for wildlife.

Create a Home for Native Bees

We follow an excellent blog called Using Georgia Native Plants. In their post of March 12, they wrote about a new book titled Bees – An Identification and Native Plant Foraging Guide by Heather Holm. We couldn’t do without our own copy, and it is a beautiful book.

If you read the blog post you’ll see that the author calls attention to a section in the book describing the value of trimming stems from last-year’s plants (perennials) to a length of about 15 inches. The new growth will soon overtake the stems to hide them, but in the meantime this creates a home for tiny native bees that are so important as pollinators. They will nest this spring and summer, overwinter in this safe haven and then emerge the following spring.

You can see the before and after efforts of our trimming below.

Before trimming – River Oats and Goldenrod

After trimming – River Oats and Goldenrod

We photographed several butterflies this past month and had fun trying to identify them all. It’s difficult for us to tell the difference between the Cloudless and the Clouded Sulphur butterflies, so we just labeled them Sulphur. The same is true with the Skipper; there are many of them and while we think this is a Southern Skipper, we’re just not entirely sure. We were also very excited to see the first Monarch of the season! Hopefully there will be more.