Yard birds we do not have: An acquaintence who lives in a typical suburban neighborhood in Plymouth had bluebirds raising a family in one of his nesting boxes this summer. Bluebirds typically are not backyard birds. Our bluebird boxes get House Wrens and chickadees. Then, I hear from my son that a friend of his had double good fortune in his Plymouth yard: a dead raccoon (the best kind if you have birdfeeders) being eaten by a Turkey Vulture. Right there in his yard! It's hard to find a vulture eating anywhere, much less in your yard. The bluebird yard-nester is below.

Another bluebird note: Visiting recently with farming friends in McLeod County (west of Carver County) we talked about bluebirds. The couple has many nest boxes lining pastures. On a normal year, bluebirds will feed their young insects taken from grass and ground. In two recent dry years, when those insects were hard to find, the bluebird pair one year finished the fledglings with berries, and the second year fed the babies ground snails (ground is not minced, it is soil). Snail shells were found in the box when the birds were fledged and gone. Berries, yes, also a staple in early spring for returning birds that can't find insects. Snails, though, that's a new one for me.