We do have a grounds department at the campus, of course, but apart from being busy keeping the more visible parts of campus looking nice and respectable, they do require payment for special work that they might do for other departments. Because RRBO is funded via grants and donations, I do this type of work by myself and with the help of volunteers.
All the rain here earlier this summer made growth particularly lush. I'll admit to being pretty depressed when I saw how much work had to be done before I could open the nets. It's not as if much of it can be done too far ahead of time! Starting early this week, it took me about 25 hours of my time, plus another 12 hours of help to get things shaped up. Many thanks to Rick Simek, Darrin O'Brien, and Mike O'Leary for their labor!
I wish I'd taken some "before" photos, but here are a couple of shots from the final efforts over the weekend. Here is some of our gear...you'll notice that we rarely use any power tools.
Here is a stretch that is in pretty good shape. You can see the furled up nets.
Another regular task is to make sure that the deer fencing which now surrounds the entire banding area is checked for holes and downed trees and repaired. The deer herd has grown so much in recent years that we've had to exclude them from the area. Each net costs over $100, and the deer were running through them or getting caught on the nets on a routine basis, destroying them. The deer on campus are quite fearless. Here are two on the other side of our fence (draped with grape vines). In the lower right corner, you can see the fine mesh of one of our open nets.
We hit one final snag as we were finishing the pruning. Darrin and I were cutting back a lot of overhanging grape vines, when he exposed a chest-high Bald-faced Hornet nets. He got stung on the chin, and we both fled as unhappy hornets chased us down the trail.
Much as I loathe it, I'll have to get rid of the nest before I can finish up and start banding. We'll be ready to open this week!
4 comments:
How will you remove that hornet nest? Beekeepers' tools? (ie netted hat, long sleeves, smoker to calm them)
Well, I had to kill them. Waited until evening, squirted spray into the hole, and that was that. Then I went back to bag it all up so no animals would get at the presumably toxic dead hornets.
I run a pesticide-free life, so this was a bummer for me, especially with a native species. I'm not sure you can relocate hornet's nests, and I am somewhat allergic to stings, so I didn't think it was a good option!
Bald faced hornets have been competing with the hummingbirds at our feeders. It's funny to watch them repeated chase the hummingbirds away, only to have them return a few minutes later.
Derek - you can usually discourage wasps and bees from your hummingbird feeder with these 3 tips. First, make sure your feeder is constructed so that the nectar is only accessible by hummingbirds with long tongues; if the port holes are too deep, the bees can't get at the nectar. Second, keep the feeder really clean so there isn't any sweet slop on it or around the port holes. And finally, make sure your nectar mixture is not too rich -- the formula should be one part sugar to four parts water. Any more sugar not only makes it more attractive to insects, but is bad for the hummingbirds.
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