2020 Summer Home and Garden

2020 Summer Home and Garden Lincoln Daily News June 11, 2020 Page 35 Another interesting fact from this video, Hummingbirds enjoy mint. So mint plants will also make them very happy to return to your garden year after year. Five plants that hummingbirds can’t resist Mark McDonald with Illinois Stories did a 30-minute feature on a hummingbird festival held in the Decatur Rock Springs Conservation area. It’s about bird banding, but it is fascinating to watch just for fun. Illinois Stories Decatur Hummingbirds WSEC-TV/PBS Springfield Cardinals, Chickadees and Blue Jays Cardinals, Chickadees and Blue Jays are also popular birds in our area. These birds enjoy a variety of foods and have some interesting quirks about them. One belief that is somewhat misleading about Blue Jays is that they are bullies. Blue Jays are not bullies in most cases. They are known to be fearless and will defend themselves viciously against predators, but they don’t often chase away other birds. Jays are also birds that travel with buddies. As we watch the birds in our back yard, we note that more often than not, a single jay will arrive in the morning and check out the food status. If he is happy with what he sees, he spends several minutes “talking” about it. Then, seemingly from nowhere, all his buddies will arrive and they will dine together. We enjoy watching the jays and on one morning got to see a particularly quirky behavior with one jay and a bowl of peanuts in the shell. We put peanuts in the shell in a bowl feeder. The jays will come to the feeder, CONTINUED u