In my writings I sometimes mention birds including hummingbirds and screech owls. Other animals including goldfish, fox, raccoon and possum are fair game. I consider all aspects of wildlife part of the bigger picture of gardening and nature.

I saw foot prints in the fresh snow, snow on snow so I could time it pretty well. The dog told me where; her footprints covering the other, she didn't tell me who or what. It was up a tree.
Dogs don't climb trees.
My bravery disappeared at the site of a bear. A young bear carrying more weight than me although I didn't check it on the scales. Another animal or bird, me chicken. I brought the dog inside. Perhaps the bear is gone by now.

Aren't bears supposed to be hibernating right now, during the snowy season? How big were those paw prints?

I guess it's too early to tell whether the tree or any shrubs were damaged.

That might make a good story!

I am assured that it was a 'baby', therefore a small bear but it's paw prints were obscured by the dog dashing back and forth so I had no clue in advance. I wrote a message in the snow telling him that he should be hibernating John.
As for damage, I was in self preservation mode so the plants were the least of my worries.
In England we killed off most of the exotic wild animals a long time a go and I am fascinated by porcupine, beaver, racoon etc. Have you ever seen a moose? I was walking with a friend in Cape Breton and he pointed out the footprints that he knew was a moose, we followed them along a path. I must have had a fear induced flash of brilliance when I measured the distance between each footprint. "How big is this thing?" I asked. "Oh we scared him so now he is running." He's scared? I thought to myself.
We never caught up, the footprints were four feet (excuse me) apart. I did see one another day though and if you have never: a moose is an animal that was put together by a committee. It has the legs of a ballet dancer the body of a horse and a head that was obviously meant for a bigger animal with a nose like a boxers punch bag and antlers you could build a roof with. A wierd looking thing.
Anyway I have also seen whales mating, black bears running and coyotes laughing but you will have to take my word for it because on each occasion I was too gob smacked to reach for the camera.

Fortunately, you don't need photos to write about the animals you encounter.

Yes, I have seen moose. What awes me more than their stride is their height! I've also been too close to black bears, grizzly bears, wolves, bobcats, and cougars --fortunately not in my garden. We do get coyotes and occasional stray bobcats and cougars in our neighborhood, due to a nearby creek/greenbelt that runs into up into the mountains and down to the shore, but our main form of wild animal amusement comes in the form of opossums, raccoons, skunks, deer, songbirds, hawks, and herons.

The number and variety of animals have increased with the amount of cover I provide (a main reason for getting rid of the lawn and replacing it with perennials and shrubs).

Bears and what they do in the woods is surrounded by 'mythology' and by that I mean stories that people believe in but cannot prove.
This is some of the advice I have had regarding how to protect oneself from bears:
Carry a cocoa tin with five pebbles in it that you can rattle and scare the animal off.
Do not run or climb a tree. (this one does not come with a positive alternative)
Run down a hill. The justification being that bears can't run down a hill upright and they are slower on all fours. (how slow I wouldn't like to guess never mind put to the test)
Do you know any?

Make yourself as big as possible and bark at them. If you meet one in your garden, grab a shovel or a spade. Don't turn your back to them.

Black bears can climb trees; grizzlies can't. In many ways, black bears can be the more dangerous of the two. One Alaskan friend of mine said: "A grizzly will kill you, but a black bear will eat you." No, thanks.

I just learned that cougars have very tender noses and you're supposed to poke them in a nostril to drive them off. Sorry, but I don't want them to get that close.

I usually write newspaper submissions, and those don't cover animals. We do have a webpage for safe and toxic woods for pet birds, but it's not a literature piece.

FIRST... I'd prefer for most birds to live free, where opportunity, freedom, risk and predators all abound. But they don't. The current pet situation leaves only a few main options:

1. Allow people to keep birds as pets. 2. Free all pet birds and turn them loose into the wild where they won't know how to forage or survive. 3. Kill them all. 4. Make breeding for purposes of keeping pet birds illegal and allow remaining pet birds to die-off naturally.

About the best we can do, is take the best care we can of pet birds that exist. Our own birds are far better off in our house than most - large cages, play structures, snacks and a balanced diet, indoor lighting, etc.. And they are not complaining.

NOW... I decided to add a page on safe woods for birds to my site since I work with trees, and since my family enjoys birds.

This winter, it occured to me, that this subject could be something for a writer to include in their projects. Maybe an article for landscape designers, so they can produce landscapes that generate bird supplies.

