Anyway here's the update: of the six leaves I started, three have resulted in new plants, so tiny you need a magnifying glass to see them.
So a fifty per cent germination rate, probably not too bad as these things go. I hope the new plants get big enough to actually see soon, since I have plans for them. Interestingly, there were two leaves per pot, and one per pot survived. I wonder if they fought it out in some vegetal way, to determine who would propagate?
And on the subject of babies, I noticed recently that the red bellied woodpecker, mainly the male, was at the feeder almost incessantly and today found out why: he brought his baby to sit on the branch above the feeder, and proceeded to ferry suet up to him.
I guess it was easier to bring the baby to the food, now he's fledged, than to bring the food to the nest/cavity. It must be in the trees right outside my back gate, since that's where he routinely vanished with suet recently. And since it was almost exclusively the male doing the foraging, this father is a good provider. I've noticed the same with cardinals, too, often the male coping with young learning to feed themselves.
This brings to six the number of young families being provided for by my feeder, very good to know. Word probably got around that this mix was a good one.
How exciting! I'm not seeing many birds at my feeder these days - there must be better grub elsewhere. But lots and lots of hummingbirds, beginning so early in the morning they are just little shadows at the feeders.
ReplyDeleteAnd not as close to the house, but I do see the little flycatchers swooping around and then balancing atop the fence of the paddock. They build a nest under the eave of my workshop every year :)
This year almost no hummingbird sightings, so the feeder activity is welcome. And a field sparrow has been showing up, too, a first outside the Preserve.
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