April 29, 2015 (by Angela)

Since Jim and I tend to park our rig in the same spot for a month or more at a time right now, we try to make our site homey by putting out some personal touches. For me, those touches include something geared toward wildlife, and the easiest thing to set up is a bird feeder. Over the last few weeks, I’ve had lots of song birds visit our feeder, but members of the local gangs, the squirrels and the blackbirds, battle for territory. I’ve helped level the playing field for the birds by spraying the feeder and the pole on which it is hung with cooking spray to make climbing the pole or jumping on the feeder more difficult, and I’ve taped the lid to the body of the feeder to discourage the swing, jump, and dump attack.  In the end, I figure I get enjoyment from the antics of the squirrels as well as all of the birds.

One of the more courageous sneaky members of the “Squirrel Gang”

Another one of the sneaky “Squirrel Gang”

Some of the tough “Blackbird Gang” (Blackbird family: Brown-Headed Cowbird – males)

The feeder and Mac the Macaw (go here for that story) are placed where we can enjoy them by looking through our back window. I’ve attempted to get pictures of as many different types of birds as I can, but some are just faster than I can get a picture. Despite the fact that I am in the RV, they notice the least little movement and are usually gone before I can get the camera on, zoomed in, and snap the photo, so though we’ve had a wider variety of birds at the feeder, these are the types of birds I’ve been able to catch on camera.  I’m ashamed to say that I m not very good with identification of many of the smaller birds, so if anyone can help me identify the birds in the photos below, please help me!

Dove?

Chipping Sparrow?

Some type of Warbler?

Purple Finch?

Carolina Chickadee?

Blue Jay?

White-Crowned Sparrow?

Female Brown-Headed Cowbird?

Type of bird?

Chipping Sparrow?

While the blackbirds and the squirrels are a nuisance in terms of emptying our bird feeder faster than intended and making it harder for the desired song birds to enjoy the food (and for us to enjoying watching a larger variety of song birds even if I can’t identify most of them), the smallest critter we’ve encountered here is the one least welcome: the sugar ant!

“Wild”life party

In Alabama and Mississippi, we were surrounded by ant hills – fire ants, sugar ants, and other types I’m sure, but none entered the RV. After only about 10 days here in Green Acres, I began to see a few sugar ants, but just one here or there. Then, weekend before last, I found them in our cupboards. NOOOOO! Immediately I ordered Terro ant bait traps for outside and inside. Yes, the instructions ask that you be patient as it could take several days.  It has been 5 full days since placing the bait traps, and while I have not seen any more ants in the cupboards the last few days, I’ve seen them almost everywhere else in the RV from crawling on the ceiling to crawling on my laptop. I put out more bait traps this morning, and I went to the RV Tips and Helpful Hints group on Facebook last night to get other ideas.  Dozens of people shared their ideas of things that have worked for them or they have heard have worked for others.  This weekend, I’m going to implement some of these other ideas for keeping these tiny creepy crawlers out of our space.  The Attack of our camper castle by the Sugar Ant Gang must be stopped! We will happily live side by side with ant hills OUTSIDE, but these critters are NOT welcome inside our home.

One of the many “Sugar Ant Gang” members attacking our castle