THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 3, 1996 TAG: 9607020161
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: 88 lines
Barn swallows have built a mud nest on an inside corner of Bayside Library's front porch. You can watch the parents with their graceful forked tails swoop around the building and catch insects on the wing to feed their one hungry babe.
If there are people on the porch, an incoming parent will dart up and down and around the porch column, hesitating a little before making a commitment to land on the nest edge. Occasionally one of the adults will perch, like a sentinel, on the opposite corner of the porch and keep a wary eye on its young 'un.
Beautiful up close with their rusty throats and underwings and sooty-blue heads and backs, barn swallows painstakingly build nests with drops upon drops of mud and then line the nests with grass. This one is plastered against the molding on the porch corner.
A PAPER RECYCLING CONTAINER arrived at my neighborhood recycling center this week. We have never had a paper bin before and for me, its presence more than makes up for the slight inconvenience of the city's canceling SPSA's bi-weekly collection.
Finally it's one-stop shopping.
Before, I'd have to remember to put out SPSA's blue bin every other week with newspaper, plastic and clear glass. Then I would take the brown and green glass to the recycling center because SPSA wouldn't pick up brown and green glass. After that , I would feel guilty if I didn't take the time to head for a recycling center in another part of the city to take care of all the paper, other than newspaper, which SPSA wouldn't pick up either!
In addition, since SPSA only picked up every other week, I ended up at the recycling center most alternate weeks anyway just to keep the trash from building up. I think this will be easier.
I WATCHED A LAID BACK HUMMINGBIRD the other day. Usually the little birds are so wired but this one was truly relaxed albeit for only a minute or two as it cooled off under my sprinkler. She was perched on a vine, preening, ruffling her feathers, flapping her tiny wings when the sprinkler came her way and then sipping droplets of water from the leaves.
SUNFLOWERS, through no fault of Cathy Kobbe, are creating a wonderful display in her Kings Grant yard. Seems the bird feeder with sunflower seed in it fell over on the ground this spring. The result is 10 or more sunflowers that have grown up all in a row in the bed in front of the porch.
Some have big nodding heads but one prolific plant, in particular, features a number of smaller flowers. The other day the sight was enhanced by a goldfinch that arrived to peck at one of the blooms for seeds.
TWO GOLDFINCHES SURPRISED ME recently when they arrived at my thistle feeder, also searching for seeds. To my chagrin, the feeder was empty. I thought the beautiful yellow birds had all left town a month or more ago, but evidently there's a nesting pair somewhere in the neighborhood.
Don't deadhead flowers like sunflowers and purple coneflowers because if you have finches in your area, they will find them for sure. Goldfinches nest later in summer precisely because such seeds are available for feeding their young.
IF UNWANTED ANIMALS are feasting on your garden plants, try spraying the plants with a deterrent called bitter apple and they won't be so tasty, says Liz Sills. She's found the tart liquid, also used as a training aid for pets, really works to keep critters, like raccoons, away from the garden.
AN IMMATURE GREEN HERON arrived to stalk Genevieve Bacon's fish pond in Lynnhaven Colony recently. ``He moved forward with elaborately careful steps,'' Bacon said, ``a very solemn fellow.''
When Bacon counted her prized koi that evening, they were still all there, she said. Fortunately the young bird must have found them a little too large for his liking.
Not all koi are that fortunate. Last summer, I got a call from a resident on the Lynnhaven River who watched an osprey return to its nest each morning with a big shiny goldfish in its talons, obviously robbed from a backyard fish pond nearby.
P.S. Liz Sills has an overabundance of anacharis, a bright green, oxygenating grass for fish ponds, that she wants to give away. If you need any, call her at 428-6682.
FLAX TO LINEN, a hands-on workshop, will be offered from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday at historic Francis Land House. Participants will learn all aspects of linen production from the processing of the plant to the production of cloth. The cost is $35 and includes a textbook. Call 431-4000 for reservations. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? Call me on INFOLINE,
640-5555. Enter category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my
Internet address: mbarrow(AT)infi.net. ILLUSTRATION: Photos by MARY REID BARROW
Barn swallows have set up residence on an inside corner of Bayside
Library's front porch.
Sunflowers are creating a wonderful display in Cathy Kobbe's Kings
Grant yard. by CNB