The Big Tree in the Front Yard

We had one bradford pear tree in the front yard, it grew over 30 feet tall and its branches reached the house. It required thousands of gallon of water a day in summer to sustain its life. Furthermore this tree was said to break easily when it is 15 years and older. Its thirst for water was a cause of concern for the foundation of the house, its proneness to break was danger to pedestrians and the house.

Some neighbours removed this type of trees from their yards, leaving the front yard bare, it also leaves the yard subject to direct summer scorch.  I did not want to remove the big tree and wait for ten years for a "better type of tree" to mature, but I did not want to face the potential hazards the tree brought. What could I do? I thought of thinning the tree and cutting the tree short to minimize both risks. Tree companies provide the thinning service, but few would cut the tree short fearing of killing it.

Five years ago, I finally found a contractor to do both thinning and shortening the tree. The first time I asked to cut the tree to about 20 feet about the height of the roof at garter. The tree survived and thrived. But four years later the tree became too high again, foliage causing clogged garters, and it drew a lot of water in summer. 

Early February we decided to have it shorten to 10-12 feet. The same contractor came and did the job in about 3 hours. The cut was really deep, and a bit late in the season. When other trees were budding in early March, this tree showed no sign of life. Lily was worried. I was not because I knew that it could survive the cut because of what happened from last cut, and assured her that there would be no problem.

She looked at the barren tree daily, and saw no buds, she was worried. I assured her again, and started to take pictures every time we went out of the house. Few budding in the first two weeks! 

But surely and steadily buds started to form, and grow into tiny branches, and more and more buds were forming on all branches, and now the new smaller branches grow so much, we can not see the main branches any more, and have to consider trimming the tree so that the new canopy will have a good shape! Let nature take its time, everything is fine.  By summer we will have a full big tree in the front yard.

What to do with the tree is a kind of risk management. Doing nothing is apparently not a wise approach, removing the tree is too extreme and can induce other problems. Our measure is a good one  - it keeps a big tree in the yard to provide shade in scorching summer, reduces tree's water consumption, minimizes the falling of big tree branches in storms.

Same approach can be taken to control the covid-19: take engineering control - social distancing and wear face masks, no large congregation of people, and lock down epicenters but not Zero risk approach. Zero risk approach, shutting down most places and stopping normal life,  is unnecessary and is inducing other issues.

Life, in general, is very resilient, as this tree demonstrated. All we need to do is to be patient and let nature run its course.

My Bird Neighbours

I have a lot birds as my neighbors!

There are american robin, northern mockingbird, house finch, cardinal, blue jay, swallow, sparrow, crow and raven. I wrote about them in my previous blogs such as "See who my neighbors are", "Spring Time Stories" and "Spring is Coming".

We frequently see Robins wandering on my front yards, Northern Mocking birds chasing crows away from their trees, or perching on the tree tops. House Finches have daily presence as well, these small song birds are lovely. Swallows, Sparrows fly by from time to time, occasionally, cardinals pay a visit, crows congregate on a big tree across street, blue jays make piercing sound from neighbor's yard.

Now I could tell from their chirpings or calls what birds they are.

American Robin on the Curbside

Northern Mocking Bird 

A male house finch

A female house finch

Red bellied woodpecker is a rarity around here. We did spot them a couple times this season so for. One time a woodpecker was pecking an aluminum chimney a few minutes unstop. Another time, during an after lunch walk around the block, we spotted a red head woodpecker silently gliding from tree to tree and looking for food! and we followed it for quite a few minutes and took a bunch of photos.

The elegant and graceful grand egrets and blue heron, are further away from our house, they usually visit the pond at the community park about a mile away. Earlier this week we saw blue heron caught a fish and swallowed it whole!

At this time of the year, a common scene is the cute, lovely ducklings lined up marching forward with mom and rarely dad in tow,

What excited us the most is the sightings of new types of birds,

Last Sunday, on the way home from the pond, we took a shortcut, and saw a few birds by a puddle. I aimed sony alpha at them, and clicked away. Looking carefully they don't look like any bird we saw before, It turned out that they are sandpipers.

Last Tuesday, we left the house a bit later than usual, around 7:30pm - the busiest time at the park.
We walked across a soccer field, and I spotted the elegant bird with white head and breast, yellowish leg, and super long tail! It jumped around a bit, and then posed for me for a few seconds and flew away! It is a scissor-tailed flycatcher.

We avoided the crowd at the pound and went to the back of baseball field. I heard a unique bird chirping, and was sure it was from a bird I had never saw, and spotted two birds, walking along the drainage channel, they have alternating black and white rings on their necks! They behave strangely to us, I believe that the female bird was laying eggs, male bird was patrolling. These were killdeers! Checking "All about birds" website, I knew that killdeers stay in the same general area during hatching period, so we went to check on them yesterday evening - the female killdeer was hatching eggs quietly in the rocks by the drainage - it camouflages so well we would not see it if we were not looking for it.

There are many birds around, but we don't expect see these rarities every time we walk around or go to the park.  It takes patience and luck to spot them.

A red bellied woodpecker

A grand egret in mid fly

A blue heron, which caught and swallowed a fish a few minutes ago

A duck family

Sandpipers by a puddle

Killdeer 

Scissor-tailed fly catcher

Hooray Lone Star !

What a beautiful Spring it has been at north Texas - in the neighbourhood and at the nature preserves!

Despite the covid-19 pandemic, like always, it rains some and it shines some, which are both are essential to life, circle of life, cycle of nature goes on. 

golden sunset at North Texas

Lake Lavon is a major source of water for North Texas

Lone Star flag in the front yard

Hooray Texas governor for being pragmatic in dealing with covid-19 crisis -  not bending to national and local media pundits, or political rhetorics, refusing to rush shelter-in-place for the whole state at the start, and for starting to ease the shelter-in-place on May 1st.

Hooray Laura Bush for bringing our attention to billions of migrating birds coming/passing through our state, for urging us to do our simple part to protect our ecosystem.

There are so many more things to life than coronavirus even during the pandemic! 

Spirit of Texas lives on - brave, independent and pragmatic.

Hooray Lone Star!

Texas' Lone Star flag flapping in the wind at my front yard

Note:  "Every spring, 3 billion birds migrate into the U.S. from Central and South America, one-third of them through Texas.", in fact 150,000 of them will fly over Dallas every night until May 7th!