Suppose a client has a Cockatoo - maybe they would rather go outside and collect their own branches for perches. If they do, the branches must be free of pesticides. Second, the branches must be from a tree that is not toxic.

If a designer plans in, say, just oak, flowering cherry, myrtle and walnut, then that client has no wood source if they want to get perch wood from their yard.

Now I'm beginning to wonder what's involved with growing millet!

This is a bit off-topic, but many birds - ours at least - love corn chips. They chip up storm every time they hear a plastic bag being opened in the kitchen. But the chips need to be fairly salt free. Only one place here (was called NATURES) carries a brand called Bearitos, that is 0% salt on the label. Also, those still have a bit of oil, so the birds don't need more than about 1/2 of a chip per bird every other day. Most birds don't really overeat like some dogs. So if birds eat too many goodies, they may fail to eat enough of the healthy mixes that have calcium and what they need the most.

This PEPPER and CRYSTAL, two of our 8 cockatiels.

The bird page - I try to limit putting my site address in the posts, but if you do a google seach for

M. D. Vaden, birds, safe wood

you should find it.

Are you suggesting these birds should be kept outside in the garden?

You are kidding right?

Did one sentence look like it was about the birds going outside?

But...that's not too extraordinary now that you mention it. It is not uncommon for people to have an aviary attached to their house or building so the birds can go into an outdoor area. Usually it's netted in with something the birds can't chew through.

Outdoor summer aviary spaces could be planted with regular shrubs as long as they are safe. We have a deck we thought about converting to a summer aviary space, but now that you commented, it may be worth investigating into a ground level aviary.

Even unattached, it's a cinch to move birds in a carrier from a house to a separate aviary structure.

My brother had an outdoor aviary not attached to the house. It was in the corner of his wooden fence. It was open in the summer but was covered in the winter with clear plastic sheeting and had a small heater inside. If I remember correctly, he kept tumbler pigeons, california quail, cockatiels and maybe more. I used to have BB Red bantam chickens in my yard running free and the way I kept them in my unfenced yard was to have lots of water, lots of mulched areas and several birdfeeders they could feed beneath. They became loving pets and would follow me around the yard and when I came home would run and fly to meet me and light on my arm. They used to take naps in the sun lying at my feet where they felt safe. They would also eat out on my hand. Sometimes I miss them.

Eddie:
That sounds cool! I grew up with chickens and miss them. too.
How did you safeguard them from the foxes?

There were no foxes in my area at the time but there are where I live now, although development is ever encroaching on their habitat. Ever notice when an area is developed the roadkill increases? I am not sure what finally got my chickens. The list of suspects include cats, roof rats, hawks and owls.

I wouldn't be surprised if owls got them (unless you put them into a coop at night). We have very aggressive great horned and barred owls in our neighborhood. (One was in my garden last night, but I couldn't tell which -- too dark to make out markings.

Is this surreal or is it just me? Watching animals in the garden one minute and you look around and boom! cockatiels eating chips.

The only 'bear' in my garden is your's truly, according to my dear wife.

Yeah, we have been known to stray from the original topic. At Callaway Gardens they told us the barred owl was a "day" owl and the horned owl is a "night" owl, at least that's what I think they said. I have a friend who would know so I'll ask him and report back. This friend wrote a local wildlife columnist telling him he made a mistake identifying a house finch as a purple finch and the writer got mad at him.

Around here (in my garden, that is) barred owls are night owls (meaning, I haven't seen one in the sunlight yet). But they have been attacking joggers a mile down the road at dawn and dusk.

I found a headless sharp-shinned hawk in my front yard once and a birding neighbor told me a great horned owl did that in the early morning hours as the hawk sat on a branch, waiting for little birds to eat.

That wildlife columnist needs to get a life. I only thought college professors were nerdy like that.

Owls and cockatiels and bears...oh my!

Writing about critters in the garden, from bugs (my fave) to bears is my favorite subject matter, but I have found that it's probably the topic that the average garden reader is least interested in. Not completely uninterested, but the aesthetic side to gardening holds way more appeal, and the more Martha Stewartish it gets, the more it gets read.
A column on making ice candles in the gadren tops one on garden bugs any day.

I have a friend named Hal Massie who writes about creatures such as armidillos , deer, dogs and birds in his garden and I am fascinated by his articles -by what I learn and how entertaining his articles are.

Northernwriter:
The times they are changing.

(I almost stepped on a big 'coon as I walked out in the garden a few minutes ago, the one we call "Grumpy"). He looked at me, as if to say, "Don't get excited buddy. I'm just passing through. There's nothing to eat in this place, don't ya know it.")