Pond notes July: As the weather gets hotter sources of clean fresh water gets harder to find for birds and animals. Today temperatures reached over 80 degrees. There are no mud puddles for the birds to bath in. The water in the ditches have turned brackish and filled with algae. My back yard has turned into an oasis surrounded by asphalt and dry dirt, of the hot city. All of the scare devices I have put up to keep the crows and seagulls out of my yard are of little concern now to these desperate creatures. On one fountain a crow returns every 15 to 20 minutes to get a drink of water. On a bubblier rock the starlings have taken up a watchful perch. Closer to the ground the finches have staked out a small plastic patio pond that has a miniature water fall. The edge of the Water lily pond is the bathing place for some sparrows and a fellow crow. The cat has kept a watchful eye for rodents her count is 3 mice this week. With the arrival of summer weather, the activities around my ponds has increased tremendously.

A pair of sparrows dart into the greenhouse each night about an hour before sunset, and make off with several damsel flies. In one door out the other. Sometimes they fly out the automatically opening vents with little concern for any possible peril this might pose.

I openly admit no admiration for crows. They are a large, noisy, rude, glutinous, bird, that picks on smaller birds. They have an attraction for plastic plant tags, that causes me great grief when I have to re-identify plants and vegetables I have planted. But I have observed a very strange behavior this week in the front pond. The crows are feeding my goldfish. Two days ago, much to my disgust on the top of the concrete statue of two kids under an umbrella was a small piece of half chewed commercial beef jerky, chucks of fur and other samples a of road-kill meal. The gold fish were quit attentive all around the statue, striking at morsels that dropped off into the water. My first impression was that a bird had deposited this stuff on the statue to be consumed with fresh water. To my thinking the bird had been scared off leaving his meal behind. I collected this ghastly meal and placed it into a garbage can. Today as I observed the crow return time and time again to get a drink of water from this same statue, I noticed my fish behaving quit odd. They did not seek shelter nor a hiding place, but did the opposite. They swam and clustered under the statue each time the crow arrived. Their open mouths breaking the surface of the water, asking for food. On later flights I watched the crow lean over the edge of the statue and drop things into the water for the fish, then get drink of water and fly off. Four times an hour this behavior repeated its' self . Maybe a parental instinct has kicked in, that makes the crows unable to resist feeding open hungry mouths. I wish I knew what it was the crow dropping into the water. But then again maybe I don't. All I can say is "the fish aren't talking!" Gold fish like crows will eat anything you feed them.

Garden notes Western Washington: Peas did well this year in the cool wet weather, as did all the other cool weather vegetables. It is not to late to plant the hot weather crops of corn, beans, melons, tomatoes, and peppers. You may be harvesting in late October but who cares. Some of the neighbors are harvesting new potatoes from the raised beds and are planting more for later this summer. Now that the weather is nice it is a good time to get out in the flower beds and remove those lovely weeds that are now the prominent feature in our yards. Ornamental grasses are an excellent choice in landscaping. They use less water and have either wonderful foliage or spectacular flower heads (effloresce). The best part about ornamental grasses is NO maintenance for months!

Wild Flowers of interest: You should be able to see white fluffs of flowers along the road these days. If you observe a bush with creamy white cascading smoke like flowers that cover the bush. Chances are you are looking at Ocean Spray a Pacific Northwest Native plant. There is a similar plant that has only a few sprigs of white fluff flowers this plant is known as Goats beard. The flowers are of a scraggly nature, like a mountain goats beard. This plant is much more common that Ocean Spray. Keep an eye open for these bushes. {note: these two plants are real hard to transplant into the home garden. Wait until the flowers have turned brown and collect the seeds. You will have a much greater chance of success cultivating the dust like seeds}. If you get to stop by a road side ditch there are 3 plants I find attractive to look at, do not pick or bring home(you have been warned). 1: Spirea Douglasia is a bush about 3 to 6 feet tall with purple upright clusters flowers. 2: Purple loosestrife (weed! do not bring this one home) this one grows about 2 to 3 feet tall and has wonderful purple spike flowers shooting up into the air. 3: Jewel weed, is a member of the impatient family has little slipper flowers some are yellow others are almost orange. Jewel weed needs lots of water. If you pick it, it will wilt in minutes.

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